A House of Representative aspirant from Ikire Federal Constituency, Mr. Wale Opejin has described imposition of unqualified candidates among political parties in Nigeria as the bane of good governance across the country.
While speaking with OSUN DEFENDER recently, he said imposition has been a major threat to political development in the country, particularly in all the states of the federation.
Mr. Opejin mentioned that the issue of imposition has led to poor development in the states because it does not allow for the best candidate to emerge.
He added that there are many best candidates suitable for the political development of the states but nowadays, candidates are chosen based on sentiments which are not capable of bringing development to the state and country in general.
He lamented the rate at which religious and ethnic sentiment have become the yardstick for measuring the qualification of candidate rather than looking at their antecedent and qualification for the office they seek to occupy.
According to him, over 90 per cent of political office holders in 1999 and 2003 were imposed on the electorates, but in recent times, the electorates have begun to find alternatives and it is hopeful that before the 2019 general election imposition would have been eliminated or reduced to the barest minimal.
“I hope party leaders across political divides would realise that the electorates are getting more sophisticated daily and are seeing imposition as a problem that must be tackled and dealt with before it leads to something more devastating than loss of votes in future elections”, Opejin added.
Speaking on the issue of young people seeking political offices, the Ikire-born politician disclosed that the youth have right to seek what is theirs, but added that the economic situation across the country is not friendly with their demands.
He sought a political atmosphere that would be economically viable for youths to take over the political leadership of the country in line with the challenges of modern times, which would not be solved without their inputs.
