WORRIED by the unhealthy rivalry that is brewing amongst the prominent presidential aspirants of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the leadership has summoned a meeting of President Goodluck Jonathan, former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former National Security Adviser, Lt. General Aliyu Gusau and Governor Bukola Saraki as well as their campaign chiefs.
The move is aimed at reaching a truce among the aspirants, with a view to toning down the level of mud-slinging and use of impolitic language which have so far become the main feature of their respective campaigns, the party’s National Chairman, Dr. Okwesileeze Nwodo, said on Wednesday in Abuja, while receiving a delegation of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), who are visiting the country on a pre-election assessment mission.
Also expected at the crucial meeting are Senator Dalhatu Tafida, who is the Director General of the President Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, Director of the General Ibrahim Babangida Badamasi Campaign Organisation, Mr. Chris Mamah, Director General of the Atiku Abubakar Campaign organization, Senator Ben Obi, Director General of the Aliyu Gusau Campaign Organization and Udenta Udenta, Director General of the Bukola Saraki Campaign Organisation.
Although Nwodo did not state when the parley with the contending camps and the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) would hold, it was learnt during the week that the PDP leadership had been highly uncomfortable with the manner and scope of the smear campaigns as well as the intensity of animosity and distrust have characterised the struggle by the respective campaign organizations in their effort to ensure that their candidate emerges the party’s presidential flag bearer for the 2011 general polls.
Sources within the national secretariat of the PDP noted that the combative nature of the campaigns, if unchecked, could tear the party along ethnic, religious and sectional interests, and ultimately cost the party the 2011 general elections.
The leadership of the PDP has every reason to worry. This is because even as the 2011 electioneering campaigns are yet to start in earnest, there are already signs that the exercise would be anything but inspiring.
As Sully Abu, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Goodluck / Sambo Presidential Campaign Organization put it, the tone of the campaign has long drifted from civility to something akin to the language of a civil war.
Although the situation is not restricted to the PDP, a senior lecturer in the department of Public Administration at the University of Abuja, Dr. Gabriel Ukertor Moti, believes that the ruling party is responsible for the tone and quality of the presidential campaigns so far. “The party has not been able to come out unambiguously and end the zoning debate (and) that is why it has become an “issue” to the detriment of the real issues that confront ordinary people,” he told Peoples Daily in Abuja.
Dr. Moti laments that “it is unfortunate that we are traveling this path again where our presidential campaigns are devoid of issues,” noting that the focus has been on personalities, rallies and dances, instead.
The trivialities, the (foul) language
So far, the campaigns have been replete with accusations and counter-accusations, name-calling and other negative remarks by the aspirants against each other.
General Babangida may have inadvertently started it by his pointed and widely reported remarks that the younger generation of politicians lacked the experience to be entrusted with the leadership of the country. The former military president’s attempt to place his statement in context, theeffort did little to molify such young aspirants as Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai of the Labour Party (LP) and Abubakar Bukola Saraki (ABS) of the PDP.
Besides calling Generals Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) as old and out-dated leaders with nothing new to offer the nation, Mallam el-Rufai said last week, “Since Babangida libeled the whole generations of Nigerian youths as being unfit for leadership, age has become an issue in the coming elections.”
Living true to his brash character, the former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister added that, “while it is true that neither youth nor age supply wisdom on their own, it makes sense to ask those who have been recurring decimals in our country’s sorry history to leave the stage.”
On September 1, 2010, the Director-General of the IBB 2011 presidential campaign organization, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, wrote to the Inspector-General of Police, alleging threat to his life. A few days later, he told the world that President Goodluck Jonathan should be held responsible if anything happened to him.
According to Chief Dokpesi, the attacks and threats to his life were informed by his refusal to back Jonathan, a fellow Niger Deltan, for the 2011 presidential elections. He also claimed that he had been approached to head the campaign team of Jonathan, a claim that was last week debunked by the Jonathan/Sambo campaign organization. “At no time was Chief Dokpesi considered for such a role. He never made it to anybody’s short list or long list. In any case, the claim defies common sense as such a political position is normally given to someone outside the geographical zone of the aspirant. Dokpesi, being from the South South as is President Jonathan could never have been considered for such a position,” said Sully Abu, Media director of the JCO in a statement on October 10.
