THE word, ‘manifesto’ is from the Italian word, ‘manifesto’, which also comes from the latin word, ‘manifestum’ meaning conspicuous or clear. Its adoption into the English language dates back to the 17th century. It has come to define the ‘published declaration of the intentions, motives or views of the issuer either as an individual, group, political party or government’.

In the history of Nigerian democracy since 1999, party manifestoes have generally not strictly defined many identifiable lines of action. In some ways, manifestoes  seem  merely ‘fulfill all righteousness’ kind of political action. The challenge in the Nigerian political space is that the political parties generally seem to lack identifiable ideologies within which their elected candidates are expected to align. The fluidity in the movement of politicians from political party to another in each election year just seems to amplify the fact that there seems to be a very blurred line between parties.

The political parties seem not to have a grip on the actions of their elected candidates in ways that derailments in the implementation of supposed party manifesto is corrected or challenged. Since 1999, the different political parties have not seriously been faithful to a majority of the election promises written or spoken. All thirty six governors  that have been elected since 1999 and the legislative members at both state and federal levels seem to only come together during general or intra-party elections.  There have been no reports of any party structure cautioning members that have not been faithful to whatever promises the party made.

In developed democracies, a manifesto is a serious contractual agreement with the people and voters make decisions based on the most appealing and realistic that can serve to protect their welfare. The value of democracy is the choice citizens make about their leadership.  The essence of choice presupposes there is a competition and as such, the choice each voter makes would be dependent on which candidate he or she believes would, when elected be faithful to policies that they promised through their manifesto.

In a nascent democracy like Nigeria’s, it seems that the political party structure must begin to rebuild the foundations that can make them stand out through the adoption of enduring ideological leanings like in older  democracies.  There must be a shift and a conscious attempt at developing our democracy through a serious redirection of political party operations.

The Roundtable Conversation spoke to a wide range voters and asked them about their evaluation of the different political party manifestoes. Most of the respondents do not really reckon with so-called manifestoes. Most of them believe that since 1999, no political party has performed with the manifestoes released before elections.  Some of them claim that they have not voted based on manifesto of any party because they do not even understand the essence.

Most voters believe that all the politicians are the same because while some of them reside in states different from their home states, the activities of the different governments do not necessarily differ from each other despite belonging to different political parties. Some voters pointed out that the politicians across party lines seem like six and half a dozen because their activities in office do not always differ from each other in any remarkable way.

Some other voters do not even understand the meaning and importance of manifestoes and believe that their main incentive to vote for any candidate for any elective position is the general perception in their communities about the capability of the candidate to provide their needs in employment, security, infrastructure and food security. Most of the respondents believe that politicians cannot be trusted even when they write down what they will do for the people.

The fact that there is a general mistrust of the political class by most potential voters is very disturbing to the Roundtable Conversation.  Trust like in even regular relationships is a core ingredient of communication and acceptance.  The mistrust of the political class in the country has serious implications. It means there is an urgent need that the country as a whole to address the trust deficit if the country’s 133m people living in multi-dimensional poverty can be made to enjoy democracy.

The number of poor people across the country recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in some ways proves the disconnect the voters feel with the political class. Diffeerent political parties are in charge in all the states and it is clear that there are no states without a huge number of extremely poor people. Democracy does not on its own eradicate poverty, functional policies and diligent implementations by politicians in power have the capacity to significantly reduce poverty.

The presidency recently berated state governors for focusing on capital projects like airports and flyovers and advised them to focus on combating hunger in their states. The state governors quickly replied the presidency by alleging that it is the cause of poverty, banditry and kidnapping in Nigeria. These recent  exchanges goes in our view to show that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Nigerian political party structure.  The back and forth between the federal government and the state governors as a collective  is not about  political party differences.

Before they were all elected into offices, the political parties, APC, PDP and APGA in Anambra state all presented manifestoes before. So the mistrust of the people seems valid if after all those since 1999, not much seems to have changed. If promises were made targeted at making citizens better through their choices then if the people have lost faith in the parties, then the onus is on the different political parties to make sure that from 2023, the story will be positively different.

The conversation in the political space must change. If we have accepted that democracy and the presidential system is what we have chosen to practice then the political players must play by the rules. The people make choices based on the promises by the politicians at all levels. Development can only come from the execution of viable policies by all political parties.

When political parties present their manifestoes in other democracies, they are held by the people in assessing their performance either at the general or Mid-term elections as in the United States. The essence of multi-party democracy is for the variety of choices  based on ideology the people can connect and buy into.

Political party leaderships must work at building lasting legacies as in other democracies and that can only happen when they realize that  manifestoes are not just mere scribbles that are necessary  before elections but in a way they stand as documents that can be used by the voters to hold elected officials of a particular political party to account after they take offices. It is a document that empowers the voters to hold leaders accountable.

The lack of adherence to past manifestoes of the different political parties  is a major dent on the democratic practice in the country. It almost puts civilian democrats on the same scale with past military governments that ruled by fiat and which created a big gulf between the military and the people. Democracy is different from military juntas running a government. Accountability in governance is reason why democracy also has checks and balances.

The political class must begin to have respect for the voters by playing by the rules. If voters base their choices on promises, the onus is on the politicians to do their part of the deal. The people will be able to trust the politicians when their leadership begins to positively impact on their welfare based on productive policy actions.

The Roundtable Conversation believes that if democracy is the government of the people  by the people and for the people, then there must be attempts at working together in a citizenship attempt at development. The level of poverty can be reduced when there is a better sense of commitment from the politicians and a deliberate effort by the people to hold politicians to account.

Political parties must focus on institutional growth  as a means of consolidating our democracy. Electoral processes alone cannot develop our democracy. There must be a paradigm shift in political party administration. The era of parties being mere vehicles must be over as soon as possible.  It is time for deliberate restructuring to place the parties on strong ideological footing. That is the only way to have a better road map to strong and viable membership and better performance by elected officials.

The beauty of democracy is its focus on the people. The present system of running the parties on some mundane considerations of region, tribe or creed cannot develop the country by empowering the people. Ideological identities of political parties make it more liberal and all-embracing of people whose harvest of ideas can help push the frontiers of development and move people off the poverty radar. The essence of government is really to cater to the welfare of the people and to achieve this goes beyond the rhetoric of manifesto production, there must be more commitment rooted in better structural positioning.

The dialogue continues…

GOVERNMENTS exist to carter to the welfare and security of citizens. Any government that fails in these two cardinal issues can be said to have failed. Democracy seems to be the most admired system of government because it is a government of the people by the people and for the people. The power resides with the people in democracies.  The people are empowered in democracies to use their power at the polls to choose those who can lead them and ensure that the duties of governments are fulfilled.

