The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has sounded the gong indicating that electioneering campaigns can begin. Even before the election manager did so the supporters’ groups were already on the streets campaigning illegally. But it is not easy to determine the specifics of a campaign. If a supporters’ group mentions the achievements of a serving candidate or gives his character profile is he campaigning? Yes, he is but we know that Nigerians had been waiting for this season, the carnival season, the season for distributing rice and wrappers aka stomach infrastructure. So their sins can be forgiven for jumping the gun.
A few days ago, the chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu spoke extensively at a Realnews event in Lagos on the preparedness of INEC to conduct free, fair and credible elections in 2019. The presentation was detailed, thorough and sounded credible. So it is obvious that INEC is ready. But how ready are the rest of the potential participants to deliver credible polls. INEC may be ready but its success depends on several other dramatis personae: politicians, security personnel, INEC permanent and ad hoc staff, party officials, voters and journalists. Each person must do his job in a fair manner if we are to achieve the goal of credible polls.
Before now we have had a foretaste of the nastiness of the political behaviour that we had experienced in the past. Politicians in some states were denied space for the planting of billboards by governmental authorities under one pretext or another. They even found it necessary to quote some dubious building bye laws and such other crapy rules so as to hide their dishonesty in denying opponents the space to erect their billboards. Such fellows who took those decisions look very cheap and silly when you step back and look at it. Billboards are to me not a definite instrument for campaign rhetoric because they merely make a candidate announcement with a photograph and a few words. Passerby see them fleetingly and go their way.
I have no idea whether any one has ever voted for a candidate because of what he saw on a billboard. Until there is an empirical evidence of its potency I will hold on to the view that it is futile to fight over billboard placement. Some thugs have a problem with the billboards of their candidate’s opponents. They don’t want them to be seen so they deface them by pouring ink or paint on the faces of those candidates. This is primitive behaviour. If the thugs want their photographs to be seen by the public why don’t they simply plant their own billboards on the road instead of destroying other person’s own. They may wish to know that such criminal defacement is a punishable offence because the billboard is someone’s property.
Now that the campaigns have begun we need to appeal to all politicians and government officials to keep their bad manners in check. Recently, an aspirant for the presidency on the platform of the PDP, Alhaji Kwankwaso was denied the use of the Eagle Square for his campaign. There were excuses and explanations galore. At the end of the day, he was not able to use the venue simply because he is an opposition politician. Actions like this make us all look cheap. It happened in 2015 when President Goodluck Jonathan wanted to use a stadium in Rivers State for his campaign.
The Rivers State Government denied him the use of that stadium. The excuse given was that the stadium was undergoing some repairs. The President’s security official forced open the stadium and lo and behold no repair work was going on. The place was fit for use and it was used. The Rivers State government looked diminished by its small mindedness. Public places belong to the public. That public comprises government, ruling party and opposition officials as well as ordinary citizens since they were erected with public funds. So gentlemen, no hanky-panky please.
Some of the politicians have already launched their campaigns on social media. The aim is to be able to reach many of our youths directly since that is the main medium that most of them are addicted to. That is fine but we also expect them to engage people on the mainstream media where some serious conversation can take place, where questions can be asked, answers given and follow-up questions also raised. Of course the 2019 elections are very important because of the serious unresolved issues of our polity. These issues such as security, economy, corruption, unemployment and restructuring must be put on the front burner. We must be able to pepper the politicians with questions on these issues so as to be able to determine their capacity in solving these problems.
Most voters, I believe, are not interested in knowing whose grandmother was a witch and whose father was a kidnapper. Even if they are true, they are mainly what can be called vulgar abuse. Most serious minded people expect an issues only campaign but knowing politicians particularly the desperate ones we may be expecting the moon. But the non-publication or rebroadcast of frivolous statements by different media can be a sobering check on those of them who want to get down to the gutter for their campaign materials.
But of course no one can debar politicians from discussing the character of their opponents if there are elements of a criminal nature that may assist the potential voter in determining if such persons are fit and proper persons for public office. But in this era of possible media manipulation and technological abracadabra every voter must watch the kind of information he exposes himself to and believes. There is quite a flood of fake news all over the place and the social media denizens are striving very strenuously to make us believe even the strangest stories that they are inflicting on us.
This season is obviously going to be quite entertaining especially for those who are able to attend the rallies of various parties. The atmosphere at most of the venues is always carnival-like, with gaily dressed men and women singing and dancing. The bands play, the musicians sing, the comedians entertain, hawkers do brisk business and the young men and women gyrate to the pulsating sound coming out of the bandstand or the DJ’s music machine. In the midst of all these, we expect the politicians to get down to serious business by telling us how they will solve the problems that stare us in the face and make our lives better. It will not be enough to just chant some party slogans and lift someone’s hand as the the person to vote for.
That will not suffice because that will not tell anyone why the fellow whose hand was lifted should be voted for. Those who are not able to go to campaign venues can listen to the jingles on radio and the commercials on television or read the advertorials in the newspapers. We need to seek information from as many credible sources as possible if we want to vote wisely. Keep a record of what the politicians are promising if you can so that if they win you can flash their promises in their faces and ask for fulfillment. You may remember that some of them have been denying some of the promises they made in 2015. Politicians get intoxicated when they see a large crowd, rented or real. They are tempted to promise people the moon with their names on it.
They do not know that in due time those promises will come back to bite them when they win. Public deception is a favourite ploy of politicians at moments of campaigns and elections especially in Nigeria. Maybe the politicians do not expect us to believe them and are possibly surprised that we believe them. Whatever their tricks are we must be honest enough to tell them that we expect honesty from them, that we expect them to level with us in what they say. It is we who have to hold our politicians to account. That must be our contribution to making our politicians accountable and our country better. If we allow them to get away with their false promises then we deserve the fate that they unleash on us.
One of the despicable features of our campaigns and elections is violence. People get killed at campaign or voting venues by either security officials or thugs who work for candidates. If any politician wants to send you on such an errand, decline. The little money they give you cannot save you from criminal prosecution if you are arrested. If the politician thinks that killing political opponents is an acceptable way of life why doesn’t he assign his own children to do the job? He won’t because he knows it is bad business. Remember that when violence rears its ugly head during the campaigns it does not really stop when the elections are lost and won.
The reason it doesn’t stop is that violence begets violence. Reprisals occur long after the votes have been tallied and results announced. Don’t let politicians teach you that violence pays because it doesn’t. Tell them that that is a fool’s errand that decent people must not get involved with. If you are able to pluck up courage and reject his filthy lucre you would have made a significant contribution to a violence-free election. That way we can jointly debunk the view of elections as a do-or-die affair. There is no election worth dying for or worth killing for. So resist the temptation to die or kill for anybody because you will have no opportunity to regret your action. So let the gong sounded by INEC be the call to responsible campaigning and not a bell that tolls for the dead.
In several other spheres many Nigerians have lost their lives in circumstances that they shouldn’t. We do not need to add to the diary of disaster from our campaign venues. No.
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