Okenyi Kenechi
What governor Wike and those who want to replace him have in common is the politics of personality that they have entrenched in the state. It has culminated in several distractions, one of which is the absence of ideology within the political space.
Individuals emerge with hopes of running for office but with bigger hopes that no one would be smart enough to ask them critical questions; questions bothering on policies and their instant direction, like what he or she thinks of youth unemployment in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the whole country and how best to reverse it.
I’d like to argue that the unemployment rate has never cost any politician an election in Nigeria; none that I can think of. That is why despite the fact that over 7 million jobs were lost under president Buhari in 3 years, he is still so much struggling to re-contest in an election that he might likely win.
The president’s hope of winning the 2019 election is not anchored on anything but solely based on his personality, for living a spartan lifestyle and as a man of integrity coupled with his popularity in the Muslim North. It is not about his policies or ideological leanings, so let ‘s discard that.
Few months to the elections, politicians have coloured the political atmosphere with issues that do not matter but which appeals to individual sentiments of the indigenes of the state. At a time when electorates expect leading contenders in the race for Brick House to present their manifestos for scrutiny, we are inundated with emotional blackmail of ethnic politics or how where one comes from should become the ultimate decider of why he should be elected and not what one has to offer.
In the midst of the ravaging bubbles that signifies nothing, manpower is lost in arguing for and against such obscure political ideology whose outcome in the past has been nothing but a colossal disaster.
Here, personality wins elections, not ideologies. That is why those who ask critical questions are in the minority with the media leading in such unholy assault on common sense. What greets one on the radio every morning is what so and so politician said, with the print media being the worse in the neglect of critical issues. In fact, they have continued to assault their readers with eyesores.
But if the media and youths who fight tooth and nail on social media over inanities shy away from asking critical questions, questions about survival and development, what do they expect the politicians to do?
The 2019 election will perhaps herald a new approach to political power in the state. The pressure has begun in earnest with governor Wike on the race to another term or totally out of office. The election will allow the residents to access the governor and pass him or fail him for his 4 years of steering the wheels of the state.
It will also allow those who seek to replace the governor present themselves for scrutiny but there is a spanner in the wheel of such free expression of political franchise.
The personality of the individuals involved has enveloped the desire for a thorough investigation of their political pedigree. It has made electioneering weak and unable to achieve its main purpose of electing individuals that will work for the overall good of the state. We are presently being assaulted with their antics and those of their supporters.
Politicians don’t run on the strength of the attraction which is their manifesto but on the perception that people like them yet the state is plagued by heightening security challenges, youths unemployment and restiveness, environmental degradation, teens prostitution, inadequate health care and emergency system, lack of educational direction with mushroom international schools littering every nook and cranny, unregulated tax system where area boys invade business centers under the auspices of unknown unions and extort business owners in broad daylight.
When will candidates begin exploring different narratives, like building low-cost housing system and creating a greener Port Harcourt where residents breathe fresh air? The soot will soon return with the coming of the dry season and will spark no debates on how best to mitigate against it but accusations and counter-accusations about who is responsible for sponsoring illegal refineries.
How about affordable transportation system and a reliable health care that is in tandem with a 21st-century oil city? When will politicians start thinking of the future with their manifesto reflecting that? When will they start building a system that will function till eternity? These are the type of thoughts that herald political campaigns in saner climes but each to his own troubles.
How about the abundant water bodies that the state is blessed with? How do we utilize that to create jobs and make the state unique in so many things?
What are the plans for agriculture? What are the rigorous plans being followed for a post-oil economy?
These will stay us in the face after our personalities have failed.
