Na-Allah Mohammed Zagga Put it This Way: Political Rhetoric: What Are The Details? If one politician tells us he will create four million jobs in 100 days after coming into office, we need to know how he will go about it and by what strategies he hopes to achieve it. If another, promises to end terrorism in 100 days of coming into office, we want to know what makes his strategy better than his opponents. I am always suspicious of politicians that make too many fantastic promises. The American statesman Barnard Baruch said you should vote for a politician that makes the least promises because he will be the least disappointing! He was right. Fantastic promises usually result in great disappointments. Assessing the late President Umaru Musa Yaradua administration while he was living in exile, former FCT Minister Nasir El-Rufai described his government as great expectations, disappointing outcomes. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo once promised to increase power generation to 10,000 megawatts by the end of 2007. When the deadline finally came and the promise not delivered, and reality staring him in the face, Obasanjo admitted that he under-estimated the scale of the problem. The late President Umaru Musa Yaradua also promised to increase power generation to 6,0000 megawatts by the end of December 2009. When the deadline finally arrived and he was unable to deliver, Yaradua excused his failure to keep the promise on the grounds that he under-estimsted the magnitude of the problem. That is why we need a presidential debate in Nigeria to help us subject candidates to questions and scrutiny about the details of how they intend to translate fantastic promises into results. The biggest challenge, however, regardless of which candidate is making more fantastic promises than another or others, is the issue of fighting corruption. Without a sincere commitment to fight corruption, no candidate or party can deal with the challenges of insecurity and infrastructure decay successfully. Billions upon billions have gone into improving electric power generation. Yet the results have not matched the heavy financial expenditures on the them. The security situation faces the same challenge. We should not continue to pay lip service to these problems for the sake of enjoying power. When voters elect leaders into office, they dont do so for the fun of it. They expect the elected officials to perform. Unfortunately, in our kind of odd democracy, we attach too much financial rewards to elective offices. Consequently, these heavy financial benefits rather than selfless service to the people are the main reasons politicians are desperately attracted to elective offices, and they will fight to the death to retain the seats. It doesnt matter if they have to rig to sustain those financial advantages in the name of our own version of democracy.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:34:53 +0000