The Vice Presidential candidates’ debate organised by the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) over the weekend has generated a lot of social media discourse. On the whole, the analysis has been on the individual performances and slips by the five candidates determined by which political party most of the analysts are supporting.
Very few of the comments truly address the basic issues that were lacking by the candidates performances. Granted that ultimately the buck stops at the President’s table when elected, however, we also know that when the president travels as they often do or dies in office as is natural for all mortals to die at some point, the Vice President normally is expected to serve out the remaining term as President and this could happen as soon as nature calls. It could be after inauguration or might never happen; but then the Vice President must be actively involved in governance.
So, the puerile arguments of some people that criticisms of the candidates’ performances are too harsh as they were not Presidential candidates are a pointer to why the nation has been crawling since 1960. The bar is always lowered because the citizens who should make demands on competence, cerebral capacity and professionalism are too quick to give excuses and protect candidates probably because of very personal pecuniary interests.
There lies the reason just anyone jumps out for political offices in Nigeria. They realise that the citizens would always give them free pass no matter how ill-equipped or incompetent they are for either an executive or legislative position at all tiers of government. With these excuses often based on either ethnic, religious or regional affiliations rather than strong visible and professional and private accomplishments.
Without prejudice to any of the Vice Presidential candidates at the debate, there were clear flaws that neutral observers at even a global level observed.
The current Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, had the regular eloquence he had exhibited since his public service debut in Lagos state. However, he did not effectively convince on the roadmap from 2019 if his APC party wins the election. Reeling out the government’s pre-election performance is good enough but an insight into the plans to improve an ailing economy would have been admirable.
The candidate of the opposition PDP, Mr. Peter Obi, seemed too fixated on the Chinese model that he sounded like he was asked about the Chinese economy rather than what his party intends to do for the Nigerian economy. No two countries can model development on the same pedestals given political, social and economic variables. It is good to draw inspiration from the Chinese or any country for that matter but it should not be to a distractive level.
The candidate of the ACPN, Ganiyu Galadima left the podium without any memorable sentence for listeners around the world. He was very inarticulate and appeared very combative. Many are surprised that an Oby Ezekwesili could pick him as a Vice.
The two women that squared up with the three men on the debate failed to touch the core issues plaguing the country which, truth be told, are largely domiciled in the Northern region. Umma Getso of YPP performed slightly better than Khadijah Abdulahi-Iya of ANN but spent ample time mentioning her Presidential candidate Kingsley Moghalu as though he would do all the jobs alone.
Coming from a region with the highest number of out of school children, highest poverty index, highest girl-child illiteracy, highest child/maternal mortality, IDPs, child marriages and other sundry developmental problems, it was disappointing to see them say everything but never shown much light on the above sore areas as women and how they can help if elected.
It might be convenient to argue that they were not to focus on regional problems but that would be crass hypocrisy, they were chosen because of their region and gender. Nothing wrong in displaying awareness on the current problems which World organisations keep releasing funds for and statistics about. Charity ought to start from home even in the political turf.
The lack of proper statistics by both Mr. Obi and the Prof. Osinbajo is a further blight on the country’s lack of seriousness in data collection and statistically accurate date on any sector. They both bandied figures, inaccurate as they were, because they understand their environment –accuracy it seems, never matters.
Some of the candidates read from prepared papers or tablets as evidence of what is tolerable in the political environment. Authenticity of thoughts never really matters. Politicians are allowed to get away with reading written speeches at every stop. More like formalities rather than deliberate efforts to display depth.
The stuttering over questions on foreign policy by the candidates more than anything gave out why Nigeria is seen in the international community as a country without very admirable foreign policy trust. The moderator tried in vain to break down the expectations but, yet, most of the candidates flopped trying to articulate a sentence on foreign policy.
If the Vice Presidential candidates’ debate gave out anything, it is that politicians from the council level to the Presidency take too much for granted about leadership, governance and vision for the country because it is almost a socio-political conditioning in the psyche of the people that power should be accessed just for its own sake. Can there be much difference in 2019?
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