As soon as a new president was sworn into office in Nigeria on May 29, 2023, politicians began to campaign for the 2027 elections that were 4 years away establishing clearly that they are in power for personal gains only. Political analysts shouted in vain that the continuation of electioneering at the end of one set of elections was unhealthy for a developing nation such as Nigeria which had suffered largely from stultified growth. No good hospitals anywhere; the few health related structures had no drugs or other medical necessities. Our schools had no teachers and teaching facilities – learning under trees was still rampant. The rural communities were worse off as many supposed school buildings in such locations were grossly dilapidated. How can Nigeria grow with its office holders ceaselessly politicking? The rest of us could not stop the insane posture which was almost completely interspersed by defections of opposition politicians into the ruling party in search of part of the national cake.
Political materialism has thus continued unabated presenting a political scenario never seen before in such a large scale in Nigeria. At a point, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC was forced to condemn the celebrated premature campaigns. Quoting Section 94(1) of the Electoral Act, INEC warned that political campaigns could only commence 150 days before the next election adding that it had not at the time issued a timetable for the next election cycle. In the absence of specific legal sanctions for premature campaigns, INEC called on the National Assembly to criminalize the trend. Nothing was done because those who can push for sanctions are quite often the main culprits thereby encouraging relentless ‘jumping of the gun’ campaigns. Interestingly, the same irrational politicians who have damaged governance and the economy are nowhere to be found now that signals authorising open campaigns to start have been given by INEC.
What we have said so far suggests that our politicians have little respect for law. In earnest, campaign efforts are always feeble with the few politicians engaged in them restricting themselves not to vigorous explanations of their policies and plans but merely drawing attention to perceived weaknesses of their opponents. In another clime, the electorate would at this point be expecting politicians to come forward to account for their stewardship. In Nigeria in particular, political office holders and their parties have a lot to account for. Apart from explaining what they could not do and what they did poorly, they have an obligation to explain the behaviour of changing the mandate of the people. How for example does a person elected under party A explain his defection to party B when political defections are not legally encouraged in Nigeria? It is only legislators that are allowed to defect but even at that, defection is tolerated only under specific circumstances.
A defection is deemed to be illegal if the party involved does not have a crisis that is national in nature. In other words, it is not enough to have crisis or disagreement at local or state levels, it must be big enough to affect the structure of the national body before a legislator can defect to another party. In the case of the executive branch, no one expected a governor with a gamut of infrastructural challenges to waste time thinking of moving from one party to another. But in Nigeria our governors now do so to the shock of many. If I voted for a person to become the governor of my state under party A and he defects to party B which I did not vote for, he has an obligation to explain his action now; otherwise, I will not in another election vote for such an unstable person. Nigerian voters are therefore expected to task all those who defected to a party that the voters did not originally vote for because by so doing, the defectors had breached the democratic precept.
Indeed, such defector-governors had taken the votes of one party to another in a country where votes by law belong to a political party and not the candidate that was sponsored. In another part of the world, the system would not allow anyone to appropriate the votes of others. But in Nigeria where everything can be experimented upon, the poor voter ought to at this point of campaigns for another set of elections insist on a proper explanation for why his vote was misdirected the last time to a party he deliberately shunned during the casting of ballots. It would therefore appear that the demand for accountability by defector-governors is the only option available to a voter in a country enmeshed in technical justice. In addition, campaigns should focus on substantive issues rather than frivolities. We have had enough of who is clueless or not. What we need now is what each person intends to do if elected and more especially how he intends to do them.
Many people are not bothered about the popular point of who FCT Minister Nyesom Wike wants to support, we are also not anxious about whether the APC governors are happy or sad about the emergence of the Rainbow coalition. Even the contentious issue of fuel subsidy is being wrongly handled. It is true that Nigerians are currently living under hard conditions following the removal of subsidy. It is also an inconvertible fact that in the past when the subsidy policy existed, life in the country was also precarious. It is therefore unwise to support the removal or return of subsidy without an explanation of how each party’s position can improve the welfare of the common man. Today, there is no subsidy and all we hear is a sermon of patience – sweet grammar of light at the end of the tunnel while we are seeing flashes of light in some parts of the tunnel, economic jargons of micro and macro as well as plenty of funds now reportedly in the hands of governors while the poor are starving.
One opposition party is telling us about the return of subsidy as if we are incapable of remembering the evils of fuel scarcity. The ADC candidate was in office as Vice President years back when the government of the day was virtually overwhelmed by the cartel that allegedly stole our oil. At this point of campaigns therefore, we ought to evolve a new posture where the issue at stake should not be the return or removal of subsidy but the management strategy to be applied to each position in the interest of the average citizen. Again, campaigns cannot be premised on visits to a handful of traditional rulers for endorsements because those visits in all honesty constitute blackmail. If a traditional ruler receives a team well, he is labelled the friend of the team and the enemy of its opponents; if so, why push royalty and the acclaimed father of all to a compromised corner? Instead, target the masses of the people whose votes matter more and campaign on the issues bothering them.
Above all, campaign teams must be civil and they too must be given a fair chance to make its point, so that at the end of the day, voters are able to get well informed through political education that enables them to vote wisely. On a general note, efforts must be made during the campaigns to condemn violence by asking parties involved in it to give account. In the last few months some politicians especially members of the ruling party have been variously accused of intimidating others by sending party thugs to destabilize rallies by rival political parties. Locations where such attacks happen should send signals to all political parties that they have resolved not to vote for the visible aggressors in their domain. The point to be made is that violence cannot be the easiest way to know the better of two candidates.
Best practices recommend political debates organized by the media. The Nigerian media should come forward to take charge of the subject with impartiality. No one should be excluded and the ruling party should not exclude itself because of the old belief that it is the one everyone else is targeting for attacks. The forum must be devoid of personal attacks as it is an educational platform to inform all about who can best govern society. As a result, common issues such as acute insecurity should be made the subject that everyone is to address. No one should be allowed to change campaigns from information and education purposes to entertainment with music and dancing where nothing meaningful is said. Furthermore, intemperate language must not be allowed and efforts should be made to isolate everybody’s standpoint as a basis for identifying what each party stands for.
The post Where are the campaigns for 2027? By Tonnie Iredia appeared first on Vanguard News.