Simon Kolawole
We now have a solid opposition. But opposition should not be there just for decoration. It is about competition based on ideas and ideologies, policies and programmes. PDP has been in power since 1999. APC says Nigerians have had enough of them. APC has built its campaign around “change” reminiscent of Barack Obama’s slogan in his historic bid for the US presidency in 2008. By “change”, I do not suppose APC is saying “just vote out PDP and put us there”. I’m inclined to believe their message is that let us “change” the way Nigeria is being governed. Try us and you will see a massive difference. Am I right?
Let us move to the real debate then. What are the issues that should shape the 2015 presidential election? I will highlight just five. The first is the anti-graft war. We are all agreed that corruption is one of the biggest problems we have. My interest is: how do we bring looters to justice? We have been sacking ministers and trying ex-governors, but nothing has ever come out of it. It is one thing to bring them to trial, another thing to bring them to justice. Since 1999, no ex-governor or minister or commissioner has been jailed. What would Buhari/APC do differently in this regard? Or, if given another chance, how would Jonathan/PDP redeem themselves? Is legislation the problem? Is it prosecution? Is it lack of political will in the judiciary? Let’s debate and thrash it out!
The second topic is insecurity. The carnage in the North-East plus Kano is beyond explanation. The oil theft in the Niger Delta is criminally unparalleled. Boko Haram has put Nigeria on the international terror map. They have added territorial warfare to suicide bombing, and their mentally unstable leader, Abubakar Shekau, is now targeting mosques and emirs. APC has done a very good job of highlighting the failure of the Jonathan/PDP administration in tackling the insurgency. What it has not told us, convincingly, is what they would do differently. And PDP, in seeking re-election, has a lot of explaining to do on why it is taking forever to tame terror that’s if Nigerians are in the mood to listen again.
The third is power. I wish I knew what the problem is. We’ve been discussing 4000MW in the last 15 years. What exactly is the problem? Is it the power plants? Is it gas? Is it rainfall? Ages ago, contracts for power projects were awarded by Obasanjo. They were abandoned by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. They were revived by Jonathan. Since then, we’ve constructed gas pipelines, installed turbines, unbundled the power utility, privatised generation and distribution, and so on. We have done emergency gas. We are reviving hydro plants and building new ones. Many independent power projects (IPP) are on board. So why this darkness? What needs to “change”?
The fourth is the petroleum sector. We’ve been arguing over subsidy forever and ever. We don’t know what to do with the refineries. Obasanjo privatised two of them. Yar’Adau reversed it, with a failed promise that they would “soon” work. Today, they remain half-dead. The Chinese and Koreans promised to build refineries. They are nowhere to be found. So what is the problem? What “change” will APC bring to this sector? In 2012, Jonathan attempted to deregulate the industry by removing the subsidy on petrol, but there was a nationwide anger and he retreated. Will APC retain or remove subsidy? Will they deregulate? We’re all ears.
The fifth, and very, very important, is jobs. Unemployment is as devastating as Boko Haram, even if we do not see it that way. We are churning out graduates every year without churning out jobs. Even those who have jobs are losing them. Unemployment is the engine of crime and criminal tendencies. We often boast to the world about our population, but multiplying like rats is not an achievement if there is no future for those children. Babies who are daily popping out of the labour rooms may eventually end up in the labour market. Government, unfortunately, cannot employ the jobless millions. What will APC do that PDP is not doing yet? Or what does PDP hope to do better?
I am one of those Nigerians who cannot be easily moved by political slogans. I love the music of “change” as rendered by the APC, but talk is cheap. What we need to know now is the content of this “change”. Jonathan has said we should move “forward” not “backward”. Whatever. Let Buhari and Jonathan come out and tell us to our face what they want to do about the Nigerian condition. This is not going to change the minds of voters most people have made up their minds already but it will brighten the soapbox and give our democratic experience a different push.
Meanwhile, contrary to what you may be thinking, the 2015 election has not been won and lost. No party should be too boastful or complacent yet. It is going to be a fight-to-the-finish. Just saying.