The political philosophers who fashioned democracy as a political model built it on a tripod; executive, legislature and the judiciary.  This is based on the principle of separation of powers because as someone like Baron De Montesquieu believed,  “the separation of powers among the different organs of the government is the best safeguard against tyranny”. He went further to beseech that, “each power must be exercised by a separate organ and a system of checks and balances should thus be established for solidarity and harmony of the state”.

In essence, the functionality of any democracy is dependent on how well each arm of government effectively carries out its functions. It might not necessarily be a perfect situation but the margin of error must be insignificant not to disrupt the system considerably.  It is therefore, the ability of each democracy to fully identify and implement the different roles of the arms of government  that makes for development.

Recently, the United States had its mid-term elections and it was a battle for the control of the Senate and the House of Representatives and luckily for the Democrats, the exit polls ended up not playing out as predicted. The Republicans won the House with a very slight majority while the Senate remained under the control of the Democrats.  Prior to the elections, both Republican and Democratic strategists were working to have real advantages. Presidents Biden and Obama were on the roads especially in the swing states and they somehow succeeded in winning a few more seats than projected. President Trump was not  lucky as most of those he clearly supported lost the elections. Most candidates put in the efforts even if top members of their parties were out there campaigning for or with them. The results of the elections were clearly the voters voting based on the political ideology they feel would better serve them.

Conversely though, the Nigerian electoral processes cannot be said to be structured in ways that the people and their choices matter during elections. The executive arm of government in the Nigerian democracy seems to be nearer imperial than democratic.  Since the return of democracy in1999, the executive at both state and federal levels have wielded enormous powers that have often disrupted democratic processes. The office of the President and state governors are too powerful and the occupants over the years seem to have acted as monarchs.

The result, the executive often go beyond their constitutional powers to disrupt electoral processes. Most times presidents and governors determine who succeeds them and as such they unduly influence political party congresses and primaries often leading to flawed elections that in turn lead to series of litigations some of which last for years or months. What this flawed process does is to rob the people of their voices as those who ought to choose their leaders at all levels.

In essence therefore, Nigeria seems to be practicing a corrupted form of democracy and the Roundtable Conversation believes that it is better for the country to re-evaluate the present system and restructure the whole process for better functionality. As it stands, for the Nigerian Bureau of statistics to publish the report that about 133m Nigerians are poor and for that to be traced to bad governance means that we must take stock and do the right things one of which is re-evaluating the whole electoral processes in ways that candidates for each elective position earn the votes of the people and does not stand under the shadow of any other and stands to be held accountable.

As the campaign for the 2023 elections go on around the country, it does seem that the whole focus is on the Presidency and the candidates for the legislature at all levels seem to be hiding and not marketing themselves independently enough for the voters to make informed choices. For a country with this level of poverty traceable to bad governance, it means that many elected people are not doing their jobs. Today, very few governors are in their states doing state duties, most are wasting time, money and energy gallivanting around politicking for their individual interests not necessarily for the people.

The legislative arm of government is a very important arm of the tripod. However, not many of those who have been there over the years even understand their roles. Some leadership failure of the executive as seen across the country is traceable to legislative inertia. The legislative arm has such important duties as; passing laws, oversight functions on the executive, confirming executive appointments, impeaching and removing from office dysfunctional members of the executive and catering to the needs of the constituents that elect them.

The failure to do their duties might have contributed to the failure of leadership that has pushed the country to the poverty capital of the world despite huge human and natural resources. There must be a total restructuring of the present system that tend to leave elected people especially the legislatures from being held accountable. It is not enough to blame the president and in a country with a considerable number of illiterates and the poor, it is wrong for the legislators to hide behind one finger and push all the blame to the president.

The Roundtable Conversation spoke with Anthony Kila, a Jean Monnet Professor of Strategy and Development and the Center Director,  Center for International Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS). We asked him his opinion on the lack of a vibrant individual-focused campaign by candidates for the legislature across the country. He believes that there is a seeming disconnect in the people about what a functional democracy is. They often erroneously believe that the Presidency and the governors are all there are to democratic structures and so there is undue attention on those executive positions to the detriment of the legislative positions.

To him, the Nigerian democracy seems  too centralized  and that points mainly to the presidency at the national level and governors at the state levels. So in some way, all other elective positions look up to these two. Again the media can share a bit of the blame too as they focus largely on the two executive positions and sadly the states and local governments do not have sufficient local media to focus on those regional or state positions which in any case is localized.

Asked for solutions, Prof. Kila believes people who are able can help by focusing and reporting on activities at those levels and increasing advocacy in ways that enough awareness is created. He also believes those who are running for such legislative positions should step up and stop seeing themselves as mere appendages of the central positions. He believes that the Parliamentary system is admirable but Nigeria seems to be running the negative aspect of the presidential system. The parliamentary system compels parliamentarians  to focus on their constituencies and vice versa.

Again, Prof. Kila sees the fact that the Presidential and National Assembly elections take place same day just like the governorship and State Assembly elections  as an enabler of the present situation. The legislative candidates seem to always hide under the presidential candidates and state governorship candidates and never vigorously campaign on their own merit. He believes that most states have their local media that can draw attention to the issues under discourse but somehow attention and the functionality of those media companies is never central as things that matter.

Nigeria must jettison the unitary system and restructure to run a truly federal system that will be more democratically functional. He believes that there isn’t enough checks and balances that can make the executive function optimally. At the moment they seem to act like emperors. What can be done in the short term before any restructuring can effectively happen is for people to develop deeper interest in their state and local governments instead of looking up to the center for everything.

There must be better advocacy for people to understand the duties of the different arms of government so that they know who to hold accountable. It is wrong for the people to expect for instance a state house of assembly member to provide major infrastructure when his only duty is to appropriate budget for and carry out oversight function while lobbying for their constituents to get amenities needed for a better more productive life.

There needs to be a restructuring not just in government but also the  mindset of the people. In education for example which is a vital aspect of development, people do not often realize that primary, secondary and tertiary education are constitutionally handled by different tiers of government. Everything is not about the federal government, the local, state and federal governments have obligations to the people in a democracy.

The Roundtable believes that in future Electoral Acts amendments, the present electoral timetable must give way to a system that makes each candidate win or lose on his or her merit. The present system seems a calculated attempt by those who initiated the plan to run away from electoral accountability.  May be it is time to introduce Mid-term elections as a way of sanitizing the system and holding candidates accountable.

 

The dialogue continues…

“…When I came to Congress in 1987,

there were 12 Democratic Women

Today we are 90…

When I entered leadership in 2002,

there were eight of us, today there are 17

members of the leadership”

– Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, the first female House Speaker in the United States yesterday announced that she will be stepping down from the leadership of the House Democratic Caucus.  In the Mid-term elections, the democrats narrowly lost to Republican in the House even though they have majority in the Senate.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spent about thirty five years in the House and about two decades in different leadership positions. In her Speech on the floor of the House, she traced the history of her first visit  to when she was six years old and had accompanied her father,  who was then being sworn in for his 5th term in Congress as a mere sis year old. In retrospect, she did not understand the power and the building, the Capitol Hill then but now after decades she too has put in her years.

