What presidential candidates should tell us By Sherrifdeen Tella

The election date is inching closer by the day and the campaigns by all candidates are becoming more intense. The candidates of the leading parties are crisscrossing the states to sell themselves to the electorate. It is one of those things I like in democratic governance over and above militocracy where someone just shoots his way into the highest office whether you like it or not. In a democracy, at least, the electorate has the opportunity to determine who governs them, rightly or wrongly, through the ballot boxes.

The election period is also the time to measure the strength of each candidate health-wise and the party fund-wise. Parties with adequate funds sponsor and organise elaborate campaign activities in many states. A sound candidate covers a large number of states physically campaigning and telling people what to expect from him or the basis for the electorate to make him the preferred candidate. It may not, however, translate to winning or losing votes at the end of the day. One can recall that Late President Musa Yar’Adua was unable to move around physically to campaign due to ill health in the campaign period and he ‘won’ the election as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2007. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, using helicopter, as against pedestal campaign mode by his co-contenders, covered more states than any other candidate during campaign periods since 1965, yet he did not win as prime minister or president.

Things are changing, however. In those periods, no one was looking at the ingenuity in the electioneering. I can recall the Action Group, Chief Awolowo’s party, distributing campaign leaflets and other campaign materials through the use of helicopter in the early 1960s. The young ones like me were fascinated to see papers flying from the sky but took no cognizance of their ingenuity while the old ones, I guess, were looking at such acts as magical rather than an invitation to see a bright future from a brilliant mind. The electorate, who could grasp the innovative campaign method, just opined that the Chief came too early for the Nigerian environment.

I also remembered how we waited for the Chief to land from the air for his campaign in Makurdi, Benue State in 1982. Many of the people in the crowd were not only interested in meeting Chief Awolowo for the first time as a national figure but also in catching a glimpse of a helicopter which some took for a regular aeroplane. With higher literacy level, rapid advancement in technology and particularly information technology, some bout of economic development and the use of private jets at a number of religious outreach programmes, the use of helicopter for campaign today would be seen as the height of backwardness. I imagine if Chief Awolowo was alive today, he would have told the present-day politicians what the 22nd century electioneering demands!

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The foregoing is a long preamble, but it is worth sharing with the youths who did not know that Nigeria was such a forward-looking country where the first space electioneering in Africa took place. The same country is now amongst the poorest economies and educationally backward with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. There is a need to return to the forefront of development. The 2023 general elections might be the turning point.

The proposed political activities emerging during the first week of this year have shown that politicians at different levels, particularly those gunning for the highest office, will go through a tight schedule of interviews. There is the need to answer our questions and tell us more for their own sake. Actually, the campaign environment is more competitive than hitherto. Now, we have so far three or four leading contenders unlike when it used to be between two leading parties. Even one or more of those not showing high levels of visibility before the end of 2022 might spring a surprise in the new year. When it was basically two major parties like up to 2019, it was possible for a party to ignore debates and get away with it, not so anymore. Not even when Nigerians have come to realise that their lives have been discounted, depreciated and debased by corruption, incompetence and greed.

If we have to reference the leading contenders for the position of President for everyone contesting that position, we have to premise our questions on the assumption that all of them have public service experience. This implies that anyone contesting for the position of President should have the experience of having served the nation at some levels of governance, at least at the ministerial level. With that experience, the candidate has some working knowledge of government.

Fortunately, the leading contenders have served as executive governors or vice president. Thus, apart from what we saw in the records, each candidate should be able to tell us how he managed the office he occupied in terms of success and failures; the initiative brought to the office; the development in terms of job creation, management of human and physical resources available; and provision of or the belief in development plans as a guide to run the state or the nation.

Still relying on the assumption that candidates have held public office before, what have they been doing outside that office? What is the profession of each candidate and what have they been doing for a living since they left the government house? Were they employees or employers? If employer, what businesses have they established and how many jobs were created? Are those businesses in Nigeria or how many of the businesses are in Nigeria? How many Nigerians have they employed and still employ? What has been the staff turnover? This should give us their idea about labour management. What have been the sales or business turnover? We need to know how the candidates have been able to grow their business or the private sector knowledge. How much tax has each candidate been paying to the government over the period outside of public service engagement? Do the businesses have growth plans and audited accounts? Do we have evidence?

Each candidate should have a printed or published plan of what he will do when he gets to office, in addition to the party’s manifesto. That tells us about the preparedness of the candidate. He should have opinions and ways to tackle eight major economic issues affecting the development of Nigeria. There must be details on job creation; revenue mobilisation outside debt; corruption and greed (mother of all problems); power generation and distribution; economic restructuring away from oil; education cum health; security architecture and understanding of the significance of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Of course, the details must contain the modus operandi to overcome the problems inherent in each of these items and such details should have been properly documented in his plan to show how prepared the candidate is.

Anyone who is unable to answer the questions satisfactorily is not worth our votes. It is not religion, tribe or age that will solve our problems. Our problems are greater than any of these. When our commonwealth is being shared illegally, all manner of people, irrespective of tribe or religion, become friends and work together for self-aggrandisement. Do not let them use factors that do not separate them to divide us.

There are social, political and scientific questions that also point towards rebooting Nigeria for greatness. These cannot be accommodated within the scope and space allocated for this column. Notwithstanding, I had planned that an article on political economy would not be out of place in this closing stanza of our campaign activities, but the idea of getting a lending hand on the politics of this contribution to our campaign debate from my brother and colleague Professor Ayo Olukotun was brutally cut off by the cold hands of death that snatched away the erudite scholar in the wee days of the new year.  A great planner and moderate theorist, I will definitely lose his invaluable counsel to tone down my anger in writing about how Nigeria was being mismanaged. But the echo of the messages will not go away in hurry. Adieu egbon. Your legacy will remain a national reference point.