The Upper Crust

Presidency: Let us all run

 

With Uche Nnadozie

The thing has gotten to that. Everyone wants to be president. Not that there is anything wrong with it, yet declaring to run for president is such a no brainer. You do not require any preparation nor does it matter how you do it these days. In Nigeria, declaring for president is the cheapest political event. Everyone does it. And they make no mistakes to tell us just how bold they are. The thing is, I can’t understand why people think that to say you want to run for office has become a bold decision. It’s like everyday that passes present Nigerians with some flat assumption of what we truly are or the potentials thereof.
I am old enough to have seen people contest elections in Nigeria. I remember the 1993 presidential election. I also recall the contest for governorship in several states leading up to the presidential election. I also can recall the National Assembly elections and especially that of electing principal officers. From there we went into the Abacha years and the frenetic decision by parties at the time to adopt Abacha as their presidential candidate. We all know how that debauchery ended. Then the Abdulsalami transition. This was followed by all the four yearly transitions up until today.
So we have seen presidential hopefuls. We saw serious people, but we also saw fellows out to entertain. The talk about people declaring for positions they know they are not ready for but doing so just to be called “former this or that’’ comes to mind. I have really never given it a thought. I have always wondered why someone is satisfied being called “former presidential aspirant’’, when in reality the individual never put up any fight. What we are witnessing today whereby every Tom, Dick and Harry declares for president has reduced the serious matter of running for office to a joke. Ironically, these same aspirants are the ones making noise that they can run the country better.
Now to go into any fight, a smart protagonist is expected to appraise the enemy. You have to understand the strength and weaknesses of not only yourself but the enemy. This will help understand at what point to go for war. You just don’t jump into war at the sound of a barreta. You will be consumed. First thing to determine in electoral contest is the objective for going into politics. If the objective is to run for office to affect policies or carryout executive functions, then the next thing will be at what level. After that, you look at reality of your own sphere of influence and personal issues like health and resources. Every political campaign costs money all over the world. You cannot accuse an incumbent of having impoverished the citizenry and you turn around to ask the same citizenry to donate to a crowd funding for your election to the tune of N2 billion. don’t complain when people see this as another MMM- the Russian money doubling scheme that wrecked many subscribers recently in our country.
So the surprise is that folks even try to take these aspirants serious. They tell us that they are bold to declare and that like Obama or Trump, they can win. We hear this worn out if not lame argument that its until you try that you can succeed. Really? Trying so that one may succeed is not a strategy. To succeed in politics especially at the highest level, there needs to be deliberate plan to achieve that. It comes with participation and it comes with the environment. You can’t import America or Canada or Austria into Nigeria. They have their ways, we have ours. So the duty is for those who are interested now to show cause that they understand this environment. The most ridiculous of the claims by these wannabes is that they are young. Nigeria has never been in lack of young leaders.
If you are running for president in Nigeria today, and you do not put the geographic, ethnic and regional issues and balancing into your plans for campaign, then you are a loser. You cant win, sorry! There may be a time in the future where primordial politics will not be at play, but as at today, if you don’t factor it in then you never had a plan to win. And if you do not have a plan to win, then you do not have a plan to turn Nigeria positively around, period! How else do you wish to defeat an incumbent Buhari who is from the north, with the unwritten code of power rotation between north and south if you do not field a northerner as candidate? So all the southern aspirants strutting about shows that they do not grasp the difficult dimensions of this country. They think its a joke, if they were ever serious with their bizarre aspirations, 10months away will bring them back to reality.
Every Nigerian has the right to contest for any election they are qualified for. It’s a right. But in exercising such right, tact is the word. You don’t burn the bridges while trying to exercise your right. It will comeback to ruin you in future. Moreover like I have stated above, if the ‘’younger’’ aspirants mouth their superior gumption then it should show in how they organise their campaign. Dismissing our geopolitics, ethnic and religious factors in determining who gets what shows naivety and kindergarten ideas. If they don’t get serious going forward, I will get ahead and throw my hat in the ring. I am a Nigerian too. Let the joke continue.

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