Election season: Time to demand specifics
Election season is here again, and politicians have been maneuvering either to be elected or re-elected to serve. Elected office holders at the federal and state levels will soon provide report of their stewardship to the electorate in Nigeria.
It may be the last report to be rendered by those elected government officials before the electorate delivers its judgment at the polls. The electorate should expect some surprises, and if need be, deceptions from politicians in a bid to remain in office come 2019. Both surprise and deception are strategies for the survival of politicians. The voters should also expect some political drama. The type acted by some senators and honorable members of state and national assemblies.
It cannot be business as usual. Since 1999, democracy has not yielded expected dividends to many Nigerians. This is contrary to expectations that a democratically elected government will engender development. Unfortunately, democracy does not bring about socio-economic development by default. Socio-economic development would only play an important role in sustaining democracy. So it is democracy flavored with good governance that will accelerate economic development.
Preparations for Osun and Ekiti States’ elections in 2018 are in high speed. While necessary arrangements for the general elections in 2019 are in top gear. Observers can see that politicians have started collaborating and cooperating with their godfathers, forming alliances, making deals, fashioning new political parties and courting political rivals.
As politicians make flowery promises, the electorate must as a matter of utmost necessity demand for specifics from politicians to enable them determine those who have ideas about the roles they intend to play in government in 2019. The media and civil societies have a duty to set agenda for public debate and create issues bordering on national development in this election season.
If Nigeria had enjoyed good governance for decades, there wouldn’t have been justification for spending billions of dollars to revamp the nation’s power supply without much to show for it. It wouldn’t have been challenging to liberalize the oil sector after making promises that subsidy would be removed. What do we have? We have increasing insincerity exhibited by our politicians. This is due to a mismatch between democracy and national development. Democracy can only stimulate national development when it is built on good governance, probity, transparency and accountability.
New, old and the “not too young to run” politicians have started showing interests in elective offices at state and federal levels respectively. As 2019 approaches, several promises are dangling like carrots before the electorate. Some politicians say, “Poverty will be eradicated when voted into power” and that “there would be a full stop to corruption.”
This writer has read headline stories in newspapers such as “we will fence Nigeria, change its name and currency- Justice Must Prevail Party,” and “We will make the Naira stronger and provide 10000Megawatts of electricity.” How will politicians actualize these promises? A flip through Nigeria’s political history shows that this is not the first time that promises would be made by the political class to the electorate. Precisely on July 14, 2014 the Senate President, then a new member of the All Peoples Congress (APC) tweeted that “APC will sign a contract with Nigerians. If we fail to tackle unemployment, insecurity & improve standard of living in 2015-2019 vote us out.” It is left to the electorate to determine if APC have succeeded in tackling unemployment, insecurity and poor standard of living in the second quarter of 2018.
Also, a PDP presidential aspirant and former vice president of Nigeria recently pronounced that if Nigeria wants to reduce poverty, women should be empowered. And the question that came to mind is how will this promise be actualized? This writer is not sure the presidential aspirant knows the number of the poor in Nigeria and how many women belong to this taxonomy? It is not only this presidential aspirant that is involved in glittering generalization.
The nation is in an election season, and glittering generalizations should not be allowed without demanding for specifics. Any politician that makes a promise must be courageous to let the electorate subject his campaign promises to thorough debate before elections to avoid blaming his or her predecessors when elected.
The citizens must be courageous to ask questions from any political aspirant as to how he or she intends to solve the problems bedeviling the nation in all sectors of the economy. Enough of intelligent guesses. Nigerians are fed up with any politician who says “I’ll achieve restructuring of Nigeria in 6 months, if elected President”. Such a politician should be challenged by the electorate to say in concrete terms what he or she means by restructuring, why is it necessary and how he or she intends to go about actualizing such a campaign promise.
In summary, Nigeria is a fragile state considering insecurity, state legitimacy and fragility to deliver basic services to people, unattractive environment for private investment, exposure of our oil-based economy to shocks, and deep divisions in the society, according to a BusinessDay columnist. So politicians cannot mount the podium, hold microphone in their hands, and deceive Nigerians anymore.
Nigerians are tired of promises that cannot be actualized. In fact, all political office aspirants need to educate themselves on how to look at issues of national interest through leadership eyes. This writer expects politicians who aspire to lead the seventh most populous country in the world to develop underpinning thoughts on their aspirations as prospective leaders and also, keep up with latest developments in world affairs. Nigerians expect politicians to be self-critical and self-examining of their promises before presenting them to the electorate.