It came as no surprise therefore, when Dokpesi was arrested by the State Security Service (SSS) and questioned over the October 1 double car bombings in Abuja. His arrest came barely 24 hours after President Jonathan publicly had dismissed the claim by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that it was responsible for the bomb attacks, insisting that it was the act of terrorists whose identity he (president) claim knowledge even as he vowed that they would be apprehended and brought to book ‘no matter how colourfully dressed.”
The Independence Day car bomb blasts would appear to have pitched President Jonathan against the four northern aspirants in the PDP, namely Generals Babangida, Aliyu Gusau, Atiku Abubakar and Governor Bukola Saraki, as well as General Buhari, another northerner, of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). While General Buhari believes that President Jonathan’s utterances and handling of the bomb blasts ware functions of “inexperience,” the PDP quartet were not amused by the disclosure by former MEND leader, Henry Okah that Jonathan wanted the incident to be blamed on his northern presidential challengers.
Former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had, late last month, taken on President Jonathan, accusing him of using state funds to run his 2011 presidential campaign. In a swift reaction however, Jonathan’s campaign team dismissed the allegation, saying that it amounted to cheap blackmail.
“The Jonathan / Sambo campaign will be committed to elevate public discourse to issues on how to make life better for our people rather than being distracted by lies, calumny and blackmail,” Abu said in a statement.
Another salvo by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar alleging that Jonathan’s aspiration was polarizing the nation also became another serious issue in the on-going campaigns, forcing the Jonathan / Sambo Presidential Campaign Organisation on September 23, 2010 to challenge other aspirants seeking the presidential ticket of the PDP to run issues-driven rather than campaign of attacks on personalities.
In its maiden media outing in Abuja on September 22, 2010, the Abubakar Bukola Saraki (ABS) 2011 presidential campaign organization, through its Director-General, Dr. Udenta O. Udenta, took a swipe at President Goodluck Jonathan, alleging that the mammoth crown that attended his formal declaration at the Eagle Square on September 16 was rented to give the false impression that Jonathan was very popular and acceptable to majority of Nigerians.
Not leaving anything to chance, the Jonathan campaign organization quickly fired back, asking Nigerians to “see who is agitating for zoning,” in apparent reference to Governor Saraki, whose family is being accused by critics of dominating the political space in Kwara state.
There have also been posters within and outside the FCT wiyh the posers : “Who killed Dele Giwa and Gloria Okon? and “Who annulled June 12?” These posters are believed to be targeted against a particular presidential aspirant in the PDP.
While the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and presidential aspirant of the ACN, Nuhu Ribadu has been talking of having put “25 years of my life into public service,” the Governor Saraki campaign organization has made “ideological and generational change in Nigeria and Africa,” its campaign mantra. Dr. Udenta also flount his principal as “a trained medical doctor, a former presidential aide, a banker and a two-term Governor (with) stable administrative experience to lead Nigeria.” Saraki is also touted by his campaign organization as having been”born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, and a hybrid of different Nigerian cultures (who) is a true and detribalized Nigerian.”
Dr. Moti however, believes that the real issues that should be the focus of the aspirants are poverty reduction (employment), provision of infrastructure, especially power and roads, education and health, asserting that “these are the things that the people need,”.
Going by the trend of the campaigns, the academics fears that “we may end up nominating and electing a President that people do not know what their plan for the country is.”
He suggested to the civil society organizations and the press to “organise debates for these aspirants to articulate what their plans are for the country for the people to have a better way of assessing them.”
There is, indeed, a multiplicity of issues crying out for urgent attention. These range from utter rot in education and health sectors to the near-absence of infrastructure in the country. The national road network is only so in name as the roads are nothing but death traps, all the way from Gboko to Ogoja, Lagos to Benin, Port Harcourt to Aba, and Jos to Maiduguri, etc.
