Ask most Nigerians, they would say they want issue-based politics; they want election campaigns to be issue-based. Countless column inches have been printed on the subject. Newspapers have editorialised, and published columns and other opinion pieces, specifically calling for issue-based campaigns ahead of the 2023 general election. The intelligentsia and commentariats are fixated and gung-ho on the matter.
For instance, one prominent journalist on Arise TV can’t hide his irritation whenever discussions veer onto the behaviour and personality of presidential candidates. “Let’s focus on the issues,” he frequently bemoans, as if questions about the integrity and personal propriety of politicians are not “issues”. Of course, they are!
But by “issue-based” campaigns, most people mean that the presidential candidates should show deep knowledge and understanding of the governance challenges that beset Nigeria and clearly set out and debate how they would tackle them, if elected. The challenges are existential in nature: comatose economy, debilitating insecurity, extreme poverty, moribund institutions, failed public services, endemic corruption, fragile unity. The list goes on!
So, if issue-based campaigns are so important, why are election campaigns in Nigeria largely devoid of issues? Well, the answer is simple. Nigeria lacks the sophistication for issue-based campaigns
Elsewhere, in more civilised or sophisticated democracies, this is hardly a problem. In those climes, political parties and candidates, sensitive and responsive to voters, set great store on investigating the issues facing their countries and proffering solutions to them in their manifestos. In a participatory democracy, these enunciation of issues and offering of solutions are the basis of election campaigns and the underpinnings of the social contract between the elector and the elected.
In a contractarian sense, political parties and candidates vie for votes by selling their manifestos to the electorate. The electorate then weigh up, and compare and contrast, the parties’ offers and whichever party or candidate the majority of the voters elect, on the basis of the manifesto offers, becomes the winner, and a social contract ensues between the elector and the elected. Which is why, in a contractarian sense, the consent of the governed, which is the real basis of true democracy, cannot be said to exist without credible and well-canvassed issue-based manifesto offers or promises on which voters can make informed choices. That’s the essence of issue-based campaigns.
So, if issue-based campaigns are so important, why are election campaigns in Nigeria largely devoid of issues? Well, the answer is simple. Nigeria lacks the sophistication for issue-based campaigns. First, without political ideology, you can’t have real issue-based campaigns because issues are based on ideas about how to solve problems, and, in other countries, such ideas are based on ideologies, such capitalism versus socialism or liberalism versus protectionism or a hybrid of these. Some say Nigeria is not developed enough for ideologically based political parties. As such, election campaigns are based on personality and primordial sentiments, and totally devoid of intellectual content.
The second factor is that issue-based campaigns cannot exist in a society that lacks the capacity to interrogate promises that parties and candidates make during electioneering. If campaigns are to be issue-based, then there must be those with the capacity to subject what politicians say to utmost scrutiny to guard against campaign lies and misinformation.
Take the UK. Once the major political parties publish their election manifestos, the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, IFS, will analyse and cost the manifesto promises, showing their strengths and weaknesses. The media would then give the findings maximum coverage and use them to interrogate the parties and their candidates, thereby enabling the voters to make informed decisions.
Parties have lost elections or seats in parliament simply because the IFS pointed out that their manifesto promises did not add up, for instance, promising to significantly increase spending without raising taxes or promising to significantly cut taxes without also cutting spending! For instance, last week’s resignation of Liz Truss, the new prime minister, was due to expert criticism of, and hostile market reaction to, her economic policy.
But in Nigeria, a presidential candidate can say: “I will build a castle in the sky.” The media will simply parrot him without asking: How much would it cost? How would you fund it?
Recently, Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC, said that if he became president next year, his administration “will achieve double-digit economic growth.” In 2015, his party promised to make Nigeria “one of the fastest-growing emerging economies, achieving GDP growth averaging 10 percent annually.” Yet, today, GDP growth is 3.5 percent after two negative growths and recessions. But is anyone challenging him about the APC’s 2015 promises: What went wrong? And what would he do differently? He’s recklessly throwing around figures. That’s not issue-based campaign!
Unfortunately, Nigeria doesn’t have the equivalent of credible think-tanks like the IFS to analyse, cost and put the lie to such vacuous campaign claims. And if the media seek to interrogate Tinubu, he will dispatch his surrogates to newspaper and television houses; they will dissemble and lie through their teeth, with hardly any TV journalist in Nigeria able to pin down such slippery sophists. So, what’s the value of issue-based campaigns if politicians can say anything and get away with it? Truth is, without thorough expert, media and public scrutiny of campaign promises or claims, “issue-based campaigns” are utterly useless.
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The third, certainly most powerful, force against issue-based campaigns in Nigeria is the people themselves. Nigerians say they want issue-based campaigns, but they rarely vote on issues. Issues rarely determine elections in Nigeria, but by ethnic, religious and sectional sentiments, coupled with personality and money politics. Why would politicians focus on issues when they know most of the voters would vote on ethnic or religious basis?
Recently, Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). was widely pilloried for playing the ethnic card. At a meeting with the Arewa Forum, Atiku said: “The average Northerner does not need a Yoruba or an Igbo. This is what a Northerner needs: I stand before you as a pan-Nigerian of Northern origin.”
This is ironic. Hardly anyone is more pan-Nigerian than Atiku. Some of his children are either half-Yoruba or half-Igbo. And hardly any politician is more comfortable with discussing policies than Atiku. His manifesto for the 2019 presidential election was 186-page long. His “policy document” for next year’s presidential poll is equally dense. So, unless the so-called “Atiku-lated” lacks articulation, why would he play such a blatant ethnic card?
Atiku’s supporters said he was misquoted, but truth is, he genuinely believes that, with President Buhari not running again in 2023, he could harvest the North’s votes, as the most prominent Hausa/Fulani on the ballot, and he’s knowingly pandering to ethnic politics.
In a recent TV interview, Atiku was asked if he was worried that Tinubu chose Kashim Shettima as his running-mate, given both he and Shettima are from the North-East. Well, Atiku resorted to playing the ethnic card, saying: “If you know the composition of the North-East, you have Borno and Yobe, these are essentially two Kanuri states. Then, you have the other (four) states, which are essentially Hausa/Fulani states. Even if people are going to vote on that basis, I have a more favourable (position) from the North-East.” So, when it comes to 2023, Atiku, the pan-Nigerian, the policy aficionado, turns to ethnic politics!
But Tinubu plays both ethnic and religious cards. His strategy is to replicate the South-West/North fraternity that gave APC victory in 2015 and 2019. So, for the Yoruba vote, he plays tribal politics: “Yoruba lokan”! And for the Northern vote, he plays religious politics: Muslim-Muslim ticket. Recently, in Ekiti, Tinubu told the people: “Don’t vote for Peter Obi or Atiku”, adding: “You don’t know them.” But why? Well, because they’re not Yoruba!
Truth is: Issue-based politics will elude Nigeria as long as elections are determined by ethno-religious sentiments, and politicians get away with saying anything!