A Speaker Pelosi is a female colossus in the American democratic story. Her service, her steadfastness, her patriotism and commitment to the American democracy is pubic knowledge. She is 82 years old. She is a great asset to the Democrats and even more so to the American democracy. She has an enviable political odyssey. She owes the opportunity to contribute her quota to the American democratic culture. There have been positive changes that have steadily and slowly yielded grounds to women voters/leaders,  minorities and all forms of systemic changes for the better. Today, more women are winning elections at all levels including the Vice President Kamala Harris.

Make no mistake about it, even Africa has done better than America as some countries have produced female presidents, Liberia, Malawi, Tanzania and others. Women have become Presidents, Prime Ministers and Heads of governments in many other countries. Rwanda has the global highest percentage of women in parliament at more than 61%. Most of the countries with appreciable levels of development are those with politically empowered women.

Nigeria has been almost at the bottom of the chat when it comes to political inclusion of women and the economy has everything to show for the almost total male monopoly of political power at all levels in a country where competent  women are systemically excluded. The country is the poverty capital of the world and the National Bureau of Statistics has just recently declared that 63% of people living in Nigeria are poor.

Read Also: COMFORT OGUNYE: Women who dare to struggle cross very high hurdles

The Roundtable Conversation has tracked political activities of Nigerian political parties over the years and observed that male politicians at least since 1999 have been very negligent about creating a level playing field that can enable women be in leadership of political parties. Women have almost always relied on tokenism post elections. The party leadership positions during party congresses in Nigeria are always skewed against women. The main national  executive  position often left for women is usually the ‘Women Leader’ and even in some instances men even contest for such positions.

The sad thing is that even those positions are not strategically designed empower women politically to make valid contributions in a democracy. They are mere flattering positions aimed at persuading the women to coerce fellow women beaten down by illiteracy and ignorance to vote for male candidates.  Most of the party caucuses and National Executive Committees (NEC) in Nigerian political space are dominated by men because politicians in Nigeria still believe that leadership is about brawn and finance. Even when women are made Women leaders or for some of them that manage to be Board of Trustees (BOT) members, they are often treated as mere appendages and are often excluded in decision making processes. Their views are almost always ignored.

The Roundtable Conversation has watched with dismay the intraparty  chaos in the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that seems very polarized  with a group of five governors  now refering to themselves as the G-5 governors comprising Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, Enugu state governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom and Abia state governor, Okezie ikpeazu  who seem to have an alliance due to their misggivings over some internal party issues.

We have watched the series of meetings and committees that have been set up by the party and noticed the near absence of female members of the party in such attempts at reconciliation. We have observed the concerted efforts of the party to seemingly reunite the party but we  have only seen political ‘pilgrimage’ to Rivers state by predominantly  male party members. Even trips to United Kingdom or United States in what is often defined as consultaions do not feature any woman. Majority of the political parties are equally as guilty as the PDP.

It is interesting to note the paradox of the Nigerian political engagements that parade only men,  not many problems get solved. Today, the poverty index is very high. The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics have just released data showing that about 63% of Nigerians are poor and majority of them are women but not many women are on the table to profer solutions. There is no gainsaying that more women are victims of poverty in any nation where only men have and control the levers of power.

As the political parties go round the country canvasing for support, it is interesting to observe that issues concerning women come in as some after-thought and we see politicians still latching onto the perennial promise of the 35% affirmative action that happened twenty seven years ago in Beijing. Promises are often made during campaigns but the men really do not take Nigerian women seriously. All the intra party squabbles that have trailed most of the political parties are mainly about the political interests of the men as they plan for post-election victory.

None of the discussions in all the parties is about the welfare of women. The Nigerian national assembly made up of more than 90% men threw out five gender equity bills that would have created more chances for women in parliament.  The political parties have not been proactive in creating a level playing field so that more women can have the chance to participate and help the country get out of poverty.

The fact that the political parties in Nigeria are surreptitiously structured to empower more men is hurting the Nigerian democracy by excluding a great percentage of women and the youth who have the capacity and willingness to participate. The Kenyan legislature was able to amend their constitution to make it unlawful for any one gender to occupy more than two third of elective positions. Today, Kenya has seven female governors, an increase of four from the three that were elected in 2017. That is progress.

In Nigeria, the political parties have more than 90% men in the leadership and  but even the few women often are not given the space to flourish or contribute. Some of the women often get excluded in decision making.  The men equate democracy with everything but choices and ideas. They ensure the absence of a system that strictly monitors and punishes illegal campaign finances and this affects women negatively. This is because, the male politicians are more economically empowered and as such see themselves as more powerful than and more relevant than women.

A Nancy Pelosi and other women in other countries are able to make progress politically because everyone operates on a level playing field. The political parties act as an umbrella structure under which every candidate operates. Funds raised are controlled by the system in ways that individuals or groups do not have undue financial advantages.

The fact that there are no streamlined financial structures for party administration strictly controlled  systemically disempowers women.  It is therefore interesting to note that in the various political parties in Nigeria, women are powerless because the men merely see them as mere appendages good enough for tokenism.

The Roundtable Conversation feels that our democracy cannot grow given the present political structure where men feel that leadership in a twenty first century is about brawn and financial muscle. The polarization in the main opposition party, the PDP cannot be traced to the patriotic zeal of either group. It is all about self-interests.  Let no one come with the puerile narrative that it is about the people, it is purely about the men and their interests. The world is wondering whether there are no women in that party that can rein the men in? In whose interests are all the ego trips?

It is very worrisome that Nigerian political parties feel they only need to have ‘Women Leaders’  and ‘Women Campaign Councils’ with no plans to integrate women in decision making and  the general political process. The level of poverty in the land is a pointer to the effects of the exclusion of women.  It is a shame that sixty two years after independence,  no  woman has been elected on her merit as a major Party Chairperson, Senate President or governor. Less than 10% of women are in the National Assembly. Some states in the North do not even have one woman in the Houses of Assembly.

It is delusional to continue to say that women must go get power because power is taken and not given.  We all know the structural and systemic defects that beat women down and out of core political processes that can empower them enough to change the system and make our democracy viably functional. There are many Nancy Pelosis in Nigeria but it seems that there is a male conspiracy to keep women out and the underdevelopment we see is evidence of the paradoxical powerlessness men display as nation builders.

The dialogue continues… 

AMERICAN democracy with all its imperfections still remains a beacon for world democracies. The very ideological differences between the two major political parties seem to determine the followership of both the Republican and Democratic parties. The strength of American democracy is also evident in the rights that the American Independent Party, the Green Party, the Peace, Freedom Party etc., enjoy. Individuals are not compelled by law or coercion to belong to the two major parties.