During his formal declaration of interest at the Eagle Square in Abuja on September 16, 2010, President Jonathan proposed a campaign of ideas and issues. “I have come to launch a campaign of ideas, not one of calumny. I have come to preach love, not hate. I have come to break you away from divisive tendencies of the past which have slowed our drive to true nationhood. I have no enemies to fight. You are all my friends and we share a common destiny,” he said.
Many, who watched and listened to Jonathan’s speech, the best since he became president, were of the view that he would maintain that standard in the course of his campaign as an aspirant for the presidential ticket of the PDP.
Dissecting the Jonathan declaration, one analyst, Franklin Otorofani wrote on October 1, 2020: “If he says he has come to break away from divisive tendencies of the past, he will be judged by that standard down the road. And if he says he has come to preach love not hate, that is a bond he has entered into with the Nigerian people and by which he will be judged in future.”
It is largely puerile to cry out for issue-based campaign; yet the so-called proponent is not addressing any issues. This may be because President Jonathan’s campaign organization has a typical attraction; which is that he is expected to convert the nation’s treasury to his political war chest. There is the adjunct that Jonathan has already won, foul or fair. The thinking is predicated on the power of incumbency, which utilizes the nation’s treasury, the military and the other state security apparatus.
Incumbency is seen by many Nigerians as a selling point and not necessarily the level of performance and the capacity to do great things. Those who express this sentiment tend to confuse democracy with theocracy or monarchy. For, the selection process for democratic leadership is usually muscular and massive, whereas the theocratic or the monarchical tends to be unilinear and thin; and sometimes predetermined or pre-ordained.
We cannot recant the truism that imperfection is a critical human burden in all its ramifications. And so it is with matters political. In the build-up to the 2011 elections, it may be apt to expect that a few things may be unhinged because perfection does not appear to be under consideration, at all. Matters appear to have been made worse by the political economy of the various campaigns. All things considered, the tone and direction of the general elections are set by the collective timidity of Nigerians as a people, and the unbearable assumption of incumbency as a winning factor.
Findings by Peoples Daily Weekend show that the campaigns by the presidential aspirants in the ruling PDP have become virulent because of the declaration of President Jonathan to contest the presidential election in disregard of the internal power sharing arrangement between the North and South as encapsulated in the party’s constitution.
The campaigns have become exacerbated by the October 1 bomb blasts in Abuja, with the President exonerating the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which claimed responsibility for the attacks while his Northern opponents accused his administration of attempting to pin the bombings on Northern politicians opposed to his ambition.
According to Dr. Nwodo, the PDP national leadership is worried about the smear campaign being carried out by the various campaign organizations and the likely consequences of the trend if unchecked.
“The way they are going about their campaigns is giving us serious cause for worry. We have sent out invitations to them for a meeting where we will plead with them to base their statements on issues and the way they want to run the administration of the country,” he told the visiting NDI delegation on Wednesday.
He hinted that the PDP leadership would impress it on the five prominent aspirants “to stop all these ethnic, religious and mundane propaganda and base their arguments and statements on issues that are germane to our constitution and manifesto of our party.” He warned that if the aspirants and their respective campaign organizations refuse to mend their ways, he would take the matter to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, which is the second highest decision - making body of the party for mediation.
“If they refuse to obey what we at the National Working Committee (NWC) decide to tell them, we shall be compelled to convoke a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting to obtain NEC approval to spell out the guidelines to follow in their campaigns and we shall remove the issues of sectionalism, tribalism and all searchable mundane statements; issues that divide us as a country Our party is very firm on the issue of integrity of our party, “ he said.
Mr. Sully Abu however, believes that the reason for the current tone and quality of the campaigns is because much of the Nigerian political elite is rather illiberal and undemocratic.
He told Peoples Daily Weekend that “instead of wrestling with our candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, on the issues, his political opponents seek to throw him out of the race by recourse to ‘zoning’ and any means that will confer on then a rather undue advantage.
“Hence, the song and dance made about the president’s comment on the October 1 bombing, a heinous act of terrorism that should have drawn the unrelenting opprobrium of everyone no matter the political divide.”
