*Insecurity, economy on front-burner
The stage is set for an interesting contest for Nigeria’s number one position in the forthcoming general election as the various political parties kickstart their campaigns for the 2023 general election today. FELIX NWANERI reports
Activities towards the 2023 general election will enter a critical stage today with the commencement of campaigns in line with section 94(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022. The general poll is billed to commence on February 25, 2023 with the presidential and National Assembly elections, while the governorship and states Assembly polls will hold on March 11, 2023.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), last Tuesday, released the final list for the presidential and National Assembly polls as provided in section 32(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 and the Timetable and Schedule of Activities released by the commission. The electoral umpire is expected to publish the final list for state elections – governorship and Houses of Assembly – on October 4.
The governorship elections will hold in 28 of the 36 states of the federation, while states Assembly polls will hold in all the states. The list for the national elections shows that all the 18 political parties in the country fielded candidates for the presidential election. For legislative elections, 1,101 candidates are vying for 109 senatorial seats and 3,122 candidates are contesting for House of Representatives seats, making a total of 4,223 candidates contesting for 469 legislative positions. Among those who would be flying the flags of their respective parties in the presidential election include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar (Peoples Democratic Party – PDP), Bola Tinubu (All Progressives Congress – APC), Rabiu Kwankwaso (New Nigeria Peoples Party – NNPP), Peter Obi (Labour Party – LP), Malik Ado- Ibrahim (Young Peoples Party – YPP), Omoyele Sowore (Africa Action Congress – AAC), Dan Nwanyanwu (Zenith Labour Party – ZLP) and Yabagi Sani (Action Democratic Party – ADP) Others are Adewole Adebayo (Social Democratic Party – SDP), Kola Abiola (Peoples Redemption Party – PRP), Hamza Al-Mustapha (Action Alliance – AA), Charles Nnamdi (Action Peoples Party – APP), Christopher Imumolen (Accord Party – AP), Dumebi Kachikwu (African Democratic Congress – ADC), Princess Ojei (Allied Peoples Movement – APM), Peter Umeadi (All Progressive Grand Alliance – APGA), Felix Osakwe (National Rescue Movement – NRM) and Sunday Adenuga (Boot Party – BP). Already, the various parties have constituted their campaign councils and it is expected that the respective campaign trains will hit the roads from today.
Need for issue-based campaigns
The build-up to the polls has been characterized by more of name-calling as well as ethnic and religious cards being played by some of the contenders and their political parties, while little or no attention is being paid to issues. However, most Nigerians are insisting that the 2023 campaigns must be issue-based and not the usual rhetoric and name-calling that characterize electoral campaigns in the country. According to those who hold this view, candidates running for elective positions must table before Nigerians, their respective blueprints that will state in clear terms, how they intend to tackle the myriads of challenges the country facing as most past leaders were railroaded into positions of leadership without any demonstration of ability to comprehend the problems of the nation. It was advanced that issue-based campaigns will enthrone a new order that will make way for visionary leadership, which is the principal element that ensures government serves as a vehicle for the attainment of the socioeconomic aspirations of citizens.
The belief is that leadership deficit that assails Africa’s most populous country is so legendary that from all indications, the nation has continued to lag behind in an emerging world order that emphasises clear-headed and able leadership.
To most analysts Nigeria’s problem has never been paucity of funds and resources, but lack of political will to do the right thing. This, according to analysts, explains why the country has stagnated in almost all facets of national life, as it takes commitment and focus on the part of a leader to deliver good governance. According to these analysts, leadership is not a tea-party, so what Nigeria needs at the various levels of government in 2023, are leaders with exceptional organisational skills; leaders who will perform instead of just making pronouncements; leaders who will initiate bold developmental programmes instead of seeking handouts from western nations and donor agencies and leaders who will leave positive impacts instead of failures and excuses. Among those who hold this view include former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida; Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed; a former chairman of the disbanded Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP), Chief Okoi Obono-Obla and the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Kukah. Babangida, who spoke in an interview to mark his 80th birthday in August last year, said the next president should not only be in his 60s, but with contacts across the nation, and had been traversing the geo-political zones marketing their acceptability and capacity.
His words: “I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. That is, a person, who travels across the country and has a friend virtually everywhere he travels to and he knows at least one person that he can communicate with. That is a person, who is very verse in economics and is also a good politician, who should be able to talk to Nigerians and so on. I have seen one, or two or three of such persons already in his sixties.” For Baba-Ahmed, the next president must act in the “opposite direction” to Buhari as Nigeria needs a leader who realises the need to rebuild the country, secure Nigerians and boost the economy.
“The nation needs a leader, who will do the things that President Buhari hasn’t done, create inclusiveness, address resentment and frustration in other parts of the country and in the North and speak and act for everybody,” he said. He added that Nigerians have been governed by “poor leaders” in the past 10 years and if the citizens do not get it right in 2023, the country may not survive. His words: “The 2023 general election is not an ordinary election, if we don’t substantially change the leadership of this country in 2023, this country is sunk. The politicians would use religion, party lines to divide us but in the end what will be left is a broken country of divided people.
“Nigeria has to go through a major reform and part of the process has to start now. We need to improve the quality of our leadership. In the last 10 years, we have elected poor leaders. We need to elect good leaders who will care about the poor, about the children of the poor, about the education of the poor, about security of everybody.
We need to elect good leaders in 2023 or this country is finished.” Obono-Obla, on his part, said the next president must be a nationalist. “The next president must be a patriot or nationalist, a true leader who will see the country as his constituency and somebody who will not be beholden or pander to any sectional interest or any vested political interest or business interest; a reformer in the mold of President Dwight Roosevelt of the United States, who that took his country from the lowest ebb of horrible economic depression to a world economic and military power within 15 years.
