Politics
Apart from the principles of zoning of the presidency between the North and the South and the issue of Christian-Muslim ticket being on the ballot in 2023, other crucial security and economic concerns like rising inflation, high food prices, high unemployment and worrisome debt profile will also be on the ballot. Unfortunately, the two key political issues have been truncated by the politicians ahead of the 2023 polls.
By Goddy Ikeh
DESPITE battling what appears to be the worst security and economic crisis in post-Nigerian civil war era, the federal government is going ahead with preparations for national census and the general elections in 2023. Although some eminent Nigerians have warned against embarking on these herculean tasks until the level of insecurity is brought to a manageable level that will ensure the successful conduct of these important national projects.
As part of the processes towards the 2023 general elections, the political parties held their party primaries to select their flag-bearers in the various political offices such as the presidential, governorship and legislative positions. During the exercise, the politicians did not fail to exhibit their arrogance and insensitiveness to societal moral coded when the ruling All Progressives Party pegged its expression of interest and nomination form for the office of the president at N100 million, while the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party settled for N40 million for the expression of interest and nomination form for its members.
In spite of these initial blunders, many political analysts, scholars and the youths are hopeful that Nigerians should strive to rescue the troubled nation from the stranglehold of the twin political shocks of the APC and the PDP in 2023. They also believe that what will be on the ballot in 2023 will among others include the issues of rotation of the presidency between the North and South and the Muslim – Christian ticket as against the Muslim-Muslim ticket, which could reduce the tension in the polity and heal the wounds inflicted to the divided and battered nation in the last seven years.
Apart from the two key political issues, the other areas of competence of the political leaders, rescuing the nation from its drift to anarchy, revamping the economy, strengthening the naira, will also be on the ballot. But Nigerians will not forget in a hurry the bogus promises made by the APC in 2015. There included tackling insecurity, revamping the economy, tackling youth employment, improved power generation, defeating book Haram and securing the release of the adopted Chibok girls and all other adopted persons among others and above all, the assemblage of the dazzling collection of economic experts and policymakers to drive these campaign promises and programmes. Unfortunately, the nation witnessed the free fall of the Naira, exchanging for N610 to $1 in mid-July 2022 with inflation rate at over 18 percent in June 2022 among other poor sectorial indices and broken institutions.
According to some political analysts, the two leading political parties have only not failed to meet these acceptable political criteria and standards by millions of Nigerians, the consequences may be fatal. Firstly, while many Nigerians were still agonizing the wrong political step taken by the PDP when it failed to zone the presidential ticket to the South after 8 years of the APC, which is against its constitution, the APC reluctantly settled for Bola Tinubu as its presidential candidate and like the PDP, Tinubu opted for Muslim-Muslim ticket in utter disregard of the popular views and interests of Nigerians. For these analysts, the two parties have indirectly thrown away their chances of winning the 2023 presidential election. “The two parties have willingly “dug their graves” and should be ready to give way for the ongoing movement being driven and promoted by millions of Nigerian youths, who have been pauperized by the political class for decades,” they said.
However, some eminent Nigerians have not hidden their disappointment over the faulty decisions of the APC and the PDP in the selection of their presidential candidates and their vice presidential candidates. Reacting to the Tinubu’s Muslim – Muslim ticket, Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to the government of the federation, said: “I thought I will be able to avoid commenting on the disastrous error by my very good friend, Sen Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his choice of a running mate.
“I will be the very last person to stand in the way of my very good friend Tinubu’s path to the presidency. This is because since 2011 my consuming passion has been for him to succeed Buhari as President of Nigeria.
It will not be true if I say that I did not see it coming. I have often read his body language, picked up snippets from several discussions with his lapdogs (some of whom, sadly are Christians but most of whom are moslems) and I have conveyed my reservations to them against the pitfalls of a moslem-moslem ticket towards which I sensed they were drifting.
As part of my obligation to him, a close friend, I had on many occasions argued the merits and demerits of both ticket permutations to him.
I have done so in both verbal and written form and I have likewise, done so with some of his close respectable associates and friends. In all instances I had left him with the sole responsibility for his final decision arguing that in the end the consequences of the outcome of any bad decision will be his to bear.”
In the same vein, the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, said that it was unfortunate that the APC candidate had failed to take the country’s religious diversity into consideration. According to the spokesman for the CAN President, Rev. Adebayo Oladeji, making such a decision in a polarized country like Nigeria was a wrong move.
He wondered that despite having a pastor as the vice president of the country in the current dispensation and Christian clerics and worshipers are being killed, it is anybody’s guise if the security of lives and properties of Christians under a Muslim-Muslim will be guaranteed and warned Nigerians to be ready to face the consequences of their actions if they endorsed and vote for a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Speaking on the issue, Ebun Adegboruwa, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, warned of the grave implications of presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket by the APC.
On the issue of zoning the presidency to the South which the PDP faulted, many prominent Nigerians and socio-political groups had advocated for the position to be zoned to the South and some even went as far as stating that it should go to the South East for equity and justice since the zone has not occupied the office.
For instance, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, did lent his voice to the call and restated his position that the South-East should be allowed to produce Nigeria’s President in 2023, insisting that it would ensure peace, justice, fairness and sustainable national development in the country.
Obasanjo, who addressed members of Political Action Committee, PAC, of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, who visited him at his Presidential Library in Abeokuta to solicit his support for the quest for a Nigerian President of South-East extraction, said the minimum Nigerians would accept was that the next president should come from the South.
“The next president of Nigeria must come from the South East. The least acceptable minimum is a president from the Southern part of Nigeria,” Obasanjo was quoted by Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s spokesman, Alex Ogbonnia, as saying.
The former President commended Ohanaeze Ndigbo for demanding their rights and told the delegation that what he “owes Nigeria is sincerity, objectivity and guidance”. He stressed the need for morality, equity and justice and the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country like Nigeria, warning that “it is inconceivable to have peace and progress in a country that is rooted in injustice.”
“Federal character, rotation of power and such other measures are meant to help our nation-building process and more sure-footedly, move Nigeria forward” and warned that “riding over these measures rudely, shoddily and roughly cannot augur well for our nation-building process and progress,” Obasanjo said.
With the closure of the submission of the presidential flag-bearers and their running mates, it is certain that both the APC and PDP had been victims of the story, which in local parlance states that “he that the gods will kill, will first deny him the sense of smell so that he will not notice the enemy when he approaches”. Fortunately, the usual arrogance of the average Nigerian politicians, who are all “too knowledgeable and self-centered and representing themselves instead of the people who voted for them” have failed to see fast approaching wave of change that will sweep them away.
Already, many of the lawmakers failed to secure their party’s ticket for re-election during the primaries and the failure of the governor of Osun state to win his second term bid are obvious cases and pointers of what will determine the outcome of the general elections in 2023. Obviously, this is the movement, which millions of Nigerian youths are the drivers and the Labour Party is the anchor. For millions of patriotic Nigerians, there lies their hope for a new Nigeria of their dream.
A.I