According to Abu, a veteran journalist and Managing Director of New Age newspapers, “returning civility would require an immediate engagement with the issues, rather on the things that matter to Nigerians, issues of bread and butter and how to improve living standards. It will require not only that politicians to make promises but Indicate clearly how they are going to deliver on promises and examined the possible timelines.
“This is what is engaging Jonathan campaign and we invite our political opponents to do the same,” he stated.
Both Udenta and Franklin Otorofani believe that the twin issues of zoning in the PDP and President Jonathan’s entry into the 2011 race have affected the tone and quality of the current electioneering campaigns.
Associate Professor of Mathematics with the American University of Nigeria, Yola, Leonard Karshima Shilgba, identifies seven reasons for the poverty of politics in Nigeria as poor vision, obtuse disposition, vile politics, education deficiency, resignation to fate and apathy, terrorism in our midst, and youth abuse.
He believes there are issues that concern Nigerians, which candidates for elective offices must urgently address rather than engage themselves in all kinds of vulgarities.
He first identified electricity, pointing out that lack of adequate electric power supply is the bane of national development in Nigeria. Nigerians would like to know the plan and solution that presidential candidates, for instance, have that may be different from the road map provided by President Jonathan. We would like to know why such candidates would handle the problem differently, and how.
Other issues identified by Prof. Shilgba, who is also the President of the Nigeria Rally Movement are education, agriculture, citizenship, Fiscal federalism, Health, Manufacturing, Housing, Energy, Infrastructure and remuneration of public officials.
“The above are some of the issues that Nigerians would like to have our politicians talk about. We don’t need their inane noises about “zoning”, “capturing power”, etc. They must tell us what they intend to do with power? If they convince us of how they can use power, then we can gladly “zone” it to them with our votes,” he told Peoples Daily Weekend on Friday.
At the beginning
Examining the quality of President Jonathan’s character as a person and the message in his campaign, Otorofani says, “The nation has not quite seen Jonathan campaign for an elective office. Jonathan is still largely unknown to Nigerians in that particular sense. How would Jonathan conduct himself as head of a ticket? How would he conduct his campaign in relation to other candidates? What would be his style of politicking? Will it be issue-based or the sickening ethnic/cum religious effusions of political desperadoes as we knew it in the past? Will he introduce some elements of civility or enlightened politicking into the mix or the do-or-die political battlefields that Nigerians have been weaned on? Will he resort to mudslinging, which is the traditional staple of his opponents? At the Eagle square Abuja where he formally declared his intention to contest the 2011 president, Jonathan had promised he would strive to the best of his ability to attain self sufficiency in food production. “Let the word go out that my plans for a Sovereign Wealth Fund with an initial capital of $1billion will begin the journey for an economic restoration. This restoration will provide new job opportunities and alleviate poverty. Let the word go out that our health sector will receive maximum priority in a new Jonathan administration, a priority that will ensure maximum health care and stop our brain drain,” he stated. He also made a promise to “all the kidnappers, criminal elements, and miscreants that give us a bad name,” telling them to “be ready for the fight that I shall give them.” On his part, former Vice president Atiku Abubakar, who formally declared his interest on August 15, 2010, threw a big challenge to other contenders when he pledged that his ambition to rule Nigeria was policy-based and not on account of being from the North, Niger Delta or elsewhere.The Atiku presidential campaign organization, headed by Mr. Chris Mammah, has re-packaged the blue-print he prepared in 2007 as encapsulated in his policy document titled “from Reform to Prosperity,” which contains the broad and sectoral policy thrust of the Atiku Abubakar Presidency of Nigeria.It is based on the premise that the Federal Government would be most effective by concentrating on a few priority areas of the economy. It believes that ultimately, Government must be remembered for some tangible achievements and that for the Atiku Abubakar government, this would be targeting initiatives that aimed at unleashing the potentials inherent in the Nigerian economy.The 83-page document focuses on five key areas where the Federal Government can have significant and long-lasting impact on the lives of Nigerians and the areas identified as “National Emergencies (requiring immediate interventions) are Employment Generation and Wealth creation; Security/War against Corruption/Democracy and Good Governance; Energy and Infrastructural Development; Education and; the Niger Delta.In addition, the Atiku campaign team had identified some key priorities, which it believes, would feed into and engage the resolution of national emergencies. These include Reforming the Reforms (Macro-Economic Stability and Consolidation), Agriculture/Food Security, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and, Housing.
