It has been exactly two weeks into the year 2013, but you would be forgiven for thinking it is late 2014 if you were judging by the political happenings in this country. All over Nigeria, political alliances are being formed, alignments being made and calculations underway. For example, it is hoped that the much-awaited merger between opposition parties Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples’ Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Political Change (CPC) would be concluded in the first quarter of the year. It is about time that Nigeria gets a political party that can challenge the vice-like grip of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) on the centre.
Also, there are going to be two governorship elections this year: Osun and Anambra States. Interestingly, they are both governed by opposition parties: while the former is one of the six states controlled by the ACN, the latter is one of two states controlled by the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). It is hoped that the Independent National Electoral Commission would use these elections to fine-tune its logistics and planning in order to have hitch-free elections. As to whether the PDP would be able to wrest those states back, that very much remains in doubt because the PDP has itself been in disarray in these states since becoming the opposition, a position it is obviously not used to. So barring any grand slips by the ruling parties in those states, the status quo shall remain.
But even beyond that, groups are coming out to show where their loyalties may lie in the next three years. It might be the agitation of Northern groups for the presidency to ‘return’ to the North; or of Niger-Delta elders endorsing and openly opposing President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term, depending on whom you were listening to. It goes to remind us that Nigerian politics is still openly based on sentiments such as ethnicity and place of origin. All we can hope for that this does overheat the polity as the contentious zoning policy of the PDP did in 2011 and overshadowed more important issues.
Right behind these groups come politicians with desires to run for offices. In classic Nigerian fashion, these candidates have not come out in the plain to declare their intentions. Rather, this is known by a few ‘random’ posters that appear ‘suddenly’ on the streets, showing their supporters ‘urging’ them to run. Even incumbents are not immune to this as seen by the posters of ‘Jonathan for 2015’ that were seen all over the Abuja last week.
All we can expect that in the coming months, these activities would only intensify as politicians keep preparing in earnest for 2015. However, we hope that in 2015, the issues that would be at the front burner of the elections would be issues that directly affect us and not mundane ones such as zoning or rotational presidency. We are currently assailed by a lot of issues such as insecurity and massive youth unemployment to care less where the president comes from. What truly matters is that he provides solutions to these problems.
However, sadly, our politicians have always whipped up sentiments because they serve them best. This time around, we should sit idly and watch them use us as fodder for their ambitions. We must hold them to very high standards of morality and intellectualism. Our media must not in a bid to sell papers and gain viewership pay more attention to the sensationalism of politics rather than continually place important issues on the front burner and set the agenda for political discourse.
The 2015 General Elections must be different also for the electorate. We must not be spectators; rather, we must be active participants in the political process. All tools available to us must be employed. For instance, the use of social media in the 2011 elections must be consolidated upon as a tool for not only monitoring the elections, but also organizing citizens around a cause or candidate.
Lastly, it is hoped that for the 2015 elections, incumbency factor would not mean the use of state apparatus to muzzle opposition or employing state funds to outspend opponents. Rather, incumbents should campaign mainly by delivering on their campaign promises and making life better for their citizens. There is no better way of campaigning than this because it would have proven the candidate tried and tested. This should be the incumbency factor.
It may just be 2013, but the road to 2015 has truly begun here.
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