A Manifesto For Presidential Aspirants

If he were alive, our founding chairman, Sam Nda-Isaiah, would be celebrating his 64th birthday today. As family, friends, and staff of the LEADERSHIP Group mark his posthumous birthday, we share with our readers one of his many articles, in which he, in his characteristic style, analysed the Nigerian situation during a pre-election year, in August 2010. The article was published in his column, The Last Word.

Nigeria already has an array of presidential aspirants who come in different shades, sizes and colours across the political parties, but no one knows what any of them stands for.

We may be aware of their antecedents, but these are in the past, and the world has changed. Nigeria has also changed even more.

It would no longer be sufficient to have aspirants like the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, who said he would declare an emergency in the power sector, only for nothing to happen.

Our electric power situation only got worse. Yar’Adua created one parallel committee on power after another, while those charged with finding a solution continued to help themselves with the little funds available. The coming elections would be fought and won. No one is going to tolerate the nonsense of 2003 and 2007, when Obasanjo and Yar’Adua became president, respectively, without having to go through the rigours of winning elections.

President Goodluck Jonathan himself has committed himself to free and fair elections, and he has buttressed this commitment by appointing Professor Attahiru Jega as INEC chairman. Preachers are also instructing their followers to vote and defend their votes. All of us know what “Defend your votes” means, and coming from someone like Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of The Redeemed Church Worldwide, who twice has been selected by TIME magazine as one of the most influential persons in the world, then you know the next election will not be election as usual.

Nigerian politicians must brace themselves to work very hard, as their counterparts do in other countries, if they want to win this time around. From feelers that are emerging, any policeman who lends himself to rig elections, as we saw in the past, may be prematurely dispatched to his grave.

Working hard means convincing us with their manifestos. An empty seven-point agenda would cut no ice this time. And zoning, so far, has proved to be an elite power-struggle tool. We know all the aspirants will go through the ritual of telling us they will solve the scandalous power outage problem, but it will no longer be enough to simply say so.

Both Obasanjo and Yar’Adua had glibly told us they would do it, but what we eventually saw was the enrichment of their cronies at the nation’s expense. Any aspirant who tells us he will solve the electric power problem must also tell us in specific terms how he intends to do so. Will he rely exclusively on gas from the restive Niger Delta, or will he also consider some of the approximately 25 hydroelectric power plants scattered across the country?

Or, will he also, like the Chinese leaders are currently doing, look into the vast coal resources that extend from Kogi State southwards? If he is going to use gas resources, which are the least expensive, will he also consider the northern states, where exploration studies have confirmed the presence of vast gas reserves waiting to be exploited?

All candidates must immediately begin giving stump speeches, even in their party primaries, so we can see which political parties really have what it takes to move this troubled country forward. After all, was it not during the titanic struggle at the Democratic Party primary for the party ticket in the United States that we saw the stuff of which Barack Obama (now president) and Hillary Clinton were made of?

Any politician who thinks that things will continue as usual must be living in a fool’s paradise. Even the military, who were not elected, declared their manifestos during their coup and maiden speeches, so we cannot accept less. Nigeria is the only democracy in the world where people win elections without any form of manifestos. This disdain must stop.

We also want to know what each of them intends to do with the current business of kidnappings. They should tell us how they intend to kill all the armed robbers and kidnappers, possibly within six months, a year or two after coming to power, or whether, like Yar’ Adua, the armed robbers and kidnappers would be given a red-carpet reception into Aso Rock, granted amnesty, bribed with billions of naira and begged to become law-abiding.

We really need to know how each of them intends to handle this. I met an old classmate of mine last week in Lagos who told me that since he bought a factory in Aba more than two years ago, he has not been able to go there to even inspect the place for fear of being kidnapped. This is not how countries are governed. If an indigene of a place cannot go there for fear of being kidnapped, then we must be jokers if we expect foreign investors to come in.

The most important function of government is employment generation. Employment keeps people away from crime, enables them to pay taxes to the government, and helps them send their children to school, among other benefits. All over the world, employment generation is the government’s most important task.

Except in Nigeria, of course. The last time I checked, about 9% of Nigerians were employed in any capacity. This also really means that the unemployment rate in Nigeria must be roughly 90%. This is not a scandal; it is a disgrace. Only the grace of God has kept this country from falling to pieces. Forget the figures that have come from successive Nigerian governments or even foreign agencies, which, of course, get their figures from the Nigerian government.

The official Nigerian unemployment rate is 19.7%, and South Africa’s is 25.3%. Is it not clear that this is a lie? Our unemployment figure cannot be lower than South Africa’s, which has a much larger economy, a more effective government, and a third of our population. The aspirants must now start outdoing themselves, telling us how they intend to reverse this.

Yes, education. In education, we certainly need to start afresh. The way it is today, Nigeria has lost the battle for the future. The latest WAEC results showed that only about a quarter of all secondary school students who sat for the exams passed. Nigerians today send their children to schools in Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Sudan for quality education. Yes, even Sudan. Nigeria is obviously collapsing, even if we don’t want to acknowledge that. The presidential aspirants must give us specifics on how they intend to pull this chestnut out of the fire.

And what about the fight against corruption? And here, I am not merely talking about Obasanjo’s and Yar’Adua’s selective fight against corruption. It is corruption that has destroyed the country’s infrastructure. Almost all the choice properties in Maitama, Asokoro, Guzape, and similar exclusive suburbs in Abuja are owned by top civil servants, both serving and retired, politicians, both serving and retired and other public officeholders, yet, the country doesn’t have electric power supply, drinking water, medicines in hospitals, good public schools, etc. Is it not obvious where all the money has gone?

The aspirants must start speaking about corruption and share their views and direction in this regard. No more tongue-in-cheek comments on corruption.

And for those who still think zoning the presidency to the North is an article of faith, they should start telling Northerners the specifics of what they intend to do with power, which will be in their interest. Do they want to mismanage the country on behalf of the North, or award contracts to themselves on behalf of the North or even steal on our collective behalf? The North lost almost everything under Obasanjo; the majority of Yar’Adua’s programme was skewed in favour of the South-South. The North is much more underdeveloped today than it was in 1999, and Yar’ Adua, a northern president, did nothing to reverse it.

Even agriculture, which was once a Northern forte, has moved to the South-West, as poultry of different sizes and almost all the fish farms are now domiciled there. Bank ownership is concentrated in the South. Microfinance bank ownership is probably even worse. Of the more than 940 microfinance banks in the country, just over 150 are in the North. Onitsha alone has more than 90 registered microfinance banks. So those who have staked their presidency on a power shift to the North must start telling Northerners in specific terms how they intend to at least create a balance.

Democracy must be for the benefit of the people, and not politicians who just scheme to acquire it. 2011 must be different!