With the official lifting of the ban on open campaigning, almost every nook and cranny of the country is getting the much-touted democracy dividends that over the years had remained elusive. Areas whose representatives and leaders hardly visited or experienced any form of development are now being compensated with various forms of posters, billboards and advertisements. Party meetings where N200 or less and cups of garri or rice are shared are also being held more frequently.
The one I find more interesting is seeing politicians putting on traditional attires of other tribes. Yoruba politicians are donning Igbo dresses while those of other groups are also looking resplendent in Yoruba dresses too. Must they only do this during elections? What is wrong if President Muhammadu Buhari puts on Igbo, Yoruba or Niger Delta designs at a public function? Who says after the election, a governor or senator, as the case may be, cannot put on dresses of other ethnic groups from time to time. These little things we think are only fit for the camera during elections can go a long way to bringing about the much needed fraternity or bond currently lacking in the country. My poser for them is: if you can wear this during campaigns why not after?
Posters have taken every available space on fences, walls and any place where they can be pasted, including trees and electricity poles. And like somebody said recently, posters are getting to areas that politicians do not even know exist.
In Lagos, the agency responsible for regulating advertisement, the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) is embroiled in some kind of controversy of sorts. Reports have it that the agency had been pulling down posters of Mr. Jimi Agbaje, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the state.
Agbaje, penultimate Saturday, had petitioned the Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, over vandalism of his campaign posters and boards. The agency on its part said the PDP candidate failed to comply with regulatory procedure. They claimed that he failed to seek the necessary approval for pasting his posters.
Mr. Mobolaji Sanusi, General Manager of LASAA, gave the clarification at a security/stakeholders meeting with INEC, candidates and political parties with the Commissioner of Police. Sanusi said unlike his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress (APC), the PDP candidate did not get authorisation before mounting the billboards and pasting the posters, especially on Lagos Island.
“There are rules and regulations guiding the pasting of bills and posters in Lagos State which must be strictly adhered to,” he said.
Sanusi stated that the agency, on weekly basis, cleans up to remove any poster or billboards mounted illegally across the state.
Modupe Ogunbayo, director media, publicity/spokesperson of Jimi Agbaje campaign organisation, however, in a press statement said, “This is another ugly development from the stranglehold of tyrannical rule which the PDP and, by extension, peace-loving Lagosians are being subjected to almost on daily basis.
“In the history of electioneering in Nigeria totally and Lagos State specifically, it is never the norm that politicians must pay, and obtain permits, before pasting print campaign posters.”
LASAA had in the past aggressively engaged in ridding the environment of all kinds of posters, many of which are placed by churches and fraudulent employment agencies as well as all manners of printed materials. That decision was widely received and the state was better for it.
But it is sad that whenever it is time for elections and campaigns, that exercise is relaxed. Posters are pasted with reckless abandon. Can there not be a more decent manner of doing this rather than what we have now?
Why is the law usually relaxed during electioneering? Is it a way of saying that, indeed, some animals are more equal than the others? What we have now certainly cannot be the best for the city. Politicians can afford it and so they should do better; they should be made to do something more presentable and would not deface the environment.
It is not the worry of this column to dwell on the war of words between Agbaje and LASAA officials, but it is hard to believe that of all the candidates whose posters are everywhere in Lagos, it is only Agbaje that did not comply with the rules. Whereas, one is not holding brief for him, it will be of interest to know what efforts the agency made to reach out to him before pulling down his posters.
The danger in taking actions as this is that it sends the wrong signals across; it suggests that the ruling party is only doing that to stifle opposition. We can’t be playing this kind of politics today. A much more circumspect LASAA would have anticipated the backlash such an action would attract to it. It should have ensured that it exhausted all available channels opened to it to resolving this before going on the streets to pull down the posters of the opposition party.
One of the sad realities of the politics of today is that our institutions are playing politics with political parties; which should not be. Until we begin to build institutions that are run independently and professionally, we will continue to have a situation where our institutions including our courts would end up as political arm of the ruling party.
Politicians would come and go but these institutions would still be there. There is need to address this sad reality and embrace the much more enduring act of building strong institutions as opposed to strong and powerful individuals. The consequences of the latter option would be too dire for us as a people in a pluralistic society like Nigeria.
END
Be the first to comment