Politicians like to make forecasts that catch the headlines. Top chieftains of the ruling All Progressives Congress have been making their own of late. The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, said recently that his political party would rule Nigeria for more than 16 years. There are other headline statements he has made of late too, including that one on why Nigeria should produce COVID-19 vaccine. But the party’s interim national chairman, Mai Mala Buni, has been making more colourful forecasts of his own. He reportedly said his party would remain in power for 10 consecutive terms, an equivalent of 40 years. There’s nothing bad in politicians fortune-telling. Here though I remind them of those who once predicted six decades as the period their political party would remain in power, and how their prediction wasn’t fulfilled.
Whoever has been among politicians know what grand public comments mean to them. Such comments are what their followers feed on. Followers are excited, encouraged, full of confidence that the top hierarchy that makes the promise will deliver; they are able to deliver because they have the needed resources at their disposal. They are in a position to influence the uses to which state machinery of force is deployed, especially in rigging election, Nigerian style. Are supporters of the ruling party excited and encouraged hearing those colourfully grand comments from the Senate president and the party’s chairman? I’m sure they are, and of course they have the right to be.
But in their excitement, both political party chieftains and their followers shouldn’t forget that there are compulsorily a few indices which ensure a party continues to be the popular choice of the people. They shouldn’t forget also that doing all things right for the electorate isn’t a guarantee that voters would sustain a party in power, and this even in climes where elections are not blatantly rigged and sit-tight leaders don’t muscle out everyone else in order to remain in office. For things happen, and as they say in politics, even one week is too long a time for voters to switch from one side to the other, voting the party in power out. For instance, just one ugly incident was enough, like the American hostages taken in Iran, to contribute significantly to how a former US president, Jimmy Carter, failed to win a second term. Even in Africa’s imperfect situation, we may still assume a perfect condition, one in which a ruling political party does everything right, takes care of the welfare of the people, the economy is on the upward swing, unemployment is at its lowest ever, and in consequence the electorate willingly reward the party in power with their votes. This hardly happens though. Nonetheless, parties confidently forecast that they will rule forever.
According to Buni, his party wants to go beyond 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and even 10th terms of office. He said so much more that are up for interrogation here. For it’s one thing for politicians to make colourful comments that excite party members, it’s for independent observers to dissect what they say. This is important because sometimes politicians promise what they neither aren’t configured nor even have the political will to deliver. Moreover, their forecasts may raise false expectations and may even influence anti-democratic behaviour on the part of their followers before, during, and after election. Meanwhile, both in Nigeria and across the African continent, and as the history of other previous political parties have proved, they hardly engage in any concerted efforts that can make them remain relevant to the electorates for the length of time they forecast that they will remain in power.
In a situation where there’s free and fair election, and a political party does the best for the citizens, there’s a high propensity for the electorate to retain the same party in power. Then, why is it that political parties in Nigeria and across the continent tend to not conduct their affairs in line with this hypothesis, if not theory? Instead, what we see is the disposition of political parties to rig their way into power and remain there, often by expending state resources either to falsify results or muscle out the opposition. In fact, most political party machineries across the continent are configured to ensure the success of their backdoor strategy of stealing election, rather than win the hearts of the electorates. They have the opportunity to perform well and win fairly. But parties put more machineries in place purposely to circumvent the electoral process, more than they put in place machinery which can ensure parties do their best for the people and be rewarded with votes.
To me, one reason for this is lack of vision. In my journeys as a journalist, I’ve sat opposite politicians and asked why they wanted political offices. The response has been what one can imagine it would be, particularly in Nigeria. Others participate in politics and they feel they should also join. No vision. No identification of what is wrong which they would like to get to power and fix. It’s best imagined when such bodies of people come together in a party how they will go about the business of running the affairs of government, and of their political party. Of course, they will run government and party without a vision, at least not a vision which they really believe in. In the event, the political party they form gropes in the dark, not having a sense of exactly what it wants to do with power it controls.
There’s as well a lack of commitment to party. Politicians join and opt out based on their calculation of their political fortunes. When politicians move in such a manner, it means they don’t have some basic ideas, or principles that inform their political orientation. So, all manner of people gather under one party and end up walking in different directions. Is it possible the foregoing are some of the reasons, Nigeria has the human capital to do so many good things but we are not doing them? For instance, the other day the Senate President was saying the nation should produce its own covid-19 vaccine. But he seems to me to be the only party member who speaks on this with any conviction. Other party officials look on, and the party appointees are just contended to be allocated funds by the National Assembly to pay for the importation of vaccine.
The other time, a government appointee in a TV interview eagerly praised a COVID-19 vaccine made in the US. He’s one of the brains that could help Nigeria make vaccines. Instead, he was talking freely about a vaccine that other nations made. In a nation like China where the ruling political party has a sense of mission, no government appointee would confidently do that. Such would be sacked because they haven’t been able to come up with a solution that could place rivalry-minded China among nations that help the world overcome a major problem. We know the push to getting government appointees to work towards achieving what would make a nation proud is the strong will of a ruling party to accomplish identified national vision. Again, along this line, we see the Chinese ruling party ever setting the agenda, and driving government appointees to implement the agenda.
It’s been difficult to see political parties in Nigeria that drive the affairs of the nation based on an overall strategy or vision. They all talk about manifesto, but as we can see not many of the governments at the various levels implement them. It’s one reason we have the mess we have in some of the states, one reason we can’t produce COVID-19 vaccine that we easily should if the political will is there. What has been stated earlier is core to having a party that will stay in power for long in Nigeria after emerging from a free and fair election. If by forecasting that they will stay in power for decades, political parties of whatever colour in Nigeria mean they will perform so well that Nigerian electorates will reward them with their votes, then I understand what they mean and I wish them luck. If it’s not what they mean, then I don’t.
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