The recently concluded Midterm elections obviously show that the core tenet of democracy, that of giving the voter the power is still sacrosanct even if the process might not be totally immaculate. The margin of error is obviously negligible.  The voice of the people seem to sound loud and clear and candidates generally respect the poll results. Popularity helps but from all indications, only popularity does not solely determine the outcomes of elections.

The famous Republican TV celebrity, Dr. Mehmet Oz lost the Pennsylvania Senatorial Seat to Democratic candidate John Fetterman.  Dr. Oz has since called his opponent to concede defeat. A practice Nigerian politicians must learn and adopt. The voters spoke loudly and clearly. That is the beauty of democracy.

The Midterm elections again show that voters determine what they expect from politicians. Top on the scale were inflation and abortion rights. There were concerns with crime rates, gun violence, immigration, climate change, student loans etc. but the overriding concern of voters were with inflation and abortion rights.

Generally, the human needs across nations are basically the same. What determines development or lack of same still lies with the people and they decide who to give their mandates in viable democracies.

The low performance of candidates backed by former President Trump has provided political scholars with materials to research on as the world pushes ahead the best tenets of democracy. The former President might be forced by the election outcome to have introspection even as the world awaits his proposed November 15 ‘Big Announcement’ in his own words.

Again, the Roundtable Conversation believes strongly that there are too many lessons for Nigerians as the campaigns for 2023 general elections hots up across the nation. It is not enough for politicians to take trips to the United States on the eve of every election year, it is not enough to merely mouth an imitation of the American democratic model, flawed as it could often seem, the real kernel of the whole democratic practice as envisioned by political philosophers like Baron de Montesquieu is truly making democracy a government of thre people by the people and for the people.

The campaign rhetoric in the Nigerian political space reeks of some divisiveness that polarizes the people along mundane lines of region, tribe, religion, gender, age and other issues that do not spell progress of any form. It is purely hypocritical for the political elite to continually treat elections as though they own the people instead of being part of the people.

The fact that several institutions continue organizing series of peace deals compelling or persuading political parties and their candidates to sign pre, during and post-election peace deals negates the very essence of democracy not for the value inherent but for the fact that the politicians do not own the process enough to realize that power truly belongs to the people.  It does not lie with politicians and their supporters to force any individual or group in the country to support their preferred candidate. Democracy is about choice.

Campaigns as the world could see in America, United Kingdom and even smaller African countries like Kenya that just elected a President Ruto is about persuasion. It is not about forcing the agenda of any political party down the throat of voters, it is about convincing the various voting demographics that you have policies that would care for them.  It is very instructive that inflation and abortion rights were top on the minds of majority of the American voters.

The outcome of the elections in councils, districts and states all point to what truly matters to the people as individuals and groups. Inflation is like rain that falls on every roof so most times it has nothing to do with political leanings.  Voters voted according to how convinced they were about the policies touted  by the candidates at various levels.

Abortion rights might be seen by many with some moral lens but most women voters and some men see it as a human right issue and that accounted for the very good showing of the Democrats at the elections countering most pre-election permutations and exit polls. The Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed the rights to abortion in the US has been argued by gender rights advocates as an infringement on the rights of women to their reproductive rights.

This aspect of the election analysis must be taken note of by Nigerian political elite who assume that women do not matter. Their erroneous belief that leadership is a masculine affair and that women are merely good as dancers at campaign rallies and mobilizers for men might just be getting to the end of the road. The idea of taking advantage of poverty and illiteracy of the women to exclude and exploit their numbers  is not a democratically progressive practice that is sustenable.

 The Roundtable Conversation also wants to draw the attention of Nigerian politicians to the fact that at least eight Nigerian-Americans, five men and three women were victorious in different states of the United states in the midterm elections. This means that their political parties and voters did not care about their ancestral nations, creed or gender. Nigerian politicians must look at their images in the political mirror and ask themselves very salient questions.  The country has one of the lowest gender inclisiveness in Africa.The voters listened to their campaign messages and gave them their mandate. That is what democracy is about, inclusivity and choice.

The Independent National electoral Commission, (INEC) in preparing for the coming election must realize that the world is watching. The logistical nightmare that were experienced in the past by voters must be totally avoided. The introduction of the BVAS technology must not be allowed to fail at the last minute. Every vote must count and be counted. Every eligible and registered voter in all nooks and crannies of the country must be given the opportunity to exercise their franchise. That is democracy at its best.

The bureaucratic bottlenecks often put in the ways of eligible and registered voters must not be allowed to rear its ugly head again.  Voters are the mandate givers and that must be seen to happen without anyone filing left out. All the people and agencies that are charged with various duties during elections must realize that thy are equally serving them by doing their duties diligently and fairly.

It is again very hypocritical for politicians to traverse continents seeking post-election collaborative efforts but keeping a blind eye to the best tenets of democracy as practiced by politicians in those countries. Campaigns must be issues-based and that is what attracts voters, violence of any kind, verbally , psychologically or physically must be discouraged. Voters whether literate or not are attracted by humans who show their humanity to them and show them in many ways that they matter.

Economic issues are at the heart of the matter in Nigeria at the moment. The average Nigerian is at the end of the precipice economically. They do not want to hear a regurgitation of the problems they live with on a daily bases, they want politicians that do not just mouth the problems but ones with the real strategies to empower the people. If the American with their low level of unemployment and high infrastructural development are angry at the rise in inflation, the Nigerian voter facing double-digit unemployment, under-employment, inflation and food insecurity need candidates that understand that the welfare of the people is the reason there are governments.

The Roundtable conversation equally finds it interesting that the legislative seats in America are almost as important as the presidential and governorship seats. It shows why their democracy is as strong as it is. In contrast, Nigerian politicians and the people seem to focus mainly on the presidency. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence by  legislative candidates at all levels.  Most of them shy away from real campaigns and hide behind the presidential candidates of their parties. In democracies, each candidate must sell his or her programmes to the voters.

There is a seeming dubiety of some legislative and governorship candidates that continually hide behind presidential candidates and virtually do nothing to woo voters. This practice might have gone unnoticed in the past but the global political climate has changed with the millennials who are now very active and have no intention of showing the apathy. The interesting data of the US midterm elections shows that the 18-29 voting demographic voted the highest since 2018. The midterm was the best for any sitting president since 1950. That speaks to the place of the millennials in the twenty first century politics.

We believe that winners in the 2023 elections all things being equal would be all those that have been painstaking enough to address issues that matter to the majority of the voters in Nigeria. Global democracy continually gets more appealing and the beauty lies in the core strategic plans that candidates and political parties come with. This is the internet age and information is key and the voters have access at the tip of their fingers.