A former National Treasurer of the PDP, Alhaji Umar Lawan Karetu, says it is unbecoming of the aspirants and their campaign organisations to blackmail and accuse each other of irrelevant matters in the campaign to win electorates to their side. Alhaji Karetu, who spoke to Peoples Daily Weekend in Kaduna, said the present day politics requires politicking of issues rather than frivolities that do not add substance to our democratic experience in Nigeria. He advised the presidential aspirants and politicians generally to avoid abusing their opponents and calling them dirty rascals, stressing that issues determine the relevance and worth of politician
A lecturer at the Department of International Law at the University of Jos, Barrister Solomon Dalung, describes the tone and quality of the current campaigns as alarming and heading for anarchy.
According to Dalung, “instead of the politicians in Nigeria to direct their campaigns towards addressing some key factors of the economy, such as education, health, agriculture, transportation and the economy itself, they are busy unfolding Blue-Prints with more than hundreds of programmes that may not see the light of the day when given the mandates.”
He believes that the politicians should lay more emphases on education, which is the key factor of the economy of every nation in the world. “After the second World War and after the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan was reduced to rubles and those who survived the attacks agreed that they were going to invest every effort on education, they would build the people that would build the new society,” he noted.
To Barrister Dalung, there is need for the political class to always direct their energy on educational pursuit, so that all other factors will queue in. “And water is one of the important factors, which the politicians should also pay more attention to, because people must be healthy enough to enable then work very hard,” he added.
On his part, the Deputy Chief Imam of the Jos Central Mosque, Sheikh Abdulrahman Lawal, appealed to the political class to always mind their language and outline programmes that would help them and the electorates, instead of concentrating on frivolous promises that would not be fulfilled at the end of the day.
According to him, “Allah does not accept anybody that can promise to do something and cannot do it at the end, so it is better not to start telling people that you can do this and that when elected only to renege in the promise at the end.
To the Programme Director, Christian Foundation for Social Justice and Equity, Comrade Afolabi Olajide, the politicians themselves are confused, both those that were in power and those that want to be there at the moment.
“It is good they itemize their programmes for us to know what their promises are, but they are disappointing us. I don’t expect any change from any of these present politicians because some of them have done it before,” he told Peoples Daily Weekend in Jos.
Former governor of Plateau state, Sir Fedelis Tapgun admits that some of the politicians are not mindful of the language they use during campaigns or whenever there is any political gathering. He however appealed to the various aspirants to be polite and not to criticize anybody or abuse their opponents for any reason.
“By the grace of God, the politics of this time will not lead to anything that is frightening anyway. God will intervene and soften every aspect of it, and the politicians themselves need to be using good language and be straight forward. On the side of the public, they should not worry as nothing will happen,” he assured.
Another university don, Dr. Abdullahi Mijinyawa of Abubakar Tafwa Balewa University Bauchi, described the confrontational tone of the campaigns as unfortunate, pointing out that Nigerians are worried that the aspirants are engaging in campaign of calumny against each other.
“Some of the presidential aspirants in the country have resorted to cheap blackmail to give life to campaign organizations that are at their wits end and unable to engage Nigerians on issues of national importance,” he said.
He observed that certain statements “by this gang of aspirants who are men of yesteryears have shown utter desperation that drips through their treatise of impending doom. This is clearly the fruits of hearts blinded by the quest for power that breaches decorum.”
A public affairs commentator, David John Jigau said, “The recent public humiliation of respected political leaders in the country is symptomatic of bad leadership that is coming ahead in this country, which is going out of fashion in other countries of Africa and the Third World.”
“We call on the Nigerian people and the international community to prevail on those aspirants that want to lead the country to desist from these anti-democratic and unconstitutional activities that may undermine our democracy, national unity and political stability, “Jigau said.
