POLITICS
Elections and their Anxieties
By MacDonald Ebere
Over the years, I have come to realise that many Nigerians are often traumatised by elections. These elections come with their pressures. The stakes are usually very high – both emotionally and financially. They are often winner-takes-all kind of scenarios, and are not helped by ethnic and religious tensions.
If you add the slipperiness of some politicians and the gullibility of some voters, then you have a perfect recipe for collective anxieties. But should elections and our democracy be such humongous psychological burdens? What can be done to save us from the angst and anguish of our politics?Politics in a “true” democracy is like a market exchange where the bargain is about good governance.
In this bargain, vote is the currency of the exchange. Whoever has more votes carries the day. Politicians are the bidders, while voters are offering the vote. The politicians try to win over the voters through the electoral promises of good governance. The voters cast their votes on the basis of their judgments of who among the politicians holds better promise for them. Election then is the marketplace and the platform of this contestation and exchange. It’s a fascinating scenario because in this analogy we see clearly what the stakes are and what the role of each player is.Each player needs the other because in this political marketplace none of the actors can do without the other. The politicians need the voters; the voters in turn need good leaders that will emerge at the conclusion of the political exercise. That is what it is, no matter what some people might say. The bidders know too well that their wishes only come through when voters as critical stakeholders support them and vote for them. It is a common narrative in Nigeria that politicians can do without the voters. That is not correct. Those who are active politicians know that attracting votes is not easy at all. They work very hard to get it.
In fact in Nigeria today, the politicians work harder than the electorates in this marketplace of politics. Now, we are in another cycle of elections. We see the politicians travelling to every part of the country or states, engaging in wide consultations, having long meetings, building alliances and bridges, wooing stakeholders and seeking support from constituencies. The politicians are busy day and night to realise their dreams. The ongoing party primaries, in view of the 2023 elections, is a litmus test of the amount of work politicians are doing to become party flag-bearers for the different elective positions. If it were easy, if they have a shortcut, they wouldn’t put themselves through such stress.
The electorates also have their own responsibilities in this electoral equation, as described already. For this marketplace to be maximally beneficial to everybody, we all must play our respective roles. For the political marketplace to be able to deliver not just governance but good governance, we all have our roles to play, whether as bidders for or as sellers. It is important that we all understand this to help us make a decision to get involved in seeing that our political processes are successful by delivering good governance.
Voters elect those who occupy political offices to deliver good governance, protect installed facilities in communities and continue their participation as watchdogs. Voters have to critically examine the promises of all contesting politicians in the light of good governance and the expected dividends of democracy. Unfortunately, the dominant narrative in our country is where the bidders are projected as having the sole responsibility to deliver good governance, while the people, the voters, just sit back and do nothing.
I think that the politician and the voter must remain mindful of this contractual relationship. It is not right for the voter as seller to simply sit back and relax; s/he must continue to play an active part in the political process by doing all he/she should as a voter to see that his interests are represented well through good governance. Even if a politician fails the voter by not redeeming his pledges during the first time, should the voter allow himself to be deceived a second time when the politician comes back to bid for votes for a possible second term? Such a time is a good payback time, I suppose. As the Igbo people say, only a fool lets the same stick poke him oIn the same eye twice. The voter has enormous power.
When a state government, for instance, fulfils its electoral promises by installing some facilities in communities, the communities should look after the facilities against vandalisation. The protection of installed facilities or infrastructure is the responsibility of the community or the neighbourhood where the installation has been made. It is painful to see that electrical installations or hospital equipment or even roofs and windows of school blocks put in place by governments, which are dividends of democracy to a community, are neglected and sometimes left to be stolen under the watch of the community. This is not a good development at all; and communities are worse off for it. In order to prevent such backwardness, communities should protect their own dividends of democracy.
How many voters ever listen to budget announcements? In the budget, the government outlines the capital projects that are to be executed in communities or locations. But many voters are not interested in the activities of government. They just vote and turn their back on the system. The contracts are awarded to companies belonging to members of the communities. The people should show greater commitments and ensure that these awarded contracts are executed, since they are the ones to enjoy it. It doesn’t help anybody if these contractors receive money and refuse to carry out contracts as expected. Unfortunately, vandals are protected by the same community members who are supposed to be beneficiaries of projects.
The people should rise up and play their active roles in order for democracy to work. Voting is one of such important responsibility. But it doesn’t end there. They must continue to actively participate in the political process. This way the politicians and voters will, respectively, do their bits so that the political space as a market place will be beneficial to both voters and politicians who solicit for votes. It is this mutually beneficial and reinforcing relationship that can save us from the onslaught of election anxieties.
MacDonald Ebere holds a PhD in political philosophy and writes from Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.
From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
A Youth Advocate on grassroots advancement, Andrew Ochika has urged the newly elected chairman of Dekina Local Government Area in Kogi state, John Ura Ikani to key into Governor Usman Ododo’s development agenda.Ochika in an interview with Our Correspondent, said that the call has become necessary to boost accelerated development down to rural communities in Dekina Local Government Area.
