Frightened politicians are defecting to the ruling party for cover against their sordid past. Their defections are not genuine from their body chemistry. A convenient playing field is absent. The Renewed Hope Propagandists are afraid of their scorecard. They ran to the strongest opposition, PDP for silent rescue through defection at a fee. PDP has conveniently repackaged itself in APC color in most states. It was APC that planned the new tact of intimidation, bribery and politics of annihilation for PDP to rescue it for soft landing in 2027.
Politics is usually an interesting game watching how the mentality of human beings is twisted, insulted, shaped and in some cases abused and tossed like a cricket ball on a rough pitch. The players are masters of deceit, falsehood and sweet promises that can walk a corpse at once if believed.A typical Nigerian politician is at pleasure deceiving those with ears for his tricks, and those hovering around him for survival. Dribbling, hiding the truth and praise singing are his ‘religion’. Genuine religious adherents always avoid being in partisan politics for whatever it can offer. Reference to the most rigged 2023 elections, the elections incited the Nigerian cult of infantilism. It accentuated disparate voter divides, our fear of growing up, and inclination to soak in the river of misbehavior.Public discourse segued to ranting and rascality, en route to the polls— online and offline—thus, validating Marc Cooper’s pungent portrayal of the television marinated society, in which the boundaries between, childhood and adulthood blur, and completely get erased, in the glitz of pseudo realities.
The Nigerian political arena extends beyond the political parties, to the platforms of public discourse and channels of communication, especially social media, where children and adults, trade tantrums, and hurl juvenile rant and rage in protest against everything Nigerian.The political landscape has deteriorated on the watch of predatory merchants, no doubt with the latter displaying to date, willful incompetence and inexplicable disdain for the electorates. The citizenry, in time, develop deep rooted loathing for their pretensions, cold heartedness and abuse of authority by pretending gluttonous leaders blinded by greed, lust for power, and abuse of privilege.
The next few years, precisely in 2027, it may offer Nigerians yet another opportunity to stand on the bight of history and salvage or waste opportunities for the expected genuine change anchored on sincerity of purpose and concern for a better Nigeria not the kind of change we exited under Buhari and still battling its reformed remnant forcing us to nurse inflicted economic and insecurity injuries and projected to deep mess and the ongoing deceit tagged Renewed Hope under an ailing and regionally bigoted president that came with a sizeable baggage. In the change of our hope, we have tested political warriors the likes of Bauchi State Governor, Sen. Bala Muhammed who within few years has printed his name in gold and on the sands of time as a leader and a politician of repute. He has displayed prowess and dexterity in service delivery to his people which is at variance with the expectation of his detractors in opposition camps. For the umpteenth time, Nigerians may field contenders on party platforms, some of whom may be out to excite the electorate’s frantic hopes simply to dash them. Like a changeling of fickle principles, passion and integrity are changeful in their wake.The electorate must make its way past the fraud and extortion of these amateur deceitful politicians and senseless younger aspirants, who are out to lure the psyche into committing political capital (that is, electoral votes) to unsound judgment and investments.
But to achieve this, the Nigerian voter must learn to discern the likely messiah from false patriots and conmen who are in abundance in the APC. It’s about time we exercise tact and meticulousness, in casting our vote in 2027 elections based on the 2023 horrifying experience from a comedy and mockery of commonsense tagged Muslim/Muslim ticket/Emi-lokan to actualize Yoruba-lokan while parasitic elements from other regions and ethnic nationalities are gleefully watching and showering praises for an expected bowl of porridge.
19 Northern States electorates should be wary of everybody especially those who stood against the election of tested leaders but busied themselves shortchanging needy Nigerians to fund the campaigns of their stooges that masqueraded as candidates and now national albatross to our peace, survival and progress. Nigerians had to watch out for certain questions which they frequently heard certain apologies that resounded more as philosophical queries or rhetoric. They are in truth, psychological confessions and expositions of the treachery and chaos constituted by APC’s most preferred candidates and their apologists.If we had paid good mind to their politics, we might have found that every touted good by APC candidates, masked a damming evil, like the extent to which altruism erodes a man’s capacity to grasp the concept of his rights, or the actual value of human life. And the extent to which his conscience and humaneness has been wiped out.
Let me urge that we be wary of the extremely platitudinous and patronizing APC candidates, because they are too desperate for reelection or first time election to serve in any elective position as the means to the end of others; such characters will ultimately regard others as disposable means to achieve a diabolical ambition, often at very expensive cost.
The more neurotic and ‘conscientious’ they get in their practice of altruism, the more colorful schemes they device “for the love of the collective good”, “for the love of the common man” or “posterity” and “leaders of tomorrow.”Every effort of such a candidate will be geared at reinforcing all manners of sentiments and sound bites—he would claim to seek the fulfillment of “the people’s needs” except the actual needs of the real electorates, like me and you.Among other measures, shall we institutionalize debate as a platform for scrutinizing our candidates to separate the chaff from the grain? I moot a discussion where the crucial, dreaded questions get asked. Let us wield it as a looking glass by which we view and analyze the politics, antecedents, and soul of each candidate. Let us not be deceived by their politics of unblemished altruism.
