The imperative of a new order

Nothing, perhaps, shows the poverty of our democratic experience than the party primaries recently concluded in Nigeria. This is not a rehash of last week’s column, but a cry on why we need something radically different from what we have currently. The fact, which supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari know but will never acknowledge, is that we have diminished as a people when our choice of a leader in 2015 is reduced to one of them. Neither is particularly exciting and beyond the platitudes being bandied around, we are yet to be told in concrete terms what would be their agenda if elected.

This has not stopped combatants on both sides from peddling falsehood and innuendoes, especially on the Internet as though elections are won on Facebook and Twitter. History is being re-written and facts jettisoned all in attempts at selling the two candidates and painfully with all the search engines available now, folks are parroting statements supposedly made by leading citizens without offering proofs. It is trite asking, ‘How did we get here’ as results of years of progressive decline in our educational system are reflected in the language of debate and political discourse. The political system, as presently constituted, does not offer a clear pathway to development and progress. Fine, one may argue that Rome was not built in a day, but we often forget that they kept on building. One wonders what we are building currently.

A cursory look shows a candidate touted as squeaky clean but who has no problem whatsoever in associating with crooks or glaringly corrupt individuals. While he did not have dollars to induce delegates into voting him, he saw nothing wrong in accepting help from those who provided the greenback to aid his nomination. We have also seen senators and house of representatives members who lost out in primaries dangling impeachment threat as a way of getting back at their political party and principal officers. We have equally witnessed a political party that promised tickets to serving national assembly members as a way of pacifying them in their battles with state governors. A running mate is about to be chosen by only an individual and the argument remains “he has always chosen the right candidates, let’s allow him”.

Other absurdities include a presidential aspirant who got his son-in-law as a decoy, which he promptly displaced after losing at the presidential primary. Another presidential aspirant went back to his home state and was handed a senatorial ticket. A serving senator defected to another party and the second day became the new party’s candidate just as a governorship candidate sees nothing wrong in emerging from a primary where the total votes were more than the accredited delegates. Yet, we hail them. We applaud them and some even fight each other attempting to sell their preferred candidate. Losing in a primary is justification for moving to another party simply in a bid supposedly to represent others. Still, we remain unperturbed and simply accept that the end justifies the means.

The younger generation, and by this I mean those who are under 40, are not asking the right questions. They are also not mobilising enough in order to get our country out of the woods. Many of them prefer to collaborate actively with those rapacious elements that put us in the morass we are in. No question whatsoever about the peoples’ interests or their welfare. Our economy is in the doldrums and candidates are not being grilled on their plans to get us out. The media is content reporting only the verbiage politicians push to them as press releases forgetting journalists and their families are part of this society. Most of us are waiting for when we would be part of the gravy train and the cycle continues.

Interestingly, however, we have seen few individuals who dare to be different in their approach to politics. Ogaga Ifowodo, lawyer and activist, conceded victory to his opponent in an APC house of representatives primary election in Delta state, admitting that he was truly defeated. Salihu Lukman, an APC governorship aspirant, too, congratulated the winner in Kaduna state, just as Jonathan Adamu, a PDP house of representatives aspirant. All of them should be commended and hopefully they can be the fulcrum of a new political order our country needs seriously.

Hurling insults and abuse at political opponents cannot help us. We must refuse to help politicians by joining them in diminishing the forthcoming elections to who has the better graphic image of their preferred candidates. There are many challenges confronting us than who can tweet the foulest words on Twitter. We need a new political order.