Ochika, a member of Okoyi Community Youth Development, lamented lack of basic infrastructure in Dekina Local Government Area saying that the new Chairman has all it takes to deliver on his mandate and correct the anomaly. The Youth Advocate, who described the overwhelming victory of the Chairman in the just concluded council polls as well deserved, called on him to strive to justify the confidence reposed in him through the provision of democracy dividends to all communities in the local government area.According to him “the new Chairman, John Ura Ikani was a tested leader who performed excellently as Care-taker Chairman. I believe that now that he is elected as executive chairman, he has the capacity to deliver better than before”He urged the Chairman to sustain his tempo in grading of rural roads, provision of health facilities, rural electrification and drilling of bore-holes to ensure potable water supply in the area.He called on the people of the local government to cooperate with the Chairman in his efforts to uplift their living standards.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, National Chairman, Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appealed to political parties, candidates, and supporters to maintain peace during the governorship election in Ondo State.
Yakubu made the appeal while monitoring the 2024 Ondo State Mock Accreditation held on Wednesday across the three senatorial district of the state.
Report says that INEC is scheduled to conduct the Ondo State Governorship Election on Nov.
16, 2024, with 18 political parties to participate in the election.The INEC chairman, who said that the exercise was part of the commission’s preparation, said the maintenance of peace would enable the commission to conduct a free and fair election.
He also said that the mock accreditation was to further test the functionality of their system.
“In the last election, our machines performed optimally but we can not take that for granted.
“We will ensure that all the polling units open on time so that voters will not come and wait for INEC officials and materials.
“And we have tested the integrity of the machines, it is not the matter of early deployment, but also early accreditation.
“We are doing our best as an electoral commission and others should also do their best, particularly political parties and their candidates.
“I want to appeal to political parties, candidates and their supporters to ensure that they maintain the peace that will enable us to deploy and conclude the process in good time.
“And also to announce the candidate people of Ondo State are choosing as their governor on Saturday,” he said.
Earlier, Mr Usman Isiaka Taiwo, who was accredited at the Ijapo High School, Akure, Ward 4 Unit 41, applauded INEC for the conduct.
“There is no delay in the exercise, and I will come along with my family to cast our votes for the candidate of our choice,” he said.
Also, Mrs Adebimpe Bankole, who was accredited at Alagbaka Primary School, Akure, Ward 5 Unit 18, scored INEC 80 per cent for the mock exercise.
“I am satisfied with the process because I did not waste any time before I did my accreditation.
“I would have given them 100 per cent but I can’t, rather I will give them 80 per cent because they have done well.
“By Gods grace, I will come out on Saturday, Nov. 16 for the election proper to cast my vote,” she said.
The INEC national chairman visited Ijapo High School, Akure, Ward 4 Unit 41; and Alagbaka Primary School, Akure, Ward 5 Unit 18.
Ward 10 Unit 12 in Owena, and Ward 10, Unit 1, Aiyetoro/ Owena, Idanre Local Government Area in Ondo Central Senatorial District, were also visited.
Yakubu also visited two Local Government Area offices of the commission including Ile-Oluji/ Okeigbo in Ondo North Senatorial District. (NAN)
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the claim by Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, that he did not lose the election but stolen, was most comical.
Mr Felix Morka, the party’s National Publicity Secretary said this, in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to comments made by Abubakar on the outcome of the election.
Abubakar, also a former vice president, on his X handle, stated that he did not lose the 2023 presidential election, claiming the election was stolen from him.
Morka, in his reaction, described Abubakar as Africa’s most infamous presidential election loser, noting that since serving as vice-president, he had lost election to every elected president.
“Six times in the last 17 years, Nigerians have declared their verdict of untrust and lack of sportsmanship on Abubakar’s presidential candidacy, and roundly rejected him at the polls.
“Abubakar’s long record of electoral defeat was serially certified by Nigeria’s highest courts, sealing his rejection by the electorate with judicial and constitutional finality.
“However, a clearly unabashed Abubakar continues to lay a bogus claim that he did not lose the 2023 presidential election. That is beyond comical,” the APC spokesman said.
He said that this was so as the former vice president probably believed that he was cheated out of all previous five presidential elections that he also lost.
Morka added that Abubakar’s inability to come to terms with the reality of his rejection cuts an ominous portrait of extreme and disturbing political desperation.
He added that Nigeria’s intelligent and discerning electorate would not act against their best interest by electing Abubakar into office.
According to Morka, the former vice president is a central and recurrent player in some of our country’s most vile roll call of corruption scandals perpetrated by the PDP administrations.
“He was the vice president in the government that created crooked and viscerally corrupt petrol subsidy hydra-headed dragon that has crippled our country’s economy,
“And laid the foundation for the endemic corruption and inefficiency that have undermined our power sector through the years.
“His desperation to be president can only be understood in the context of his determination to complete the full subversion of Nigeria’s economic life from where he left off as vice president.
“Nigerians will not entrust their country to someone who puts his selfish interest, and the interest of his cronies over and above the national interest,” Morka said.
He added that having demystified himself with his recent release of what he would have done differently if he was the president, showed that he had nothing to offer Nigerians.
Morka added that from Abubakar’s release, it was obvious that all he would had offered was his stale, tired, tested and failed economic ideas that were at polar relevance to the current existential economic challenges facing the country.
He added that the former vice president had a chance to execute whatever economic ideas he may have ever had, but failed to do so.
He further added that as vice president, Abubakar also failed to get his party, the PDP, to do so in all of its 16 years government.
“Abubakar thinks himself capable of fixing Nigeria but cannot fix the rot and hopeless dysfunction in his PDP,” the APC spokesman said.
He urged Nigerians to be steadfast in support of the APC-administration of President Bola Tinubu and valiant efforts to restore vitality to our economy for the good of all Nigerians.(NAN)
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