If Nigerians are to be spared the fulfilment of the damning predictions of many observers about Nigeria as a country tottering on the verge of implosion, come the 2023 general elections, the recent victory of Joe Biden who defeated former President Donald Trump in the US presidential election 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 as Biden demonstrated barely 24 hours after his inauguration is the commitment to using the power to fulfill campaign promises. Amidst the unnerving security situation and a coronavirus pandemic staging a comeback with a vengeance; and over two years until the next presidential election, campaigns for the presidency by the two main political parties and their presidential aspirants have already begun, although by proxy. Unfortunately neither pretenders nor contenders for the throne have even bothered to elaborate any concrete ideas and vision for the country; as to provide answers to urgent national questions. Rather, the unfolding campaigns have been rife with distractions; horse-trading and political positioning and realignment between northerners and southerners; which shows Nigerian politicians are just jostling and preparing for another power grab.
Although the political system is meant to work in a way that power rotates between the north and the south, implying that Buhari should be succeeded by a southerner; the question of whether the next APC presidential candidate looks far from resolved, given the emergence of three different camps: Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El Rufai, and Rotimi Amaechi, Transport Minister are on a collision course with Bola Tinubu, APC national leader and deposed APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. There is Kebbi State Governor Atiku Bagudu, and his Ekiti counterpart, Kayode Fayemi, who doubles as chair of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum. To which can be added, Works Minister, Babatunde Fashola and former House speaker Aminu Tambuwal. For now, they are discreet about their ambitions but all have their eyes on the succession in 2023. From PDP, you can add former vice-president Atiku Abubakar, former Gombe Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, Nyesom Wike, Peter Obi and others.
Against the jostle by politicians ahead of 2023, the concern is whether they are seeking power 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 since 2015, the two main parties have largely ignored the burning issues of the day. Nigerians are still waiting for the APC and PDP to outline their visions for the country; and the strategies to achieve it. In vain they have waited since 2015 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 Biden and American voters. Biden contested the American Presidency after serving eight years as vice-president with a clear mission: to restore the soul of America from the racist and xenophobic ravages of Trump. 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 cabal of party elders and imposed on the people. Also, Biden 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. Biden’s campaign focused on key issues such as defeating the coronavirus, expanding universal healthcare, immigration reform, rebuilding the middle class and raising the minimum wage in his first term. These entailed detailed planning, including policy design, institutional innovations, elaboration and implementation.
It is a tragedy that these pretenders to the throne in 2023 did not even think it was necessary to present any vision, let alone a strategy to achieve greatness for Nigeria. The result is that as the public gets bamboozled with billboards which erupt sporadically in cities across the nation in support of different tickets, Nigerians have little or nothing concrete to choose from by way of which ideas will lead Nigeria to greatness. The country is at the mercy of terrorists, yet none of these pretenders have unveiled any plans to address the insecurity directly, besides criticizing Buhari and making woolly statements about their commitment to improve the dangerously worsening insecurity situation.
President Biden has inherited a deep economic crisis, occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic and errant Trump policies such as tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the financial system. He is seeking a huge stimulus package which he initiated largely in the face of opposition by Republicans, without which America’s economy would suffer from a much deeper and longer economic slowdown. By inauguration day, Biden’s policy proposals 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 kidnapping of school children from their dormitories 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 unity and stability more tenuous.
President Biden cobbled together a majority from minorities to build a winning coalition that coalesced around his vision of America anchored on building the country back better. If we are to cross the 2023 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.
The country is virtually sleep-walking into an epoch with an admixture of caution and apprehension as the 2023 elections have the potential to make or mar the future direction of the nation in many respects. While the ruling APC and its ardent supporters paint a picture of good governance, stability and prosperity as well as a successful ongoing national transformation, the main opposition PDP 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. Biden 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 from their leaders.
