In less than one year from now, Nigeria would have conducted elections into the offices of president, governors as well as all the seats in the National Assembly and Houses of Assembly. By this time next year, we would have officers-elect, waiting to be sworn into offices, ceteris paribus, on May 29, 2015. Next year is thus very important in our life as a country, being election year. So where are the candidates?
By Obo Effanga
There is something terribly unacceptable with our system, if the voters, who are supposedly the ones to decide who gets into office, are yet to be presented with the names of those they should start watching and considering their suitability to lead. Or does it not worry us that less than one year to the elections, very few persons have come forward to openly say they are interested in any office? Make no mistakes; this is not happening because there is a dearth of interested persons; it is rather because everyone is treading cautiously. And why is that so? Here are some reasons.
Though public offices, especially the elective ones, are meant to be platforms for service to the general good, that only exists in theory, and we have increasingly come to accept it that way. In truth, public office is a platform for quick, easy and almost risk-free illicit wealth. It is a gold mine of some sorts. That being the case, we are faced with many incumbents who have so much illicit wealth and also power and instruments of coercion. With these, they turn themselves to demigods who must decide who gets into which political office after them.
The result is that even some governors serving their second (final) term of office have gone out of the remit of their offices to manipulate the system and determine who succeeds them. Especially in states where a single political party is dominant, the out-going governors have made themselves the determinants of who succeeds them. They declare which senatorial district should fill the position of the next governor. This doesn’t sound democratic in any way. Yes, their political parties may decide where they want to ‘zone’ the position to, but the governors do not constitute the party. Even if they have the sole prerogative to decide for their party, do they have such rights to decide for the entire state?
However, the blame also goes to many of the politicians who suck up to the governors in an embarrassingly sycophantic manner. Isn’t it shocking to see federal legislators and even former deputy governors suck up to their governors and openly declare that they are ready to support whoever the governor handpicks and anoints as his successor? So, until the governor decides to ‘anoint’ his successor, it has become taboo for anyone to aspire or openly indicate such aspiration. What all the aspirants are doing now is to pray that they should find favour with the governor, whom they have turned to an emperor. Truth is, these governors have so amassed illicit wealth that they can manipulate so many political structures to suit their purposes. Not done, many of them want to be further compensated with seats in the Senate as retirement benefit.
Closely related to the above is the fact that our political parties are about the most undemocratic of any institution in the land today. If there is one thing the political party and the political class loathe most, it is election. That is why they have developed a silly practice called ‘consensus’. To the extent that consensus candidates are supposed to emerge outside of an open competition, so much under the table, underhand and under whatever else, go on to present a candidate. With so much compromise going on, it would be a tall dream to expect the next set of public office-holders to be accountable to the electorate and citizens.
The way out now is to support the electoral body to ensure that the votes in the general elections, at least, count. That way, we can only hope, the voters can determine who gets into what position, despite the shenanigans of the political class. To do this, citizens need a new orientation to not only realise the power they hold as citizens, but to exercise same in an effective manner during the elections. It is when we begin to do so that good, independent-minded candidates would emerge, not those hoping for the crumbs from the table of their corrupt masters. And such independent-minded candidates would be bold enough to come out early to tell us what they want, build and mobilise grassroots support and structures.
