Nigeria And Elections Miscellany (II)

Unemployment is one issue that has made a mockery of efforts of successive administrations towards ameliorating poverty and insecurity. Unfortunately, the solution does not appear in sight. None of the political parties was able to convince many of us of its ability or preparedness to immediately or in a short term create massive employment to avert youth restiveness, reduce crime and criminality, alleviate poverty and arrest social upheaval.

We are now the Poverty capital of the world! How did we get here? Is there any political party, in the main, who can rescue us from our debilitating poverty? How many of our politicians are ready to put on their thinking caps to proffer solutions to the myriad of our socio-economic problems?

To my humble mind, there is a disconnect between most of our leaders and followers. This played out during the campaign and elections. Clichés such as ‘Dollar collector’, ‘Oto ge’, ‘Alase ju’.

Constituted authority’, ‘Iberiberism’, ‘I’m just making common sense’ and ‘Moti be ori e’ dominated the political landscape. Politics should be all about people and service. We did not see our politician talking much about service, competencies, skills, performance and service delivery.

The judiciary is in turmoil. Good or bad, the judiciary is no longer trusted! Some lawyers are accomplices. Things are no longer at ease in the judiciary.

The hope of the common man is being dashed. The temple of justice is being desecrated with the reckless pronouncements of our politicians, especially when judgments do not favour them.

Albeit some judges or tribunals give unimaginable and incredulous rulings and judgments thus contributing to the fouling of the political sphere. Of course, some of our politicians have turned the court rooms into their places of abode.

Perception is about everything in public relations. Contrary to what our security agencies told us, there were and still are accusations and counter accusations about their excesses and partisanship.

The people do not really know who to run to for security as ‘security now gives way to conspiracy’. It is however, lamentable that some of our security agents lost their lives during the campaign and elections.

Social media is one of the greatest phenomena of our time, if not the greatest. It is a wonderful tool for communication and spreading of information.

However, there has been a misuse of the social media as irresponsible messages, mostly without sources and attribution dominated the campaign and the General Elections.

Fake and false news became the order of the day; and, some sections of the media became the fourth estate of the wreck rather than the fourth estate of the realm, according to Professor Ralph Akinfeleye.

It is my submission that both local and foreign media shaped and framed the political processes and discourse, thus wrongly or rightly setting political agenda for the people.

Why must the media shape the political process and why must institutions and the Nigerian society depend on the media with the despicable partisanship of many of them? Is the media that powerful?

The last issue to be briefly highlighted is the anachronistic and archaic operations of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Despite the assurances from the body, the nation was let down six hours to the commencement of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections. In other climes, heads would have rolled and or many of the key officials would have resigned.

The electoral body’s operations have fallen short of acceptable norm and standard. What with the way ad hoc and permanent employees were treated like animals- sleeping in open fields and open classrooms, working ceaselessly for two to three days, manual transmission of results, improper monitoring, etc. The problems are likely to persist in future, if not stemmed.

With all these catalogue of woes, where lies our political salvation?

This columnist will briefly highlight some, hoping those who have ears will listen and those who can read can decipher and act.

The first attempt at building a just and sustainable democratic process, and an egalitarian society should be through the demonetisation of politics. Too much of filthy money play around in our polity.

The second point is for us to jettison open air campaigns to reduce thuggery, crowd hiring and causalities.

Rather, our politicians should be made to talk directly to their identified audiences, e.g. traders, artisans, business wo/men, professionals, students in tertiary institutions and academics using rented halls and event centres, town halls and village squares where those in attendance can be easily identified in contradistinction to hired crowd.

Thirdly, we need to move with technology. Therefore, electronic voting and electronic transmission of election results must be institutionalised with results from polling units announced to all present.

Fourthly, Election disputes should be resolved before assumption of office.

The fifth point is for us to go back to fiscal federalism as practised before the January 15, 1966 military interregnum.

For the sixth point, I submit that the Constitution must be reviewed to accommodate just six regions operating as true federating units, while the centre should divorce itself from those activities that are inimical to fiscal federalism.

Lastly, we must eschew injustice, inequity, favouritism, corruption, ethnicity, indolence, selective treatment and associated issues like the plague.

Indeed, we need a contextual democracy. Singapore, Malaysia and India are there for us to learn from. Herein lays our salvation.

Concluded.

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