How Nigerians can start voting true leaders into power

Nigerians love good things by nature. To love good things is deeply implanted in the Nigerian DNA. Nigerians love good countries, good leaders, good system, good society, good government and good life. Sadly, many Nigerians refuse to take cognizance of the fact that loving good things doesn’t mean you will always get what you love without working for it. If wishes were horses, every beggar will proudly own one to ride around town.

It’s easy to see by careful observation of Nigerians the misalignment between what Nigerians want and what they do daily. Nigeria can therefore rightly be said to be a country of more talkers and less doers. That’s probably the number one reason why the country hasn’t changed.

Nigeria is also a big country of critics without conscience. That’s also possibly number one reason why the country may never change.

Every day, Nigerians are on fire on the social media, attacking politicians, abusing the leaders, insulting the system and furiously attacking one another for holding different opinions about the country, her leaders and their policies. Most Nigerians are always frantically looking for role model politicians/leaders even though they themselves are not good citizens role model of integrity, honesty, patriotism, accountability, excellence, service, leadership, compassion and empathy in their homes, communities, offices, religious houses and in the society.

“Why do we keep electing thieves and having bad leaders?” Many Nigerians ask without ever creating time to ponder deeply to find answers to these rhetorics. The readiness to blame INEC and the Judiciary has blinded many Nigerians to the truth. Yet, until we agree to see the real reasons behind our dilemma, we will remain frustrated and hopeless.

When I hear Nigerians call their lawmakers ‘Legislooters’, I laugh loud in Chinese. I laugh because I see so much hypocrisy and ignorance on display when I hear Nigerians lampooning their politicians. They forget that a people will always lay down on their bed exactly the way they laid it.

Why do we keep producing Legislooters, ‘Governorlooters’, and ‘politicianlooters’ in Nigeria instead of genuine nation builders? The answer is not far fetched. Our electoral culture (not system) is designed to celebrate big things instead of best things. Big does not necessarily mean best and the best come in small packages most of the time.

Culturally as a people, Nigerians love big things. One of our musicians who reflect our addiction to big things as a people even sang “Big big things ni Mo like”. The song went viral because the musician was simply saying on our behalf what we always say in our minds.

In the spirit of our big, big things mania, most Nigerians will never look in the direction of a good but small political party unless a big politician crosses over to that party. We find it hard to appreciate an excellent candidate that can’t scale our popularity and visibility mindset’s yardstick. We will never find a clean, smart and passionate candidate worthy of our support unless they can show us they have the big money or big backers to run their campaign. This is the true picture of the political culture of majority of Nigerians. It’s is this culture that created and is helping to sustain the bad political system that we always hypocritically feign to loath.

This bad socio – political culture has systematically turned us into a people that has no patience, aptitude or penchant to grow good things. We only love to join what others have grown. Though it sounds harsh, the truth is that nothing good grows in our hands because we are too impatient to clear our social, political and economic bushes, plough the fallow ground, plant on them, weed them, water them and patiently wait for harvest. Nothing good grows in our hands because we hate process but are enamoured by good harvests.

Why do we keep producing Legislooters, ‘Governorlooters’, and ‘politicianlooters’ in Nigeria? Why do we keep recycling leaders who either do not understand the purpose of leadership or are unable to serve us well after getting elected?
The following are some of the reasons I discovered by experience:

1). Our elections are too expensive. Good candidates get drowned in the process.

2). The electorates allow the candidates to carry the financial burdens alone. They don’t understand their roles and importance in getting good candidates elected.

3). The political parties are not strong structurally to carry a good candidate that is not loaded financially. The big ones expect the candidate to pay big fees for the forms, carry the convention and shoulder the campaign expenditure alone or largely. Whoever gets elected comes as a debtor to vested interests instead of as Representatives of the electorates.They come into office with huge financial burdens weighing heavily on their minds and instead of rolling up their sleeves to work, they are busy scanning the system for opportunities to get their refund.

4). The culture of supporting the best candidates in every good way possible to win election is still at its infancy level in Nigeria. Consequently, many of the voters want to cash out before or on the election date. Only candidates that can dole out the cash and gifts get elected.

