Fundamentals for 2023 presidential aspirants, candidates

IT is the season of politics, of declarations to aspire for high- and low-level political offices. It is the season of promises and flowery words that eventually would mean nothing. At this time in previous electoral cycles, we were told that all that needs to be done is to remove the incumbent political leaders and the ruling party because they performed woefully. This discourse seeks to chart a pathway for critical issues in the polity that require the attention of aspirants for political office, especially at the presidential level.

The first critical issue is for the attention of aspirants for the presidency from the ruling All Progressives Congress. The starting point for any aspirant from the party, who wants to be taken seriously by Nigerians, is an admission and confession of the truth on the performance of his party in the last seven and half years. It is a fact that qualifies for judicial notice that the regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) performed woefully in security, economy, anti-corruption fight, education, health, etc. The regime has set Nigeria in the reverse gear in virtually all known indicators. Thus, any reasonable aspirant from the ruling party should acknowledge this; distance himself from this performance before laying out proposed plans and policy frameworks to reverse the rot. This is the very first act that will portray such an aspirant as a person who is not starting with a lying proposition.

Essentially, the approach of some notable aspirants in the ruling party who on their declaration stated that they want to continue and conclude what Buhari started is discomforting. There are posers inherent in this approach of declaring to contest for the presidency. If it is generally agreed that Nigeria has retrogressed since this regime, is the aspirant promising to continue in the retrogression? Is it about a promise to increase insecurity? A deal to further depreciate the value of the naira? A promise to continue using the anti-corruption fight for political exigency, instructing the Attorney General of the Federation to enter nolle prosequi for favoured politicians and arrange pardons for convicted and jailed politically exposed persons? Is it a promise to continue paying N4 trillion or more for fuel subsidy? What exactly is there to continue or to build on? The promise to continue in the footsteps of retired Major General Buhari is more properly understood by the majority of Nigerians as a threat to deepen the hardship and preventable suffering, a promise for the government to stand by and reap more bloodshed. Nigerians will ultimately shake off this promise of continuity by rejecting such aspirants if they emerge as candidates. If 2015 and 2019 were mistakes, then it has become too costly to repeat such a mistake.

The second critical issue is for politicians and aspirants across all the political parties. It appears that the majority of the aspirants do not appreciate or understand the magnitude of the rot the current administration has plunged the country in virtually all sectors and subsectors. If they did, many of the aspirants would not have declared an ambition in the first place. There is still this impression from the way many of the aspirants have been talking that there is still a cake to share, some goodies to dispense and all that is required is to scale the electoral hurdle and occupy the seat of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But this is far from the truth. The next president will be on the hot seat from the first day in office. There will hardly be the couple of months’ honeymoon period because the extant challenges are matters of life and death and cannot afford to wait for a honeymoon. The expectations will be overwhelming and so we need the best of our best to start working the minute he gets sworn in. This discourse gratuitously advises all presidential aspirants to take a deep dive into Nigeria’s statistics on poverty, education, health, security, macroeconomic indicators so as to understand what is at stake and this will lead to a proper decision on whether to continue in the race or to fall out. The third issue is also applicable across the divide. Nigerians will no longer accept loose and woolly statements and positions about the challenges facing the country. We do not need that approach of being told that we shall devise the strategy of crossing the bridge when we get there. For instance, despite the fact that over 30 aspirants have declared to run for the presidency, I have not come across any aspirant’s strategy for curbing the ubiquitous insecurity. Aspirants and candidates will need to vividly analyse every challenge in terms of identifying the key underlying issues, policy and practical approach for intervention, cost of the intervention and how it will be funded as well as timelines for Nigerians to get results. We will also need to know what the aspirant did when faced with similar challenges if he had occupied a relevant public office in the past. It is therefore pertinent for aspirants and candidates to assemble teams with empirical thinking capacity to draw up well articulated and workable proposals to engage national challenges.

The fourth issue is that aspirants and candidates must be ready for unfettered transparency and accountability about their previous and present lives. This is a task the media is eminently qualified and positioned to undertake. Every aspirant must be ready and willing to fully disclose his health status to avoid a situation where a sick person occupies the presidency and his infirmity of mind or body prevents him from performing the duties of his office. Such a fellow will continue the tradition of medical tourism at the public expense and in dereliction of his duty and oath of office. We need a scenario where aspirants and candidates will disclose their assets and compliance with tax laws as a condition to be elected to office. Promises of public declaration of assets, which will be denied upon assumption of office, will not serve the purpose this time. Recalling the experience of Nigerian women, who constitute half of the population in the ongoing constitution review exercise, it is imperative that Nigerian women fine tune an agenda for mainstreaming gender in governance. This should be used to engage the aspirants and candidates, to get their public commitments for equity, affirmative action and gender mainstreaming. Massive sensitisation by the media, civil society and women groups will ensure that anyone who continues with the kitchen, bedroom and the other room mindset is locked out of the presidency.
Nigerians should demand solutions to extant challenges from proposed leaders and understand their proposal(s) before making a decision on whom to select. We cannot afford another waste of four to eight years.