ACCORDING to the rules of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) campaigns for the presidential election slated for February 2023 formally takes off later this month. For a country at a critical intersection, it must be a pivotal game-changing election which means it must be based on issues.
So far it has been very disappointing. Instead of concentrating on programs as pathways to the future, it has been largely mudslinging as well as infertile indulge.
The disappointing outing so far is a reflection of the structural weaknesses of the parties themselves. Put together more like Special Purpose Vehicles to win elections, they do not have the ideological foundations to develop and present detailed programs to the electorate. This is tragic and the country continues to pay a heavy price for it.
Nigeria once had real political parties based on clear philosophical positions within this framework; the parties had solid research departments to formulate programs when elected. For example, the eminent writer, Chinua Achebe, was the Director of Research of the Peoples Redemption Party at the onset of the second republic. Putting a man of such international stature in that post reveals just how seriously the parties took the formulation of programs and indeed the art of governance itself. The contrast with today’s booty-sharing conglomerates is stark. Not surprisingly none of today’s parties have research departments not to talk of intellectual heavyweights directing them.
We have to face the reality of this inadequacy as we insist on an issue-based campaign. There can be no alternative for a country facing existential threats on so many fronts. Whoever is sworn in on the 29th of May 2023 must hit the ground running! There will be breathing space on the security, economic and other fronts. Difficult decisions will have to be taken and executed while maintaining the social cohesion fundamental for democracy. Unfortunately, the country does not today have the sort of political establishment we had in 1962 which admirably forged a national democratic agreement which was essential to maintain the cohesion necessary to implement the “austery measures” of 1962.
We must try to rekindle the ethos of that era. The political establishment must not create an illusion about the immediate future; it is going to be hard. They should present detailed costed positions now for scrutiny as to how we face a very difficult future and come out of painful adjustment stronger.
