2023 General Elections: Modifying dispositions towards enlightened political participation
The drumbeats of the 2023 General Elections have begun to play out with dynamics of rhythmic patterns. While political stakeholders cannot be caged from playing politics, it is however pertinent that such endeavour be guarded within the permissible limit of law and order. Nigerian politics have been known to be clustered with the do-or-die syndrome. The negative norm has been sedimented in the structure of the political space, such that the culture of politics in the Country cannot be expunged from the characteristics of bellicose aggression.
The subject of violence and attacks, whether soft or hard, as they may appear have been known as a formative part of the profile of politics in the Country. In the Country has been found a broad reflection of what the negative definitions of politics really is. Hence, the character of politics in the Country is keenly of the concept which bends towards the negative perception of politics as a game of selfish interests and the associated disorder which accompanies the struggles to get it all by all means, hence giving expression to the tactics of “the end justifies the means” Machiavellian definition of politics.
Notwithstanding the lasting impression of the deformity, rationality and civility demand that the culture must not keep on the negative way with the poor syndrome attached to the people’s political culture.
The necessity to expunge the attitudinal disposition to politics in the Nigerian polity must needs take the force of change, if really the thirst and yearnings for growth would become a reality. This is pertinent as the quest for growth itself must find institutional expressions in the fabrics of the society, which the political institution, is a cardinal part of. Hence, any meaningful development must also be such having a foundational reflection in the definition of the attitude of the people to politics, forming the bedrock of the political culture of the polity. Hence, the expected development as it is yearned for, must first begin with the refinement of the political culture. This goes a long way beyond the superficial consideration, as such sanity needed in the political culture is key to how leaders are been chosen, the kinds of leaders elected, how they are being elected, the choice of their persons, the calibre of their personalities, their ideologies, pedigrees, the determination of their competence, assessment of their profiles and so on.
For all these to assume the positive side of the coin, enlightened disposition to politics must be an anchor that all citizens and stakeholders must cleave to.
Fear over violence in the forthcoming General Elections in 2023 have kept on pushing concerned actors to raise alarm on why it is pertinent for all actors to desist from barbaric disposition to political processes as their syndrome to political participation. On Wednesday, 24th August, 2022, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) raised a charge alarm on why political stakeholders must act lawfully in their quest to ensure free, fair, and credible process. The Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa when he received a delegation from the Inter-Party Advisory Council of Nigeria, led by its Chairman, Engr. Yabagi Yusuf Sani at the EFCC headquarters, Jabi, Abuja, charged political parties in the country to play fair and desist from electoral malpractices to ensure that the election is free and fair. According to him, such visit underscores the importance which the EFCC and indeed all well-meaning Nigerians attach to political parties, especially as the 2023 General Election approaches.
“We need political parties to work in ensuring that the forthcoming general election is free, fair and credible,” the EFCC Chairman, who spoke through the Secretary to the Commission, Dr. George Ekpungu said. He charged political parties to strengthen their internal democracy, shun godfatherism and ensure that the process of leadership selection is credible, assuring the Council that the Commission was open to collaboration to improve the integrity of the Nigerian electoral process by discouraging vote trading and other financial malpractices.
The tactics of violence and the syndrome to such aggression are barbaric and primitive, and in all reflections an unenlightened culture to politics. The end results have not in any good way turned out positive for the polity and the entire populace; rather, the narratives have over time, left a political wilderness which kept on producing wild woods which have not benefited the whole for the greatest good of the greatest number.
It is time for the culture to change. Such changes demand character reformation from all sides. Hence, both citizens and political gladiators as actors in the political space, must act intelligently, cautiously, and civilly within the permissible limit of the law and good conduct, to give sanity to the political processes, particularly towards the forth coming General Elections. As each side do have defined roles in the frame of participative dynamics, doing same in the most responsive and responsible manner is sine qua non.
