Grassroots politics is a model serious-minded politicians adopt to pursue their career. It requires them to bond with the electorate at the grassroots.
The politician identifies with supporters from the family to the kindred level; the ward, the local government, and up to the state level, where the chain of relationship necessary for delivering services to the people can be harnessed.
Grassroots contact can also involve keeping in touch with constituents. The politician knows that all these levels of contact with supporters must not be compromised, or else he loses grip on his support base.
That explains why discerning politicians, in this case lawmakers, take town hall meetings seriously. Those who resort to town hall meetings to fraternise with supporters know it is the easiest mode of identifying with them and give them the opportunity to critique representation or the projects the lawmaker attracts to the area.
The advantage of such gatherings is enormous. They afford the politician the opportunity to see and identify by name the people he represents or whose support he seeks, to know their family, kindred, ward, council or senatorial zone, and to know what they do for a living.
Grassroots political relationship has never been an arrangement in a hurry or an ad-hoc thing, as we are meant to believe.
Politicians who treat grassroots relationship with respect make things easy for themselves and spend less money to win elections than those who distance themselves from the people. It is a way through which the politician tells his supporters the truth about his activities and expects that they will not forget him.
But developments from different parts of the country show how amazing and desperate some politicians can be.
Ever since the Ekiti State governorship election where former Governor Ayodele Fayose was said to have trounced Governor Kayode Fayemi, based on his (Fayose’s) so-called grassroots following, some politicians who want to stand for election have resorted to the ridiculous and the absurd.
They have not only moved to redefine the real meaning of grassroots politicking, but are getting on the nerves of the electorate and insulting the sensibilities of those who see through their antics.
The politicians’ new fad includes branding rice and sugar bags with their names, emergency visits to market squares and bus stops to buy bean cake (akara), roasted plantain (boli), roasted corn or pear, or groundnuts.
They think that was the magic that gave Fayose victory. But how wrong could they be?
I said in this column recently that the journey that brought Fayose close to his people at the grassroots took many years, starting even before he began fishing in the murky waters of politics.
In many identifiable and unidentifiable ways, Fayose reportedly impacted the lives of his people and, like the Biblical principle of sowing and reaping, he only waited for the appointed time to reap the fruits of the good seeds he sowed.
Therefore, it beats one’s imagination that as the Osun State governorship election draws closer, Iyiola Omisore, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, is going to markets and bus stops in an attempt to bond with the grassroots.
During such visits, Omisore eats akara, roasted corn, boli and rides on okada (motor cycle taxis) or in keke NAPEP (tricycle taxis) with market men and women to convince them that he is a grassroots politician.
A similar thing is playing out in Imo State. Governor Rochas Okorocha bonded well with okada riders and enjoyed their massive support in the run up to the 2011 governorship poll, and he is oiling the relationship as he prepares to stand for re-election next year, if chosen by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The photographs of Okorocha on the internet in some market places in Owerri and Orlu carrying a baby on his lap to fry corn and pear and chatting with people says it all.
Many other politicians in Imo, some of them little known, have invaded markets and village squares pretending to love the people more than they love themselves.
Unfortunately, our own society is such where people have very short memory. Granted that most politicians rely more on the grassroots to vote for them, what sense does it make if politicians take advantage of common men and women who get excited if they see a senatorial, governorship or presidential aspirant or candidate in their midst?
For how long shall our politicians play this sort of game on the electorate? As if that is not enough insult, the same politicians have resorted to the old tactics of sharing rice, sugar, salt and wrapper to the electorate. They add branded bags of rice, sugar, salt, et cetera, with their photographs embossed boldly on the bags.
A House of Representatives aspirant from the South East complained to me last week about how hopeless most voters at the grassroots have become because of what they want to get from politicians.
According to the gentleman, grassroots voters are ready to collect anything from any desperate politician, who understands their mindset too well and will do anything to manipulate it to his advantage.
Who will help the grassroots people to understand who the real politicians are? Why would they sell their conscience for today’s porridge and tomorrow’s starvation?
How can voters hold a politician accountable in office if they allow themselves to be used today and dumped tomorrow?
We cannot continue this way.