If Nigerians are to be spared the fulfilment of the damning predictions of many observers about Nigeria as a country in turmoil, come next month’s general elections, the halfway point in US President Barack Obama’s two terms is significant, as it offers Nigerian politicians a deep lesson not just on how power is won and used, but also how it is accounted for. The basic lesson in seeking power is decorum, and the commitment to using the power to fulfill campaign promises. Amidst the unnerving security situation from the Boko Haram insurgency, the campaigns by the two main political parties and their presidential candidates, have unfortunately been so glaringly bereft of concrete ideas and vision; generally lacking in depth of thinking as to provide answers to urgent national questions. Rather, the unfolding campaigns have been rife with personal attacks, distractions, banal aspersions, accusations and mudslinging; which shows Nigerian politicians are just preparing for another power grab.
The country is entering an epoch with an admixture of caution and apprehension as the February 14 elections have the potential of determining the future direction of the nation in many respects. While the PDP and its ardent supporters paint a picture of good governance, stability and prosperity as well as a successful ongoing national transformation, the opposition APC sees leadership ineptitude and even abdication, heightened insecurity, monumental corruption and an ever worsening economic fortune for the majority of Nigerians, who have witnessed the steady degradation of social infrastructure, decline in education, health, agricultural and industrial sectors, epileptic power supply, as well as impunity that now appear to have taken on the character of statecraft.
Against the jostle by politicians ahead of the general elections, the concern is whether politicians will use the current campaigns to promote the interests of Nigerians rather than the narrow ambitions of cliques and cabals. Although in politics, fair is foul and foul is fair, the point must however be made that the two main parties have largely ignored the burning issues of the day. Nigerians are still waiting for the PDP and APC to outline their visions for the country; and the strategies to achieve it. In vain they have waited to hear each presidential candidate and their solutions to the myriad of problems confronting the country. It is not enough to promise jobs, improve power, agriculture, raise education standards, or end the insurgency. These are empty hackneyed promises that have lost credibility with voters.
There is something Nigerians can emulate from Obama and American voters. Obama contested the American Presidency as a one-term Senator. The rank and file of the Democratic Party gave him their mandate through the primary process. This internal party democracy contrasts with the “godfather” politics in which decisions are reached by a small group of party elders and imposed on the people. Obama made concrete promises anchored on very clear policy platforms. These were not vague promises of roads, free healthcare and jobs, which are never backed by concrete ideas about how to actualize. Obama’s campaign focused on key issues such as universal healthcare, immigration reform and withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in his first term. These entailed detailed planning, including policy design, institutional innovations, elaboration and implementation.
It is a tragedy that neither incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan nor his principal challenger, General Muhammadu Buhari have presented any vision, let alone a strategy to achieve greatness for the nation. The results, three weeks to the election, is that Nigerians have little or nothing concrete to choose from by way of ideas in the two sides. The country is at the mercy of terrorists, yet the incumbent president, did not even address the insurgency directly but merely glossed over it when he launched his campaign. Buhari has at the best, only made woolly statements about his commitment to improve the dangerously worsening insecurity situation.
President Obama inherited a deep economic crisis, occasioned by structural factors and errant policies such as lax regulation of the financial system. He worked relentlessly to restore America’s economic health, growing grey hairs in the process. Even some of his harshest critics admit without the stimulus package which he initiated largely in the face of opposition by Republicans, America’s economy would have suffered from a much deeper and longer slowdown. By election night, Obama had hauled the American economy on steroids, far away from the emergency room.
Nigeria’s poor economic performance and pervasive poverty call for rigorous policy plans from the presidential contenders. Section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 constitution states unequivocally that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” Broadly speaking, the “welfare of the people” covers the gamut of socio-economic and political issues, that define the quality of life of the citizens; including education, health, housing, jobs and security of lives and property. A high point in the social deficit in Nigeria today is the state of national security, with the territorial integrity being violated, as sections of the country are now under the control of insurgents who unleash terror, killing, maiming and abducting hundreds of helpless victims with impunity. The Chibok caper of April 2014 and the fate of over 200 schoolgirl abductees have become an embarrassing metaphor for the incapacity of the present government to provide security as a basic ingredient of national governance. It is an ominous statement of weakness that has contributed to rendering national security, unity and stability more tenuous.
Jonathan and Buhari must be told that the generality of Nigerians are not only witnessing a worsening economic, social and security situation; as a people they are perhaps more divided today than ever before along ethnic, regional and religious lines. The ever declining economic fortunes have in recent weeks been worsened by the sudden devaluation of the Naira which has increased inflation, and the plummeting of crude oil prices, which presents serious challenges for the nation’s economy.
President Obama cobbled together a majority from minorities to build a winning coalition that coalesced around his vision of America anchored on hope and change. If we are to cross the 2015 threshold safely and begin to realize our full potential as a nation of immense endowments, Nigerians must abandon primordial sentiments and squarely face the task of building a modern democratic society with people of diverse ethnic origins and religious persuasions. Nigerians must embrace politics of principles and issues and cast out the demons of ethnic antipathy and rancor, political acrimony, religious bigotry, primitive accumulation, mediocrity, cronyism, and all the other negative forces that have held the nation hostage for so long and now threaten to consume it.
Obama hit the ground running from the podium in which he was inaugurated, having identified policy priorities in very clear terms. Nigerians should not accept lamentations or excuses about how bad things are, and how they will take forever to resolve. Nigerians deserve and should demand much better.
