2023: Politicking, citizens’ obligations, demands of decorum and responsibility
The Nigerian political space has begun to bubble with new dynamics in what would be known as pre-election year politicking. The coming of the general elections in 2023 would no doubt be clouded with arrays of activities in dynamic turns of realities. The permutations towards the election would be largely clouded with controversies which may make a clear cut projection nebulous to put forth. The configuration of the Nigerian political space has been known to be clustered with recurring factors which are largely predictable by their nature as constant variables. However, the variable parameters of the political space would be known to be factors which may make a straight cut projection clumsy. The depth of the variables that characterise the Nigerian political landscape have made the permission of vagaries a cloudy part of the system.
Among the subject of note when giving depth of analysis to the landscape has been the subject of political ideology. While politics in the advanced climate of the western world which Nigeria largely seeks to emulate in the structuring of government seem to be largely driven by ideologies, it is of note that the strength of political ideologies in the Nigerian political culture is still shrouded with waving customs. The patterns of the uncoordinated dispositions have led to clustering the political landscape with inconsistencies of actions which may necessarily brew controversies and vagaries of realities, and thus making the prediction of expected outcomes more controversial.
As the 2023 general elections attract building formation of political processes, the need to guide actions and inactions along ideological patterns is largely ideal and necessary. This is, particularly, essential for the citizenry as the choice of leaders to pilot governmental affairs for another term would largely bear depth of significance to the profile of the State-of-the-Nation for another season. The betterment of situations as desired, or the worsening of situations, would largely hold strong bearing to the crops of leaders elected to occupy the various positions opening by 2023. Hence, the need for citizens to commence deep searchlight for choice of the leadership of the Country is an obligation they must fulfill with the sense of enlightenment and deep thought. The workings of orientation along all sense of sensitivity is largely essential.
On orientation of the perspective to govern the streams of actions and inactions, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has called on Nigerian professionals to do away with leaning on ethnicity, religion and ‘parochial considerations,’ in making crucial decisions to determine the selection of new leadership as to be determined by the 2023 elections. Osinbajo who made his case at the All Progressives Congress, (APC) Professional Forum held at the Old Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday, stressed the need for Nigerian professionals to embrace politics that is driven by merit against parochial considerations, for national development.
“The usefulness of professionals in politics is that you have people who are used to being assessed on the basis of their own achievements, who are unafraid to make competence the first advertorial of their acumen. In other words, professionals emphasize the role of merit in public life. So, one of the major advantages to our communities of having professionals in politics is lost if we do not recognise our role as merit driven persons must be to fight the temptation of ethnic, religious and other parochial considerations in making crucial decisions for the development of our nation.
“There is no point having professionals in politics if these professionals are driven by ethnic, religious and other parochial considerations because the whole point of professionalism is that you are defined by merit, you are defined by your professional acumen.Nobody would place their lives in the hands of an incompetent doctor because they share the same faith or continue to patronize a dangerously inept mechanic because they belong to the same tribe. If someone told me, for example, that the pilot who is to fly the plane that I’m to go in is not a very good pilot, but he’s from Ikenne, my hometown, I certainly won’t go in that plane. So, in the same way, we must especially refuse to be swayed by those whose sole argument forvpower is an appeal to sectional sentiments. We must resist it. And we must say no to it, because otherwise, we fail in our professional calling.
“True progress is about reimagining our collective circumstances and creating an environment that enables prosperity for us all. This is a challenge for us as professionals. To this end, we must see
ourselves as stewards of the common good, who have been entrusted with the privilege of managing the collective destiny of our people for an allotted time. And we must do so with a conscience and to the best of our abilities,” Osinbajo at the forum with the theme: “The role of professionals in politics and nation-building” said.
Former Governor of Bauchi State and convener of the forum, Isa Yuguda noted that the success of any political party in government is majorly dependent on the delivery of democratic dividends and good governance to the people.
“If it fails in this, it has lost its reason for co-existence. It is instructive to mention, however, that the delivery of these dividends is largely dependent on the capacity and competence of persons at the strategic, operational and technical levels of government. Only quality and visionary leadership can harness mobilized and deployed valuable human and material resources appropriately and accurately for the advancement of the country. It is imperative to state at this juncture that only trained professionals in various fields of endeavour possess the administrative and technical proficiencies to strategically drive developmental initiatives of any government globally,” he opined.
The complaints of Nigerians over the performance of government overtime with all lamentations, could be traced to their choices in elections. It has become necessary for Nigerians to awake to the obligation of giving depth of thought to the demands of choosing those who would represent them as custodians of the substances of governance. As the indirect framework of the representative democratic structure permits, it is important that as the demands to choose selected few to represent the populace is the anchor of the political formation, it has become the reality that the responsibilities of passing mandate to the representatives, as would be structured through election, is one action the citizenry must wake to effect. Hence, it behooves Nigerians to play their roles with the depth of thoughtfulness, just as duties lie on the coordinating stakeholders to conduct their activities in the highest sense of responsibility and decorum.