The dialogue continues…

THE 2023 elections in Nigeria is a huge job by any standards, the eyes of the world are on Nigeria, the giant in the Sun.  The country is the most populous, the most influential black nation on earth. Has it had problems, yes, is there room for progress, absolutely.  Nigerian elections since 1999 have attracted attention of global institutions and community for very obvious reasons, the country has the human capital, it has the resources but somehow the democratic processes have had challenges.

Luckily, in line with the global changes in technology, things seem to be looking up. Slowly but gradually, the country seems to be tottering towards a better process with the will of the people. In the past, Nigeria seems to have had the most litigious post-election cases in the world because somehow, the constitution has not been amended sufficiently to make it illegal for a candidate to occupy an office before all election petitions are judicially concluded or before inauguration.

This seeming flaw in the constitution has been very disruptive of governance and in a way emboldened a few politicians to occupy offices they have not been legally elected to.  There have been instances where persons not validly elected were sworn in but because there is no law in place, they benefited from occupying offices illegally. In some queer social parlance, the politicians often boastfully say, “just win by all means and let your opponent go to court”.

The above statement is made with the view while the litigation goes on, the assumed winner would have occupied the office and enjoyed the pecks and fame that come with such.  There have been post-election cases that lasted up to three years in a four-year tenure and I the process, there has been loss of focus, wasted tax payers money, inertia in governance and the worst of all, the denial of democracy dividends to the people.  There is a plethora of such cases in the country’s political history and the people have been the grass that suffer when two elephants fight. The country’s democracy can be more viable with better electoral systems in all its ramifications. The government, institutions and the people must be ready to bring the necessary changes that can strengthen the country’s democracy.

The Nigerian people have high hopes that the coming elections would be a departure from the past if technology is allowed to function. There are expectations that votes will count and be counted. The deployments of technology backed by the amended electoral laws of 2022 have raised the hopes of the people for a credible, free and fair election. However, technology or not, humans are an integral part of the electoral process.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is in the eye of the storm as the umpire. There is a huge amount of hope on the institution given what recently happened in Kenya, a small country in comparative terms. The Independent  Electoral and Boundaries  (IEBC) so creditably conducted the elections that even when an opposition candidate, Raila Odinga went to the Supreme Court with his petition, the court disagreed and affirmed the election of William Ruto who was up against the then incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta and his new ally, Raila Odinga.

Nigeria’s INEC has equally done well in some off-season elections in some states like, Anambra, Edo, Ekiti and Osun. These were seemingly test cases with the use of the Bimodal Voter accreditation System (BVAS). The hope is that the next election which is to be on a larger scale would prove as credible as those already conducted. All eyes are on INEC but it takes more than the umpire to guarantee a credible election in a country with more than ninety million registered voters.

The recent announcement by the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu at the third quarterly meeting with Civil Society Organizations for 2022 in Abuja that their in the process of  cleaning the Voter Register using the Automated Biometric  identification System (ABIS), a total of 2,780,750 of the 12,298,844 new registrants during the Continuous  Voter Registration  (CVR) exercise were identified as ineligible registrants and invalidated from the records has been met with mixed feelings.

The Roundtable Conversation finds this announcement from the INEC chairman very encouraging and would help in increasing the trust ratio of both Nigerians and the world on the Commission.  It is also encouraging to hear that with the use of technology in staff auditing and deployment for the CVR, the alleged staff that tried to perpetrate the registration fraud would be sanctioned accordingly. We  hold our breaths.

The Roundtable Conversation had always maintained that rigging of elections does not really happen only on election days. The processes leading to the elections must be seen to be free and credible too.  The act of perpetrating some dubiety during the CVR is as criminal as any such act aimed at corrupting the system at any point. It is noteworthy to recall that in most cases of flawed elections, all eyes have always remained on politicians and possibly on election days. This revelations  by Pro. Mahmoud is very telling and necessary to be deeply interrogated.

The Roundtable Conversation sought the views of Clement Nwankwo, a lawyer and human rights activist and the executive director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Center  (PLAC). He was also a co-convener of the Civil Society Situation Room, an organization that has been playing key roles in ensuring the credibility of the Nigerian electoral processes. Nwankwo believes that INEC has done well in identifying the errant staff that compromised their offices but there should be a ‘manifest and obvious evidence of prosecution of those involved and expurgation of the padded register.

To him, taking further actions in these regards would further rekindle the trust that serious actions have been taken and deter others.

Mr. Nwankwo believes that the alleged criminal act under reference was not just by the INEC staff. There must have been a web of co-conspirators. So to him, all those found culpable beyond the INEC staff ought to be arraigned as well. It is not sufficient to say you have caught your erring staff, in criminal law,it is known  that such acts are carried out in conspiracy with others. Who are the co-conspirators? The people deserve to know. The chain of conspirators must be deliberately broken. That is one way to institutionalize transparency in the process. The iNEC staff could not have acted alone, who are those behind the curtains?

The Roundtable also had a conversation with the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) president, Christopher Isiguzo on the same issue. To him the INEC chairman has come out clean and promised that the full weight of the law would be brought to bear on the alleged offenders but action is needed also. To him, the media as a great stakeholder in any democracy is standing for the truth and the transparency of the process. He believes that once the erring staff are evidently made to go through the right prosecution channels, it would mean that the electoral commission is not all bark and no bite.

To the NUJ president, making sure justice is served the erring staff would not only serve as deterrent to others but would help in raising the confidence of the people and the world on the electoral commission. People would believe more that INEC as presently constituted is committed to delivering a credible, free and fair election in 2023. He believes that no institution is peopled by perfect people but the laws are there for a reason because the INEC staff are not saints or in some divine way immune from falling for inducements by unscrupulous persons in the society.

In every system, there are individuals who might want to undermine the system and its values and mores. However, in his view, it is gratifying that this discovery came very early in the day and not when the damage had been done. INEC still has weeks and months within which they can tighten the grip on people who might want to undermine the process.

He believes that for the success of any electoral process in viable democracies, certain institutions must like Ceasar’s wife be above reproach and as such, the media, civil society organizations, the security agencies and INEC have the duty to deliver by displaying high level of neutrality and commitment to credible electoral outcomes. These institutions and organizations must be at high alert, before, during and after the elections.

The media in his view is preparing practitioners in all fields to be well informed and ready to deliver on their own requirements through series of trainings and retraining of practitioners and making sure that the ethics of the profession and professionalism is key to their roles as watchdogs of the society. The new media is being accommodated in what can be described as the rule books because they too are here to stay. The media is increasing the level of awareness, sensitization and training for all so people will come to terms with things that are unique to the profession.

The Roundtable Conversation believes that democracy is the business of everyone. Politicians are taken from the people. All institutions are peopled by citizens and a functional democracy is the business of everyone including the alleged erring staff of INEC who have betrayed the trust of their Commission. We hope to see an open and transparent prosecution and not a perfunctory mention in a conference. Every institution, the government and the people must work hard to ensure the process produces the credible results.

