WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
[email protected], [email protected]
Performance assessment is a normal consideration and the reality of every clime where periodic elections take place. A corollary to that is the gravitation of all activities toward permutations that throw up candidates for competitive elective positions and engagement of all means possible within rational acceptance to win elections. However, in our continent and country in particular, the evolved configuration, though abnormal, is to see individuals and political parties aggressively adopting apparently destructive propaganda and hostile rhetoric that are detrimental to national development, to misinform the public and the electorate in their bid to improve electoral chances.
This period is yet another huge concern for Nigeria as a country; the things we do and are most willing to do to win elections have been the most contributory factor to the ills that have befallen us overtime as a country, and unfortunately, one we are unwilling to let go because it works. Until the day we all come to the realisation that winning election on the back of conspiracy theories, lies and divisive propaganda would always make the country ungovernable, irredeemable, unstable, and politically and tribally divided, and refrain ourselves from taking the backdoors to attain electoral successes, we would continue to go down the path of communal struggles as a country and as a people.
Today, we are belaboured with so much insecurity; we expend so much resources securing the integrity of the country, yet the result is minimal and never at par with the security expenditure. Why? Because the insecurity we face in the country is not only self-inflicted, but increasingly inflicted on the soul of the country because politicians’ need for political relevance and electoral wins that birth it doesn’t end. It is difficult to win a war that is fought in the subconscious emotional base of the people; we hate on ourselves in a way that cannot be resolved because the causative factor and source is permanently operative and fed by the selfish non-performing politicians and political parties.
The coup of 1965, the counter coup of 1966, the disunity and tribal separation that were birthed and groomed by selfish political considerations of the politicians of that era; the 1979 and 1983 pre-elections, election and post-election events, in the annals of the history of crisis in Nigeria, would remain unforgettable; the “WETIE” of 1984 and all the destructions of life and properties that followed the elections because they had to win by all means; the desperateness of PDP to win the 2015 elections at the expense of the nation’s sanctity, deploying all destructive and divisive mechanisms to diminish the overwhelming popularity of the contesting opposition party and its contribution to the socio-political discomfiture of Nigeria today would forever remain an indelible mark.
We cannot and would not allow this to define our politics and social interrelations any longer as a people and a nation; we cannot allow the reenactment of the Benue State saga of 2019, that is, a case study of what our system has become, in this country again. As part of the opposition preparation to win the 2019 election, the state was literally transformed into a huge killing field; tons of innocent citizens of the state were gruesomely murdered, displaced from their homes and businesses, all because the state governor, seeking reelection has no achievement to campaign with and the party had to choose the path of creating insecurity and thereby put the blame on killer herders and the APC Administration – a pure diversion and deceit.
Unfortunately, they succeeded; they won the state and the governor satisfies his political ambition but at the expense of the immediate safety of the state and the continuous safety of the entire country. The orchestrated insecurity in Benue state prior to the 2019 elections didn’t affect only the state but set a different level of tone in the interrelation of units in the country. The hatred for the Fulani nationality and the animosity toward the Islamic communities in the country was further strengthened by the make-believe atrocities in the state. Who would not be angry?
Why did the Benue people suffer such in the hands of politicians who wanted to govern them; politicians who vowed to protect them and develop the state? Why would a politician resolve to such a barbaric extent to win an election? The fathers of democracy attach public popularity and acceptance rating based on performance as a major index of winning elections in a democratic setting. Campaign is a critical component of democratic elections, which provides the opportunity for candidates to give the electorate reasons to trust them with their votes and accord them the right to represent them in elective public offices.
Nigerians need to wake up and realise that at the local government, state and federal levels, voting in individuals with antecedents of high performance is the only thing that guarantees expected deliverance once elected. For nineteen years, we recycled PDP, but what do we get from it? Nothing! They have made corruption a way of life until Nigerians couldn’t differentiate between genuine wealth and ill-gotten wealth; infrastructure across the country lay bare and dilapidated; Nigeria became so deprived of access to energy in a way that has disrupted both industrialisation and domestic energy consumption. The country lost and has never made genuine attempts at resurrecting its agricultural sector to meet the nation’s food requirement at the least before consideration for industrial raw materials. Those years literally were dark days of the nation’s development and one we are yet to come out of it.
In 2019, PDP and Atiku lost because we were getting better at recognising deceit when we see one; but we have to do better, we must do the same across states to weed out non-performance and non-performers in our political system. A party of the caliber of PDP that faced Nigerians with rhetoric of islamisation, fulanisation, fabricated propaganda around age, qualification and humiliation of the opposition party and candidates, without presenting any credible list of what they have done for the country when they had the opportunity cannot be seen to be serious and in any way taken serious enough to be given our trust to hold sway at the helm of leadership. We didn’t do it in 2019 and we would not make the mistake of doing it in 2023.
Nigerians would vote in APC again in 2023 not because they are the ruling party, with access to power of incumbency or any other petty reasons; but because they see development in a way never seen before in the country in decades in these last years of President Buhari government. It would be because spreading seed of hatred about a working President and his party is not enough for the citizens to join the hatred spree; Nigerians are altogether not blind to see the changes that are both open and incontestable, and regardless of what magnitude of hate propaganda that greeted coming election, what will speak and drive Nigerians to the polls is the evidence of good stewardship rendered by the Buhari-led government since 2015.
What we will see and what we must vote for in 2023 is not sentiment, but the improvement in power generation in Nigeria; the improvement and expansion in the transportation sector of the nation’s economy across the railway, the airports, the road networks, and bridges. Nigerians will vote for social infrastructure of the kind and form alien to us until now; support for small businesses, farmers, and the youths in the most transparent manner possible. We will vote for the continuation of N-Power and the sustenance of the nation’s rice revolution. We will vote for the seriousness we see in the onslaught against the enemies of Nigeria, regardless of where they are found.
GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!