A member of the ACN in Bauchi state, Mallah Salleh mai Yadi, expressed worry over the current campaign in which the presidential aspirants were attacking each other’s personality. He therefore enjoined all loyal members from all parties to respect the party constitution and policies and stop using it as a diversion from tackling the real issues that affect the Nigerian people.
According to him, “The allegations against each other would impugn their integrity. In that endeavour, the democratic dispensation and their personalities are bound to fail woefully in the eyes of right-thinking Nigerians.
“We wonder what these political leaders want to bequeath to the country if they insist on fouling the political atmosphere by overheating the polity through tendentious accusations against one another. We call on all Nigerians to ignore search crabbiness.”
In Taraba State the lack of opposition makes politicians restrain themselves from unwarranted criticisms. Even with the recent cracks in the PDP, which indicate that Senator Joel Danlami Ikenya (representing Taraba South) has decided to defect to the ACN with his supporters, the lull in the political tempo has not given them cause to be banal with regard to issues.
Recently, however, one Emmanuel Bwacha, who is a contender for the Taraba South senatorial seat, while reacting to what he would focus on when elected, betrayed in his answer an issue-based campaign. He said the first thing he would do on getting to the National Assembly, if elected, was to correct what he called “the comedy image” which Southern Taraba, noted for having highly educated people, has been subjected to, in apparent reference to Senator Ikenya who is said to be not very educated and therefore, handicapped in contributing to debate at the upper chamber.
However, the Taraba State Commissioner of Health, Engr. Mohammed Bose, believes that the tone of campaign is fine, as according to him, “the campaign is being conducted in an orderly manner unlike before when it used to be rowdy.” But he concluded that for the change in timetable, INEC and political activities would have gone far.
Bose believes that campaign should be driven by realities on the ground. People, he said, will vote for you based on what you have done or what they perceive you to be able to do. “Politicians should have positive thinking and not blame opponents for things that cannot be substantiated,” Bose said.
The representative of Brotherhood of the Cross and Star in Taraba State, Apostle Bawa Bibinu, told Peoples Daily Weekend in Jalingo that the whole political process is being slowed down because of the extension of time INEC wants to be granted. But he said ideologies should drive the campaigns.
He said from a purely spiritual point of view, a lot of changes have taken place requiring aspirants to seek the face of God and be guided by advanced democracies where issues occupy campaign debates. But he said since most aspirants are spiritually blind, they won’t understand.
Benue indigenes who spoke to Peoples Daily Weekend, also expressed disappointment with indigenous politicians, particularly those aspiring to elective positions because of the language of their campaigns, which they say is not issue-driven.
Dooshima Aper, a trader, Terseer Shima, a newspaper vendor, and Francis Chibuzor, a barber asked “What type of politics are we practicing these days? Open the newspapers on a daily basis and all of you read about is people talking about politics of tribe and not what can bring about development of the State and the nation.”
Programs Director of Lawyers’ Alert, a civil society group in Benue State and Mr. Lazarus Aule, bemoaned the mode of campaigns that are not centered on welfarism for the masses.
Religious leaders in the state are also irked by the tone of campaign language prior to 2011 election. For instance, Archbishop Yimam Orkwar of the All Nations Evangelism Ministries, ANEM regretted that those seeking elective positions are diverting attention from discussing the primary concerns of the people which include good roads, health care facilities, water and job opportunities for graduates to trivial issues of zoning.
His Muslim brother, Imam Ibrahim Abdullahi, shared the same view point with him.
Similarly, a lecturer with the Department of Mass Communication at the Benue State university, Mr. Moses Utor and the Head of History Department, Prof. Armstrong Adejo, emphasised that political campaigns should be focused on deliverables to the electorates by aspirants, saying “this is what obtains in developed countries but, in Nigeria, it is different. We are not moving forward as a country “.
A Senatorial aspirant for Benue North-West district, Hon Mike Mku, described what is happening in the polity as campaigns of personality and ego.
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enough of this recycling
Nigerians have prayed and God will answer by giving us the patrotic and sincere president come 2011. so shall it be Amen
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