The dialogue continues…

The 2023 election campaigns have started but not much is going on yet in the political sphere. Almost all the political parties are yet to make their manifestoes public. Despite prodding from journalists at different fora, mum is still the word as most of the spokespersons are promising that they would be out very soon. In reality, Nigerians are not used to scrutinizing party manifestoes.

Since the return of civilian democracy in 1999, the electorate seems not to have held the elected to the presentations they made during political campaigns. In some ways, voting is still largely based on primordial sentiments. Ethnicity, religion, regional affiliations, and other coercive sentiments often determine the voters’ choices. Democracy is a work in progress and the hope is that at some point things would begin to be done differently if we expect a different result.

In viable democracies, the role of the legislature at all tiers of government cannot be overemphasized. Those who fashioned the three arms of government had in mind the value of checks and balances in the system. They understood as political philosophers that humans abuse power and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The executive, legislature and the judiciary must work as the tripod that make democracy a viable system as each arm have defined roles that must be strictly adhered to.

The relationship between the three arms of government must be that that puts the people first. All actions must be geared towards protecting the welfare of the people and building a nation. However, in the Nigerian political system, the lack of strong system has seemingly made democracy appear a bit complex. The executive at both federal and state levels act in ways that seem to present both the legislature and judiciary as less powerful arms of government.

The presidency and governors wield so much powers that very often there are actions that question the brand of democracy practiced. This is not surprising, the effects of military incursions in Nigeria seem to show up very often. The command and control system the military taunted the country with still persists in very debilitating ways even with civilian democrats. The intimidation and seeming lack of total autonomy by other arms of government at both state and federal levels have their origins in the past militarization of the governance structures.

The Roundtable Conversation however believes that the Nigerian political system must be weaned of the military mentality where the executive arm acts as though the other two arms are mere appendages.  The political class must be deliberate in efforts to strengthen our democracy. Each arm of government must be strong and independent enough to be in a position to develop the country through good governance.

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The Roundtable Conversation has however found that there seems to be a trend in the political system. Each election year, we see increasing numbers of incumbent and ex-governors becoming candidates for Senatorial elections.  In fact, the social perception is that the Senate seems to have become a retirement home for ex-governors as most of them end up as senators. Curiously, not many of them distinguish themselves through their contributions at plenary.

For the 2023 elections, more than two dozen incumbent and ex-governors won their party tickets as candidates for the elections. Curiously, most of these candidates are known to have performed poorly as governors in their various states.  The argument could be made that the people would determine who wins an election. However, we all know that given the often flawed elections in the past, most ex-governors  ‘won’ their elections  anyway and this has empowered a lot more to take their party tickets.

In a system where the electoral process is not as good as it ought to be, most of the ex-governors often allegedly use state resources to achieve victory and most times better qualified candidates lose out to the incumbency factor. It is therefore part of growing our democracy that citizens must begin to align performances of governors who have had a chance to lead their states to their ambitions to proceed to the National Assembly.

The Senate is the highest legislative body in our democracy and the pedigree of senators has a direct correlation to the democracy the nation practices. The people often forget the very important role of the legislature in a democracy and this is why there seems to be so much focus on the presidency and the dysfunctional system that renders our democracy a perennially nascent one.

The Legislature has three primary functions; Law-making, Oversight function and as Lobbyists for their constituencies.  If a governor ran the state aground and proceeds to represent his senatorial district at the national assembly, no miracle happens. If a governor was not empathetic and diligent enough to use state resources to develop his state, no miracle would happen when he goes to the senate.

The idea that the senate screens and confirms ministers and heads of government agencies  and make laws for the nation speak to the role each member plays in the life of a nation. The president or governors could be genius but if the legislature at state and federal levels are not committed to development,  poverty would continue to hamper development.

The Roundtable Conversation believes that we cannot  continue to play the ostrich if our democracy must be functional.  There must be a deliberate effort by every Nigerian especially the literate ones to feel a sense of duty to the brand of democracy we practice. Today, the focus seems to be solely on the Presidency and governorship elections and we all tend to ignore the role of the legislative arm in every democracy.

The United States of America and the United Kingdom are the poster countries for democracy. The Congress and House of Representatives in the US and the Parliament in the United Kingdom are all strong pillars in the democracy of those countries.  These countries’ legislative arms are like strong anchors to the system.

Make no mistakes about it, the legislature in Nigeria has made considerable progress. There are those that have made considerable impact at both at state and federal levels but much is still to be done. Each person aspiring to go to the legislative house must learn the ropes and must have enough patriotic fervor to diligently work.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Roundtable Conversation is not by any means insinuating that being a former governor of a state automatically should disqualify a person from seeking to go to the National Assembly. The issue is that from the nation’s experience since 1999, some governors have surreptitiously displayed some covetous and entitlement behavior towards going to the Senate.

They seem not to see it as a duty to the people but a way of retaining a presence in the corridors of power in a nation where politics is often seen as an elite game that confers a lot of privileges. We must all realize that we cannot continue to do the same thing the same way and expect a different result. Ex-governors going to the Senate should not be seen as a logical process whether the person failed as a governor or not. It must be earned.

There have been a lot of ex-governors and ex-ministers in the senate, not many can mention the differences they have made to the lives of the people. We have to begin to hold the legislative arms accountable in ways that can reduce the pressure on the executive and the only way to get this done is by creating better awareness  about the roles of each arms of government in a democracy.

There must come a time that we say enough of the messianic syndrome attitude of ex-governors. It is understandable that a governor that has performed creditably in his state could seek to go to the senate but for some to assume that just having occupied a governorship position is qualifying criteria must be resisted if we want a vibrant democracy that works for the people.

The Roundtable  Conversation searchlight is on former or incumbent governors who are candidates of their political parties for the senatorial seats in their states because if more than twenty five of them are to get into the senate whether they have performed or not, our democracy will suffer given what they have done in the past through their Governors Forum that is very strong and often manipulative at regional and national levels.

If these governors get to the senate, their allegiance would morph from their political parties to their ex-governor colleagues when bills or other national issues are at stake. Their vested interests would be overwhelming and given the system, the people might continue to get the shorter end of the stick. It is therefore good to evaluate the performance of each candidate. If out of a hundred and nine senate seats, more than twenty is occupied by ex-governors in a fledgling democracy like ours, there might be danger in the offing given that personal interests often override patriotism in developing economies.

The Roundtable demands to know the performance of each candidate getting into the legislature ether at state of federal levels. Our democracy must be one that encourages productivity and individuals running for elections must do so on merit. If an ex-governor wants a senate seat, let voters see his report sheet, well, literally. This is the message that voter education advocates must emphasize.

The dialogue continues…

It long last, the D-day for electioneering campaigns for all registered political parties, the 28th of September has come and with it the doors are now open for parties and their candidates to tell the different voting demographics why they must be their choice. The expectation from Nigerians is that the political parties and their candidates must come with clarity, must depart from the old order as politics like most things in life is dynamic.