The advocates of such selflessness often ‘promise’ automatic magical solutions to problems of poverty, security, sub-standard education, and healthcare to mention a few.
They promise success and survival to everyone but what they offer, ultimately are what Rand calls “life boat” solutions—- fleeting lifelines by which short term benefits are derived. Such a philosophy of governance conflicts with our social realities. It’s akin to applying acid on a bullet wound.Let us not be deceived by the promises of juvenile and greedy politicians and their appendages, a better tomorrow, modern and affordable housing, employment opportunities and fiscal prudence, qualitative education, and so on regurgitated by their preferred candidates.
Let us begin to ask, in Rand—speak, how they would pay for these things and at what cost to you and me? Let us make each candidate define his philosophy of social reform, welfare governance and the psychology of his noble experiments in the interest of our most basic necessities and his antecedents in public or private office.
The appalling recklessness by which some candidates proposes, justify and projects “government with a human face” may be discernible, measured, and disclaimed through the looking-glass of their antecedents in public office, well organized political debates, interviews, pseudo-events, and frank talk.
Who knows? We may discover, in the nick of time, that the hallmark of our preferred candidate’s disposition is the advocacy of some limitless, grand scale public goal or initiative without regard to context, cost, or the means of achieving it.
For such a goal or initiative to be desirable to all, it has to be made public and glamorized because the costs are not to be earned but to be expropriated, and a dense patch of venomous log has to enshroud such vital issues as the means of achieving it. This is because the means could be human lives like yours and mine; battered, bruised, browbeaten, easy to fleece.Healthcare appropriately illustrates a modicum of the random candidate’s lifeboat ventures. “Isn’t it desirable that other governments subsidies treatment of compatriots living with deadly diseases as Bauchi Governor Bala did?” clamors an average citizen. The preferable answer would be “Yes, it is desirable”.It is at this point that both the mental and moral processes of a collectivized brain are wholly cut off. The rest is fog. Only the desire remains in sight of our “altruistic” candidate.“It’s for the greater good. It’s hardly in my interest but in the interest of others. It’s for the public, a helpless, ailing public,” ranted the imposed candidate on the party.
Consequently, the fog hid such facts as the embezzled public funds, unbridled looting of the public till, compromised and sacrifice of medical science, professional integrity, and the careers and happiness of those who are to administer such care, the nurses and medical doctors; and those who are to enjoy it, the patriots.
The examples of such projects are innumerable as daily, opposition favored candidates, whip up more slogans to bait and educate us. Therefore, in 2027, be wary of candidates promising to clean up our slums while avoiding questions about what happens to the victims of such cleansing and those in the next income bracket?Be wary of those candidates who seek to “educate the shanty kid” while avoiding crucial issues such as the quality and welfare of staff to anchor such projects. What will be taught and what back up measures are to be adopted in the event that the initiative fails?Be wary of that candidate who seeks that the constituency, local government, state and Nigeria also gets, to do the moonwalk and conquer space even as he may avoid the crucial issues of government and private sector neglect. Nigeria’s white elephant space technology, and discrimination against the nation’s tertiary institutions and technical training colleges.Be conscious of their unreality —-their blind, savage, ghastly fantasies that inspire them to prevaricate and if possible, avoid the usually unanswered and unanswerable question to all their “popular” and “altruistic” goals: “Who really gets to enjoy the benefits?”As we move steady to the next general elections, probably in 2027, we should be more careful in casting our votes to the ray of candidates seeking our franchise in the APC collection. Some candidates are qualified or even over-qualified to be voted while some are mere opportunists desperately seeking for our votes to enslave and deny us the dividends accrued in the democracy as we are forced to tolerate today, and turned to laughing stocks, beggars and clowns as conquered slaves on our ancestral territory. Some have mustered the art of packaging and marketing their candidates with decorum and ease while others are still at the manufacturing stage not knowing what to do best to package and market their candidate as some prefer to package and market their candidates through mischief, threats and intimidation as witnessed in 2023 from insane candidates in the All Progressives Congress extraction.APC presented their best for the presidency which was the worst for Nigeria by any collective assessment.
He was a rotten carrot with questionable credentials but still for corrupt reason, he was rigged to power, forcefully tolerated, hated and sustained at humongous amount at public expense. Whichever is the case in 2027, the choice is ours as a right, as the eating lies in the pudding! If Nigeria collapses, we shall regret being cowards for not throwing adequate challenges against our slave masters garbed in democratic attire. And we shall definitely take the blame to the doors of those who sheepishly, clownishly, cowardly and greedily cued with our tested grave diggers feasting in the APC club of gluttons. History will vindicate the just!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
