Nigerian Politics, Between the Rock and a Hard Place
With just days to Nigerian general elections, ordinary Nigerian continue to remain aloof from the main Presidential contenders for the leading political parties in Nigeria. The campaign wagons sweeping across the country do not appear to attract ordinary people, but just the political actors within the parties, who are eyeing one position or another, or else those close to them like family and friends. Rumors of tipping people to show up and fill seats at rallies for some token pay abound and the reasons for that are many.
The two leading political parties, All Progressives Congress, APC and Peoples’ Democratic Party PDP, have filled in presidential candidates, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (former Lagos State Governor) and Atiku Abubakar (former Nigerian Vice President) respectively, candidates that find it hard to articulate their vision for leading Nigeria from their own mouths. The two have been repeatedly criticized for failing either on the campaign trail, or else in studios to articulate their vision well, or face each other, in front of a team of journalists who will scrutinize their preparedness to face the immense challenges that Nigeria face today.
In fact, with all the public and privately owned television stations in Nigeria, none has been able to convince the presidential candidates to appear together to enlighten the nation as to how they intend to govern the nation. Nigerians are left with analyst speculations of health issues, age related issues and lack of preparedness.
One of the issues, as aptly described by a Daily Trust Columnist, Enahoro “Nigerian political parties are simply dysfunctional coalitions of office seekers. They no longer operate within the confines of sound political ideology or “best practices” blueprints for public administration. The end result being that the character and service record of the candidates themselves is of far more importance than any party manifesto.”
As for the two other presidential candidates who make a little more sense as to capacity for leadership, at least articulated capacity, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of NNPP, hardly features in the media, talk less of his articulation of his vision for all Nigerians to know and weigh. As for Peter Obi of the Labor Party, most of his campaign has been on social and alternative media.
Nigerian electorate are today between the rock and a hard place. Most people believe that the twenty-four years of presidential democracy has carried them far off track, instead of the promised land. They hold little hope in those the parties filled to lead the nation, as they continue to pray for enough security for life and property at the very least, not to talk of prosperity.