“I am looking for a Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed Singapore from a social and economic backwater to a technological advanced and industrialized country within 30 years.” He said. For the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, Nigeria needs a person “with a heart, a sense of empathy and a soul on fire” as her next president. His words: “The greatest challenge now is how to begin a process of reconstructing our nation hoping that we can hang on and survive the 2023 elections.
The real challenge before us now is to look beyond politics and face the challenge of forming character and faith in our country. Here, leaders of religion, Christianity and Islam, need to truthfully face the role of religion in the survival of our country.
“The Nigerian Constitution has very clearly delineated the fine boundaries between religion and politics. Yet many politicians continue to behave as if they are presiding over both the political and the spiritual realms in their states rather than governing in a democracy. “2023 beckons and the stage is set.
The challenge is whether we have learnt any lessons from the tragedy that has afflicted us in the last few years. The presidency of Nigeria is not a human right based on ethnic, religious or regional sentiments. The next president of Nigeria must be a man or woman with a heart, a sense of empathy and a soul on fire that can set limits to what human indignities visited on citizens that he or she can tolerate.
“We have no need for any further empty messianic rhetoric laced with deceitful and grandiose religiosity. We need someone who can fix our broken nation, rid our people of the looming dangers of hunger and destitution. Whoever wants to govern us must illustrate that he or she understands what has turned our nation into a national hospital and show us plans for our discharge from this horror.”
*Insecurity, economy on front-burner
As the parties and their candidates’ criss-cross the length and breadth of the country to canvass for votes, it is expected that they will be confronted with questions on how they intend to address issues of national concern. Critical among the issues are insecurity and economy.
While Nigeria has remained an entity despite several threats to her unity, there is no doubt that growing insecurity across the country portends grave dangers to the country’s continued existence. From the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the North-East to banditry and kidnapping in the North-West and North Central; farmers/herders clash in the North Central as well as the entire South; militancy in the South-South, and agitation for self-determination in the South-East and lately South- West, the picture of Nigeria is not only a nation at war with itself but one that its corporate existence is under serious threat.
The Boko Haram insurgency that is driven by Islamic extremists has not only claimed thousands of lives and property. It has turned millions of Nigerians to refugees in their own country. Across most northern states and even in neigbouring Chad, Niger Republic and Cameroon, are camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
The crisis, which has lasted over a decade, has equally brought economic activities in the affected states to a halt, while rebuilding efforts by the Federal Government in conjunction with donor agencies have gulped billions of naira. Sadly, the Federal Government in December 2015, pronounced Boko Haram “technically defeated” but most Nigerians believe that the proclamation was mere propaganda as the insurgents have remained an ever-present threat. For bandits ravaging the North- West, kidnapping and cattle rustling have become a lucrative industry. In the oil-rich but impoverished South- South, crude oil theft and sabotage of oil pipelines is legendary.
Similarly, the rising ethnic tension over activities of killer herdsmen across the country has not only exposed the heterogeneous nature of the country, but the tendency of the various ethnic nationalities towards parochial consciousness at the expense of national consciousness hence gradually driving Nigeria to the edge.
The conflict, which has claimed thousands of lives, is mainly as a result of disputes over land resources between mostly Muslim Fulani herders and mainly Christian farmers. Though the impact of the crisis has been more devastating in the North Central since 1999, the herders have recently advanced towards the southern part of the country, thereby shifting the battleground. Besides insecurity, Nigeria is also being ravaged by poverty. The country has more poor people defined as those living on less than $1.90 a day, than any other country, including India. It is estimated that over 100 million Nigerians live below the poverty line out of the country’s estimated 200 million population.
*Restructuring debate expected to resonate
Besides scrutinizing of blueprints of the candidates, especially those contesting the presidential election on issues of security and econmy, it is expected that Nigerians will also seize the opportunity of the campaigns to interrogate their respective perspectives on the restructuring debate given the belief that it holds the key to the country’s path to progress. Calls for restructuring of Nigeria, which keep resonating, are predicated on the dangers of ethnicity, religious bigotry and economic deprivation, which are rapid destroyers of any society.
Its advocates are of the view that Nigeria is likely to disintegrate if urgent steps are not taken to address pertinent questions of autonomy for the states; fisca the way for resource control by the states; equality of states and local governments among the six geo-political zones; state police, among other issues given the growing discontentment in the polity. Some stakeholders havel federalism to pave the way for resource control by the states; equality of states and local governments among the six geo-political zones; state police, among other issues given the growing discontentment in the polity.
Some stakeholders have even queried whether Nigeria should continue to operate the presidential system of government and a full-time legislature in the face of dwindling resources. High cost of governance at the various levels of government – federal, states and local councils – it was noted, partly explains for the country’s stunted development despite abundant human and natural resources. The argument is that after deduction of running cost by the various levels of government, little or nothing is left for capital projects even as there are so many ministries and agencies of government with functions, most times duplicates.
Advocates of restructuring are also calling for re-tooling of the Nigerian federalism by tinkering with items on the Exclusive and Concurrent Legislative lists as contained in the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The argument is that the powers of the Federal Government should be whittled down as it seems that it is the only government in place with the 65 items it has powers on in the Exclusive Legislative List.
To some stakeholders, the unitary constitution/system of government presently in place under the guise of a federal system has failed to solve the country’s numerous problems hence restructuring cannot be more urgent than now that Nigeria is faced with existential threats over agitations for selfdetermination and insecurity. The scary security situation has prompted some geopolitical zones to opt for self-help by establishing security outfits as the state has failed to perform its core function of protecting its citizens. The situation is worsened by the proposition of some state government’s that the people should defend themselves against bandits, insurgents and other criminal elements, who are increasingly acquiring more sophisticated weapons.(Courtesy: New Telegraph)
