I am unhappy beginning this opinion piece even as a Nigerian youth with a title so gloomy as the situation of politics in the country while we approach the 2023 general elections. More so, that our nation is bereft of good governance owing to bad politics and poor management over the years and perhaps I should repeat myself to be one of the million Nigerian graduates without hope of getting a decent job for a living from the government. I am sorry, I meant to say as one of the million “lazy youth” in Nigeria.
It is the basic responsibility of every government to ensure a decent and conducive society for the citizens. In otherwards, the form of government closest to fulfilling this obligation could perhaps be a democracy whether “it is one wearing a face mask.” As the famous American president, Abraham Lincoln once remarked, it is democracy when it is “the government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The central message flowing from the above is that if democracy were to be an object of mathematical fraction, the LCM of the definition of democracy as defined above could have been “the people.” Hinting further, the short and long of it is that “the people” are supposedly the deciders in democratic settings.
My attempt in the foregoing paragraphs did not aim to shift focus from the caption of this opinion. For our guidance, I should reecho that Nigeria’s acclaimed system of government is “the democracy” but whether we practice it, this piece may present nearest conclusion. But the truth is that we are in a democracy; a bad democracy for that matter!
For us as a nation, if we are to move forward, we are to look backward for corrective purposes at those things that ruin our potentials in the past. That is how to move forward by looking backward. We create a sense of balance from the past with the imagination of the future from present.
However, our values as a nation have continued to diminish, especially, in politics as we elect even those we should ordinarily see and greet as voters at polls but those people have actually succeeded on us. We have accepted and have handed over our common vault to people who only look to loot. That is why monetary politics has been the order of the day in Nigeria.
Politics of money has not only corrupted our polity but that it has also succeeded in creating gaps for us as a nation preventing us from attaining a sustainable height. Recently, a man allegedly identified as a PDP delegate from Kaduna State to the party’s presidential primaries was reportedly sharing dividend of his earning from the democratic exercise his conscience would have been used to elect the presidential candidate of his party. Such a pity!
Regardless, we or, I think even the alleged PDP delegate knew the consequence of what his action would cause the nation’s political system. Vote buying in the real sense is a crime under our jurisprudence but I have no idea on vote selling albeit both may attract same meaning in the penal definition.
As Nigeria look forward to conducting the 2023 general elections, one of our wishes is to experience free, fair and credible elections for us to attain a political growth. It is on this note that the benchmark for a free and fair election in Nigeria is the June 12th 1993 Presidential election acclaimed even by the international communities to be won by M.K.O Abiola, a Southern Muslim with a Northern Muslim running mate against a Northern Muslim and a Southern Christian running mate. It remains an epoch election in the anal of the nation’s democracy significant in the sense that it was a post-civil war era.
Today, Nigeria is not only divided along religious line, our politicians have used all metrics of divisions in our individual, cultural differences and our common humanities to their elective advantages. Nigeria is now looking forward to revamping her democracy through elections that could inspire hope of a new united Nigeria perhaps in the model of M.K.O Abiola even if it could not be exactly the same.
The search for a unifying and a nationalistic candidate for a greater Nigeria through democratic means has been undergoing litmus test under the two main political parties in the country, the APC and PDP. For the latter, the former vice president of the country Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is the unifying leadership for the country in 2023. The APC is still in the theatre incubating her presidential candidate for 2023 general elections and many doctors are offering their respective advices on the best method for her delivery.
While many Nigerians were disappointed in the way the PDP picked her presidential candidate in Atiku, through a means described as charade and most embarrassing “dollars’ rain”, the APC leadership and President Muhammadu Buhari has been pleading with the party’s presidential aspirants to leave a good precedence by imbibing the party’s core values.
No doubt, against the above backdrop, the senator representing Abia North, Orji Uzor Kalu who is also rooting for the candidature of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan has appealed to President Buhari to consider Lawan as the consensus candidate for the APC. He went further through is verifiable Facebook page aligning with Buhari on the negative outcome of delegate vote buying.
While Kalu was appealing, he sent a strong message that money has never succeeded in buying the presidential seat of Nigeria. His comment in this case aligned with moral values. However, in his desperate attempt to justify consensus for Lawan, he offended Nigerians when said cited former President Goodluck Jonathan and M.K.O Abiola as victims of “money politics.”
He wrote “if money can buy the office of president of Nigeria, Late M.K.O Abiola could have bought it with extra change…” The danger of monetary politics is great; however, for Kalu to have made such unguarded remarks against the figure of Late M.K.O Abiola who was the acclaimed winner of June 12th annulled presidential election reveals his intolerance for democratic tenants perhaps his ignorant of history.
More so, Kalu has re-annulled M.K.O Abiola’s mandate just as done by IBB. In this month of National Democracy Day recognized by PMB in honor of Abiola’s mandate, advicing PMB to do any undemocratic act amounts hypocritical.
For Kalu, his position aligns with other gang-ups against the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu presidential ambition. We hope from the internal politics against Asiwaju in the party, perchance he wins, just like his boss Abiola, APC would not annual their primaries.
Otiwe, a graduate of law from Kogi State University, Anyigba, writes from Abuja via 08064188686, [email protected]
