The season is here again. Our politicians have oiled their political machinery in readiness for the sweepstakes. Fine and moving speeches are flying here and there. It’s a season of polished rhetoric laden with marvellous promises that can rouse the dead to life!
The electorate is at the receiving end of all the grandstanding and highfalutin promises of Eldorado. The choice at their disposal is limited. Their eardrums are filled. Everybody is promising them a better life, heaven if you like.
And so, caught in the web of numerous wonderful promises that bear marks of the gospel, they are spoilt for choice: who should they believe? The ones they voted for before that have returned to seek their votes again, or the new ones they’ve not tested? The ‘devil’ they know or the ‘angel’ they know not? Confusion!
Having mastered the art of big speeches couched in flowery words, our politicians are saying just anything to win hearts and possibly get support to return or grab offices they so desire. Will they win the fragile hearts of the masses? The answer is yes and no! Yes, and rightly so.
Now, the thing is, a politician knows he can’t possibly get everybody on his side. Not possible. But he is sure of those who will stand with him come rain or sun. That is it. So, even while campaigning or consulting, as the case may be, he does it conscious of the fact that everybody cannot hear and follow him, even though he wishes they could!
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In politics, interest is paramount. No matter what he says or tells the people he’ll do, he knows, deep in his mind, that some of the electorate are loyal to other camps. But will they throw up their hands in surrender because you’re not with him? No. Politics is a game of numbers, so he’ll keep trying to win your heart with fine words, sometimes sprinkling freebies here and there, hoping he’ll someday sway your mind. But the ultimate truth is that he knows those on his side, those who’ll swim and sink with him. But given that the more, the merrier, he will always spread his nets, hoping he’ll catch more loyalists. He needs the numbers, not necessarily because he cares about you.
As the election season draws near, those seeking various offices have hit the stage. Consultations are going on at breakneck speed. Some aren’t too sure they’ll get the backing of stakeholders and their people to return. And so, the panic button has been activated. It’s this time that opportunists and emergency endorsers with funny group monikers cash in. With beautiful backdrops, in it, you’ll have bold statements of total endorsement for aspirant A or B; they reign supreme.
So, politicians, ever desperate in times like this, will easily fall for endorsements anywhere so long as it’ll look like they have the backing of the people, more so when it’s done by different groups with any seemingly meaningful nomenclature. Generally, it’s a season where tension is high. It’s even more delicate here in Akwa Ibom State, where the governor, Pastor Umo Eno, has warned politicians to study the political temperature before buying forms. Problem!
How should they study the political weather when there are no meteorologists? But away from that, if I can rightly deduce what the governor meant, he is looking at endorsement by the people that matter. It may be that you’re favoured by zoning or you’ve been assured by the cream of your community and key stakeholders that you are the chosen one. You know, some people’ll tell you that you’ve been anointed for a particular office, and you head home assured that indeed it is eureka! So, maybe that’s what the governor means by that. But then the dilemma is, in a season where lucre rules the mind, won’t some of these stakeholders, to have their pockets lined, assure anybody that comes that he or she is the anointed one when in actuality, it’s not true? What Naira or Dollar cannot do is unimaginable.
In all, consultations must be done. You can’t consult this group and neglect the other. And as you visit each group, it’s some party. So, pocket-wise, one must be ready. This is our brand of politics. Has it come to stay? Time and the people will tell.
As the season hots up with those occupying various offices wanting to return, even for third or fourth terms, the underlying question is: Does your previous outing qualify you to seek reelection? Or is it just an entitlement thing? So, because the other person in that area is going back, you should also go back? Is that the only criterion?
How well did you handle the first, second or third mandate given to you? Did you wear a human face, or did you turn yourself into a demigod during that time? A creature bigger than every other person that’s not in your class? What class are you even talking about here? Did you become invisible and incommunicado for three years plus but have suddenly become visible everywhere, at every child’s dedication event, wedding, birthday party, you name it, just because you seek votes anew from the people you treated as subhumans not long ago?
It is pertinent that you assess yourself honestly and answer for yourself if you deserve to return to that office where you performed so ineffectively, if not abysmally, or is it because you feel the people are poor and docile, so you can throw some notes and freebies at them and get their nod again? And you’re walking with padded shoulders in the hope that you’ll hoodwink them again?
Sadly, our politicians will never change so long as the people continue to be okay with just anything. Now, if you send somebody to the state house of assembly, for instance, he goes there and sleeps away. No bill to his name, no motion, nothing of note linked to him as a legislator for almost four years, other than “Happy New Month” messages put out on social media. His constituents cannot access him. He is not seen in community gatherings; he practically alienates himself from the same people whose support he sought almost on bended knees about three years ago. But returns this season to blab about how he will turn stone to bread if re-elected! Red card! So, in his first term, he found no stone to turn into bread? Oh, Stones were scarce! Beware of these people who mean no good for you, dear long-suffering masses.
Can we just be rational for once, even when poverty has been weaponised to keep us perpetually subservient, dependent and in bondage? Can we reject emergency and ephemeral bread and ask the right questions? Can we refuse to be blinded by the fake show of philanthropy and deploy our thinking faculty the right way?
Let us not have short memories, please. If a few years ago you gave someone your mandate and the person has not lived up to expectations, please, as he returns to seek your support again, ask him what he did with the previous mandate. Let him state in clear terms the reasons he feels he should retain the office he is seeking. Some people may not like your boldness because this is Nigeria, but posterity will not forget that at a time when people chose to be sheepish, you stood out and asked the right questions.
We must never be tired of wanting the best because we deserve the best from these officeholders. They hold these offices on our behalf, and they are liable to be accountable to us. But sadly, our democracy has seemingly become a pain in our neck. One that makes some politicians feel they are head and shoulders above all of us. And so, with arrogance, they say and do anything with reckless disregard, knowing full well that no one will raise a finger or voice simply because they have access to the till.
Soon, party primaries will take centre stage; one only hopes that we will truly see and feel this fledgling democracy in action. We want the multiplicity of political parties that makes democracy tick to hold sway. We want political parties to field candidates who have the necessary qualifications and qualities to lift the lives of the masses, rather than fielding those whose only qualification is that they can win an election.
PDP is in a comatose state today because they went for an Atiku from the north when there were many qualified southern aspirants for the top office in the land. But for convenience and a quick fix, they toed the path of self-destruction. Today, that decision has kept them in limbo.
In all, we must preserve this fragile democracy. We must do so despite the shenanigans and Machiavellian tactics we’re seeing today. We must avoid a situation where the people are left with only one unfortunate option as we head to the polls.
Let the people win. They need it!