Leadership is serious business. Development of countries is dependent on the type of leaders that can see beyond self. It is a service to the people that must be grounded in a patriotic zeal that is focused on the welfare of the people and development.  The democratic system of government is all about the people and campaign messages must not be ambiguous. The people here is without tags; no race, no tribe, no class, no age, no gender, no creed, simply the people!

Since independence in 1960, leaders have come, some leaders have died but the people will always be here for generations with all the global changes and innovations. The people are often very observant as leaders come and go. Records are kept and each leader often has an opportunity to view his or her report sheet of performance. This is where it gets interesting, more often than not, those that offer themselves for leadership realize that they are writing their names in the sands of time and as such each action matters.

So the documentation of a leader’s introduction to the people in a democracy often starts with the campaigns. At the realm of political party politics, the run up to the party primaries marks the introduction of candidates to the party delegates that vote at party primaries to get the party candidates.

The start of campaigns marks the beginning of the conversation that unites the candidates and the different voting demographics.  The winner of elections in any country with free and fair electoral processes is always the candidate whose sincere conversations with the people who are the mandate givers best resonates with their realities.

Since the end of party primaries and the nomination of the different candidates,  Nigerians have been expectantly awaiting for this period of campaigns and now that the die is cast,  all eyes are on the political parties and their candidates.

Given the kind of presidential system Nigeria runs where the center seems to have humongous power that almost tilt towards feudalism, people tend to focus too much on the presidential candidates forgetting that the legislative arm of government is equally important and must attract the same attention for the democratic process to be strong and viable. It is the business of the political parties to work towards getting as many seats at the legislative branch as possible given the complimentary roles of the legislature  during campaigns.

The Roundtable Conversation has observed that most of the political parties do not understand that campaign period is a pre-arranged strategy which is aimed at influencing the decision-making   process within each voting demographic. All the voting demographics have different demands even if there are basic expectations of all the groups.

The Roundtable conversation from the benefit of hindsight has noticed that most political parties do not truly understand the nuances of pulling off successful campaigns. That is why it seems that there is too much personality war between the supporters of most of the candidates. Democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The political party that sees the value of this definition would eventually understand the psyche of the mandate givers in any democracy.

The people of Nigeria are traumatized already. What with the economic situation, the insecurity, the double digit inflation, the unemployment and under-employment rates, the food insecurity and a plummeting currency in the global market. The people are in need of solutions and not the cliché political propaganda by political parties wishing just to grab power for its own sake.  For the Presidential candidates for instance, the three major candidates, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi are all well known to the Nigerian voters. Even though all three have held executive positions since the return of civilian democracy in 1999, vying for the number one job is a whole new kettle of fish. Thhey must each be realistically convincing.

The presidency of any country especially the most populous black nation on earth at this time of chaotic economic circumstances is not a walk in the park. It is a very challenging job and the campaign that would effectively give any of them the people’s mandate might not be as easy as most people assume.

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Setting up campaign councils of hundreds or thousands of people might not be the magic wand, making promises at campaign grounds might not impress the people given their past experiences with past political leaders. The people would be looking beyond rhetoric, they would want to hear how the candidates understand their pains,  they want to hear the reasons to be hopeful for a better tomorrow.

In conversations, the communication is always multi-dimensional, there is always a spirit that pervades, that of listening, respect and expectations. Campaigns are not meant to be a superiority contest. It is meant for pure communications aimed at re-affirming or being convinced about the personality and capacity of candidates. The campaign teams that are able to connect with the people in a seeming conversational way would carry the day. A conversation in any language is as expository as it is informative and at the end each participant goes with some valuable information.

The conversation Nigerian women for instance want to engage in as the campaigns gather steam is the difference any candidate intends to make to the status quo in the country. If the Kenyan electorate for instance were just given the opportunity to elect seven governors, an additional four women from three that were elected in 2017, what is any candidate either at the executive or legislative angle going to make for a change to come to Nigeria seeing that women are the most loyal party members and the most consistent voters but often marginalized?

The Nigerian women have been disproportionately affected by insecurity given thepoverty,  abductions and killings either of men or women. The women are the widows and the victims of abductions, rapes and the poverty in the land. They might need convincing answers from candidates and their Spokespersons. The Nigerian women are some of the least represented in parliament across the globe. The Nigerian political parties are controlled by men who have the financial power. Governors monopolize power. Which president can bring the change women want ?

Nigeria is high on the global terrorism index, which candidates have a realistic roadmap to making it a safe country where children can travel with grandparents or parents and be safe? Which candidate can address those issues that are scaring away investors and tourists and making companies relocate to the neighbouring countries for business? Which candidates have realistic education and health policies?

The campaign team that appreciates the conversation value of campaigns would be the one to engage more with everyone with no divisive tendencies  of whipping up primordial sentiments that are divisive like religion and tribe in the Nigerian state. Political campaign period is like the unearthing of the inner core of candidates and their vision.

A recently elected Kenyan William Ruto had a riveting campaign he titled, ‘Every Hustle Matters’. He campaigned in a way that most Kenyans saw their daily hustles in his life story and instinctively connected with his promises having risen from grass to grace. The implication of any word put out by candidates or their media handlers is huge in an election year. Global political dynamics keeps changing and the political party and candidates that understand fully the essence of leadership and its connection to the people often win the popular sentiments and trust.

There has been a huge trust deficit between the people and successive leaderships in the country at all levels. The winning candidate must through credible strategic marketing be able to retain and win more supporters because in the real sense, campaigns are meant to win more people to a candidate’s side based on how convincing the wooing is.

The average Nigerian voter has for long believed  that most politicians are up to no good due to disappoints in the past based on failed promises. The onus is therefore on campaign handlers to rebuild that trust in the minds of voters. Politics runs on hope. The best candidate is the one that understands the value of hope especially in a country at the edge of the precipice in almost all facets of national life.

Unlike in the past when voter apathy was rife, today, especially with the internet, the political awareness has increased so much that many voters have come to appreciate their roles in the selection of their leaders. The increased voter registration and advocacy by civil society organizations for citizen participation have all been very effective in galvanizing Nigerians to do their civic duty come election day.

The Conversations during this campaign must not be toxic at any level because the people want soothing words, it must not be divisive because the people eagerly desire a healing unity in a polarized nation. The candidates and their media handlers must lead by example because blaming supporters for any toxicity would not help any candidate.  The die is cast, the team that can woo its way with good and realistic policies might just carry the day in 2023 all things being equal.

The dialogue continues… 

Nigeria and the world are eagerly awaiting the dawn of September 28, the date the country’s electoral commission, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officially designated as the start of official political campaigns for the next general elections. The history of political campaigns since independence in Nigeria has been a mixed bag. There are records of persuasively memorable campaigns, tribal/religious  rhetoric, hope-raising campaigns and sheer party slogan-bandying campaigns.