Good leaders emerge more easily when the electorates carry their candidate. Imagine how sweet it will be for 10 million Nigerians to contribute N1,000 (one thousand naira) to support the most ideal candidate? By doing so, they will easily produce the best President, governors, senators, Honourables, Council Chairmen and Councillors that will work for them every day and night.

Nigeria’s expensive elections is not due to lack of regulation. The Nigerian electoral law didn’t expect our elections to be too expensive. It regulated the amount any contestant must spend.

Section 88 of the 2022 Electoral Act places limitation of election expenses on candidates. Sub (2) says the maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall not exceed N5bn . The amount used to be N1bn; (3) The maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred by a candidate in respect of governorship election shall not exceed N1bn. The limit was N200m before; (4) The maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred by a candidate in respect of senatorial and House of Representatives seats shall not exceed N100m and N70m respectively. It used to be N40m and N20m respectively before the amendment; (5) In the case of State Assembly election, the maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred by a candidate shall not exceed N30m. This used to be N10m.

Subsection (6) says “In the case of a chairmanship election to an Area Council, the maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred by a candidate shall not exceed N30m. This used to be N10m) sub. (7) says in the case of Councillorship election to an Area Council, the maximum amount of election expenses to be incurred by a candidate shall not exceed N5m. It was N1m before and subsection (8) says no individual or other entity shall donate to a candidate more than N50m. (Formerly N1m).

Our political culture rubbishes this law and makes a mockery of it in real life. Though the law capped the campaign spending for a Presidential candidate at 5 billion naira, no one can win a Presidential election in Nigeria with anything less than 100 billion naira. It will be hard for any governorship candidate to stay within the approval limit and win.

For the National Assembly election for example, the law says a candidate for Senate must not exceed 100 million naira in expenditure. But that is on paper our monetized political culture pushes candidates who have the warchest to go overboard. In 2019 when I first ran for Senate in FCT representing the dynamic Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), I spent about 60 million naira (clean hard earned money and small financial support from vetted friends and families to campaign round FCT. I came 6th even though every one that heard me said I was the best man for the job. This confirms that the 150 million naira cap was okay in a normal setting where the voters are not for sale. The political culture of come and mobilise us, plus other expectations from the masses are the reason for the huge monies candidates spend.

Whereas I painfully spent 60 million naira from picking nomination form to paying the polling unit officers, the candidate of the party that came first was alleged to have spent around 1.3 billion naira in total. The candidate that came second was rumoured to have spent around 1.1 billion naira.

Just ponder on these figures and do the maths. Will a man or woman who doesn’t fear God not become a Legislooters after winning? How do you expect your representative at the Senate to focus on you and settle down fully to serve you sincerely when he has over 1 billion naira with interest to recover? The same goes for all the other positions.

If we want our elected leaders to serve us sincerely, we will have to review our political culture and reform them by first reforming ourselves as citizens.

We can individually reform ourselves by making the following decisions personally:

1). I will be a good citizen and will show more interest in the political system of my country.
2). I will register to vote and be familiar with my poling unit before every election.
3). I will join a political party in my ward and become an active member at the grassroots level so that I can be useful in helping good candidates get the support to be elected during party primaries.
4). I will pay more attention to the candidates in my constituency and I will spare some time to study their persons and manifestos so that I can take an informed position. Many Nigerians vote only based on emotions.
5). I will put my money where my mouth is by contributing my token financially to support the candidate of my choice.
6). I will volunteer free of charge as a poling unit agent in my polling unit to help protect and preserve the result. This will help wipe out electoral fraud because it will help the candidate to secure the right evidence to use in court if rigged out. Most rigging takes place at the collation centers. With a complete polling unit results turned in by agents, a party can reclaim stolen mandates easly.
7). I will not go to sleep after the election. I will join others to watch over the government as a honest and unbiased watchdog.

A good government that will work with Nigerians to build the greatest country in Africa will never magically appear from nowhere. We the citizens are the ones who will midwife the birth of such government. Our day will break any time we choose to wake up from this current political culture of get paid before service.

Osho, SDP senatorial candidate for FCT in 2023, can be reached via [email protected].