Posers for 2019 electioneering

Flowery use of language and grand sloganeering are staples of electioneering almost everywhere. As such, oratory and poetic skills have always been assets that are helpful for a typical politician on the hustings – even the average or outrightly incompetent one. With words and slogans, he could build fanciful bubble castles that would be a mirage to actualise when he may really need to.

Again, let’s be clear that this tendency is nearly universal and by no means peculiar to our country. Most politicians swashbuckle with lofty promises to the electorate during electioneering, but eventually have to deal with ugly brass tacks if and when they get the power they seek. The ultimate test of every elected politician is how well he had prepared for the crude reality that governance inevitably involves. One-time New York Governor Mario Cuomo fancifully articulated this fact in his famous saying that you campaign in poetry, but govern in prose.

Nigeria is in the thick of electioneering for the 2019 general election and politicians are frantically burrowing for advantage, never mind that the official commencement of campaigning is yet not due on the timetable issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The electoral body headed up a warning recently that candidates who emerged from different party primaries should abide by official timelines prescribed for hitting the soapbox. But that has not considerably hamstrung political parties and their candidates from seeking leverage with the voting public by making gilded promises that are for most parts not backed up with empirical projections on how those promises will be fulfilled. A worse tack, obviously, is that some political gladiators are digging in the mud to take down the personality – as opposed to capacity – of their most dreaded co-contenders. That is when, as they say, the gloves are peeled off and the iron knuckles bared.

Many actors running for the presidential office in the forthcoming poll have thrown up their battle cries. We have heard, for instance, the campaign mantra ‘Project Rescue Nigeria’ touted by iconic activist and respected administrator, Oby Ezekwesili, who is presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN). There are other emergent contenders like former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), who flaunts his youthful panache as an advantage; and former Central Bank Deputy Governor Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), who touts his technocratic and scholarly credentials besides his debonair youthfulness.

The ‘big two’ political parties are no exemption though they are fielding gerontocrats as torchbearers. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had got into power in 2015 with the mantra of ‘Change,’ for which responsibility was later deflected to citizens with the ‘Change begins with me’ advocacy; and now it is canvassing consolidation of gains believed to have been made since President Muhammadu Buhari took office, with ‘Continuity’ as its rallying call. On the other hand, major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is seeking to ‘Change the change’ with Atiku Abubakar that it has thrown up as its candidate. The former Vice President is a vociferous advocate of ‘restructuring’ of the Nigerian nationhood. But following his emergence for the PDP, adversarial focus has been on his alleged sleazy past, such that the 2019 contest is being touted as an integrity battle between him and Buhari who is perceived by admirers as ‘Mr. Clean.’

We have never had a shortage of electioneering slogans and mantras in this country, but what is the content in actuals as would translate to the fanciful promises being generously made? This should be a non-negotiable question we must hold the political class to ahead of the impending poll, and on which basis voters should make reasoned and informed choices if we would break the cycle of leadership failure experienced over the years. In other words, the public needs to insist that concrete issues and not sloganeering or name-calling drive electioneering by candidates and their parties towards the forthcoming poll.

It should be basic, for instance, that revenue projections underlie promised deliverables, so it won’t be like building phantom castles where you had no idea what the treasury could ever offer. With more than 80percent of our national revenue coming in from oil, and recent statistics showing that Nigeria presently produces 2.2million barrels daily at prevailing spot market price of $86 per barrel for the Brent crude that the country has, and with proven oil reserves of 37.1billion barrels as at 2017, a genuine office seeker should be able to lay out revenue scenarios ranging from the best possible profile to the worst in projecting what could be available for his / her tenure even if they find the treasury empty upon taking office. That is what they call thinking through the aspiration.

‘The public should insist that concrete issues and not sloganeering or name-calling drive electioneering towards the forthcoming poll’

With such mind games, we should expect to know concretely how prevailing national challenges would be tackled. For instance, the World Bank at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings in Bali, Indonesia, penultimate week ranked Nigeria 152^nd out of 157 countries on its Human Development Index. World Bank President Jim Young Kim explained that Nigeria, like many other African countries, fell in the red zone because its health and education budgets were too low. What would be the strategy to take the country into the amber zone, even in the medium to long term of a four-year tenure?

Whereas struggling countries like Mexico, Argentina and Pakistan have over the years recorded appreciable decline in the number of their citizens living in extreme poverty, according to World Bank statistics – Mexico: 11.1million (1998), 3.2million (2016); Argentina: 0.3million (1991), 0.2million (2016) and Pakistan 63.4million (1990), 7.7million (2015) – Nigeria recently displaced India to emerge the poverty capital of the world, with some 87million of her citizens said to be living below $1.90 daily. The profile gets more scary with World Bank data, which reckoned that 92.1percent of the country’s population live below $5.5 daily. What would be done with political power, within projected means, to pull a sizeable portion of this human mass by the boot straps out of poverty? Mexico and Pakistan, among others, doing it shows it can be done.

Also at the Bali meetings, the IMF cut growth projections made for Nigeria to 1.9percent, from 2.1percent, saying the country’s economy was doing poorly. Inflation has averaged at 11percent this year, and Nigeria is among countries with the highest youth unemployment rate estimated at 33.1percent – behind South Africa (53.7percent), Greece (39.1percent) and Spain (33.4percent), but ahead of Italy (30.8percent), Morocco (28.8percent) and Iran (28.4percent) among many others. In a population of 180-200million, it has also been reckoned by domestic assessors that over 108million Nigerians are ‘technically homeless,’ with housing deficit standing at some 18million units whereas about 100,000 houses are presently being built yearly. Exactly how will political power be used to mitigate, if not vanquish these challenges within four years?

We can’t even begin here to talk about electricity supply and poor roads infrastructure, which are also substantive challenges needing to be effectively tackled with the mandate of leadership. But it should be clear that electioneering towards 2019 by everyone affected – the incumbent and challengers alike – should involve concrete and measurable action plans on how power will be used for the real benefit of the populace.

Not Professor Jega’s Twitter handle!

A twitter handle, @Prof_AJega, is currently posturing on the cyber space as that of former INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega. The account is not his, and neither are the views / opinions expressed through the handle his. It is a parody account being operated by an impostor, and sadly can’t be shut down by Twitter rules, which permits parody accounts. The former INEC boss fully disclaims the account and all its contents.