Political campaign periods are meant for political parties and their candidates to influence through legally approved means the different voting demographics with their policies and programmes if elected. It is interesting to note that two major elections were recently concluded in two continents, Europe and Africa. The United Kingdom just had the Tory Party elect the third female Prime Minister, Liz Truss while Kenyan William Ruto just got inaugurated as the fifth President in Kenya.

If Nigeria is to look over the two countries of UK and Kenya, there are lessons. A Liz Truss and her closest rival, Rishi Sunak presented their policy projections and visions to the Conservative party faithfuls and at the end, the people chose Liz Truss. In Kenya on the other hand,  it was a very intense campaign as the race for the presidency was a seeming battle of political dynasties versus the ‘hustler’ as the now President Ruto chose to define himself.

A President Ruto won the hearts of Kenyans through his campaigns.  He was able to defeat Raila Odinga who was on a fifth attempt at becoming president. It was even more intriguing that Ruto’s Principal, Uhuru Kenyatta supported his perennial political opponent, an Odinga. Their political rivalry dates back to their two parents in a post –independent  Kenya. Obviously, a President Ruto must have run a very convincing campaign to have swayed  the votes of a people that had been ardent supporters of the two political dynasties.

Are there lessons for Nigerian candidates at all levels? I think so. Campaigns are not a conversation with your constituency or fans, it is more about the candidate and political party’s ability to win over the undecided voter. How a political party and their campaign organizations plan their campaigns determine to a large extent, their success or failure in an elections.

A post political parties seeming efforts at introducing their candidates to the public has been neither here nor there. There might have been a bit of carefulness not to flout the law but in about two weeks, the whistle would be blown for political campaigns to start. The world is waiting and Nigerians is expecting that the campaigns would be in line with the global best practices where candidates put their best feet forward and give the totality of their vision to the people.

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The most effective political campaign is that which sends the most impactful, realistic and profound messages to the different voting demographics. Democracy is the government of the people by the people and for the people. By implication therefore, the people must see themselves or their hopes realizable  in voting in any candidate. If government’s main trust is the welfare of the people, they will seek out the candidate whose pedigree and campaign messages point towards a better welfare for the people.

The campaign message of late MKO Abiola was built around HOPE ’93. That was a very apt message given what Nigeria had gone through under the military with all the coups and counter coups that left the people in a state of despair and pessimism. Every living human revels in the hope that tomorrow would be better than today and for a fatalistic nation like Nigeria, the builder of hope would logically be trusted. A late MKO Abiola won resoundingly across the nation and spectacularly defeated his opponent, late Bashir Tofa in Kano, his home state.

The people of Nigeria identified with an MKO Abiola long before he ran for President. That helped but an Abiola was not just a regular Nigerian, he was a global citizen whose sense of humour and humanity resonated with many. It was not about his tribe or his religion. It was about his personality. He was a man much loved across Nigeria. He had no borders in his pre-election personality, he did not need too much introduction but chose to build on the trust and love people had for him. He had banked  on an image of a humanist and a man whose background did not influence his outlook on life. Even though from a very humble background, he rose to become a global citizen but yet was grounded and accessible.

In 2011, a Goodluck Jonathan ran on the ‘boy with no shoes’ rhetoric. The people identified with his narrative having risen from a humble beginning to a deputy governor, governor, Vice President and then on his way to the Presidency.  The former President had no resounding message but was buoyed by the ovation from his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the political party  that used the advantage of incumbency. There was no verve to his campaign. It was no surprise that he lost the 2015 election to the All Progressive Congress (APC) Mohammed Buhari who is serving out his second term.

So in the Nigerian political environment, there has been the good, the bad and the ugly political campaigns. For a country with political parties with no clearcut political ideologies on which the voting demographics can rely, campaigns can be tricky to say the least. The global political dynamics have changed and the voter awareness more now than it has ever been. The internet has brought with it a lot of innovations and created different levels of socio-political relationships.

There is an  upsurge in youth participation in political processes even if they are not yet fully integrated into the mainstream in significant numbers.  Tnere is today the internet and the power of social communications and engagements. Suddenly, it is no longer the exclusive of parents to come home and tell the children the stories of what happened on the political podiums and meetings, today, almost every youth has all the details on their palms and the distance has been shortened between the fingers and their electronic gadgets.

So invariably, the campaigns that would appeal to the youths who are more cosmopolitan would be different. The young people do not rely on tribes or religion, the tech world has just one identity and the youths are not bordered about the parochial and mundane issues that politicians have used for long to divide the people. Any campaign that sends any message that isolates or divides might be ineffective.

The twenty first century has been described as the year of the women, the gender rights activism has been on a high. More countries have opened the political space to more women through constitutional reforms. The closest to Nigeria is Kenya that has just sworn in 7 women governors, up from three in 2017, 29 women were elected to the National assembly, up from 23 in 2017 and seven deputy governors in a country of less than sixty million as against Nigeria’s more than two hundred million people.

A close look at the Nigerian political parties shows that not many women are on the ballots of the different political parties.  There is no female presidential candidate, only one woman got the nomination of the APC to contest for governorship in Adamawa state. There is no female Vice Presidential candidate in all three major political parties. There is no woman elected as chairman of any of the political party. In fact, the Roundtable Conversation has followed the congresses and primaries of all the political parties and has pointed the exclusion out repeatedly.

Women form a great percentage of the voting bloc in most democracies and Nigeria is no different. The Roundtable has challenged the political parties to use this platform to say their programmes for women and in the coming weeks would be putting them on the hot seat. Women across the country are waiting to hear of real policy issues that would deviate from the regular tokenism that candidates in the past mouthed. The die is cast and the campaign period is an excellent opportunity to bare the policies and programmes that would resonate.

Women are the most mobile humans because marriages often determine where they live or which additional citizenships or religion they eventually take on. So a campaign rhetoric that divides on the basis of religion or tribe might be a miss rather than a hit.  The women have a myriad of concerns; insecurity, health, education, poverty, illiteracy, child-marriage, maternal-child mortality etc.

Any campaign that fails to clearly and unambiguously address their programmes that can address these concerns can forget the next election. The women are wiser now. Technology is helping to spread the gender justice message through orthodox and social media. This voting block is the most loyal and consistent.

The retirees and working class in Nigeria have been on edge of the precipice with inflation and food insecurity. Most of them have their Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) and are ready to listen to concrete plans to address their fears and revive their hopes. The unemployed are almost tipping over and have their eyes focused on the candidates that would ease the burden of existence.

The coming election would be like no other in the history of Nigeria. But make no mistakes about it, the Presidency is the elephant in the room but the reality is that the totality of the executive and legislative arms when elected drive democracy at all levels. Candidates and their political parties must be clear and precise about their plans the moment the whistle is blown.

The dialogue continues…