The one assurance we need

There is one assurance that Nigerians need from politicians currently running for the office of President. Each of the party standard-bearers can give this assurance by passing or failing an open-ended question. How will life get better from May 29, 2023, if the people elect you as President? Nigerians worry over their answers to this question for two reasons. We are all concerned that life is no longer as safe and secure as it used to be. Again, neither the media nor the candidates amplify our daily struggles and anxieties to demonstrate sufficient empathy.

The people’s agonies and struggles manifest in three major fears. Each day, they fear losing life and property to robbers, kidnappers, insurgents and other violent criminals. Also, anxieties rule the land because job opportunities and capital to go into business continue to vanish like a puff of wind. Finally, it is common knowledge that the average family is in a losing battle to access essential needs of existence.

Fear and anxiety make most adult Nigerian hearts skip a beat each morning they are roused from sleep. The rich are not immune to this common fear. Insecurity has become an existential threat. Our state of insecurity does not discriminate against the poor, male and female nor does it respect the place that someone worships or the surnames they bear. We have become anxious and fearful of our individual and collective safety and security.

This fear leads the country to a common hope. We hope that our governors and President will return the country to what is fading away like echoes from a distant past, a safe and secure place to live, do business and enjoy life outdoors. No one wants this state of fear and anxiety, except perhaps wicked authority persons profiting from the corruption of managing the security threats.

This is what currently unites Nigerians of all persuasions, a common desire to return to the simple life. Everyone wants to climb out of our current valley of despair to where we can see hope far into the distant future. This is the yearning of most citizens, devoid of religion, tribe and one’s station in life. Thus it is the solution to this national anxiety that represents the one assurance we need. And we can only glimpse this in the vision and plans of party standard-bearers.

The tragedy, however, is that we do not see our collective anxiety reflected in the words of most of the candidates. Peter Obi is perhaps the lone exception. He talks about the challenges we face while his opponents, unfortunately, focus on the statistics that he dishes out to support his positions. It is important to focus attention on the persons that want to become king, to verify each of their individual capacity and competences. But it is equally important, if not more so, to focus on their understanding of citizen anxieties, challenges and fears. It will be foolish to make the same mistake twice: we should appoint a better replacement for Muhammadu Buhari in February 2023.

The assurance we need that the future will be bright can only be seen in the words of the party candidates. This implies that they must talk to us a lot more. However, talking – how much of it or how little – is not the issue. The issue is what they talk about and how these relate to the anxieties we suffer in today’s Nigeria. At this moment, we can only evaluate one of the candidates who has said quite a lot on the issues.

Peter Obi talks challenges and solutions, admittedly more challenges than solutions. Of late, we read critical observers who say that Obi does not provide solid, actionable solutions to the challenges he eloquently outlines. But should he do this at this point? Most people require the candidates to demonstrate a good understanding of citizen challenges. A problem identified is half-solved, so goes the common aphorism. Unfortunately, it is proving quite difficult to wean most candidates of their power-hungry mindset. This mindset prevents desperate power seekers from campaigning on citizen challenges, fears and anxieties. They find a shorter route by invoking waves of parochial sentiments (ethnicity and religion), hoping to ride their crests to power.

There is a second reason why Obi needs to defer solutions until INEC blows the whistle for electioneering to commence. Our nation is a playground of pirates. A few people seek profit from pirating other people’s ideas, artistic works and inventions. There is a public service example from the work we did in Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s administration in Enugu State. In the second half of his administration, the governor decided to rejig his cabinet by introducing fresh blood and new ideas. The stars among the newcomers stood out. Within six months, the governor’s image and approval rating shot through the roof. This goodwill was sustained through the 2019 re-election campaign, which he won with a record-setting majority votes.

The stars came with ideas that they presented week after week at executive council meetings. They complemented other top performers that they met, and Enugu began to look like a place that had a government in place. Anyone looking at the government today knows that this momentum is lost, as the administration is awkwardly propelled to its exit gate. Enugu’s image today has reverted to the prior mid-term level when the new stars were appointed. This could be a coincidence, or perhaps because most of the stars departed or were dropped from the cabinet when the governor began his second tenure.

But this is not the story.

There are two lessons from the Enugu experience that show Peter Obi as very smart in the way he is framing the issues on his speaking tours. The Enugu stars battled two types of antagonists in the government. The first were those who felt they knew better than the experts and did everything they could to degrade the ideas they introduced. The second were people who tagged along as the ideas were being implemented but used their access to the governor to claim credit for accomplishments that were outside their scale of reference. Similarly, opponents of Peter Obi may have solid ideas about solutions to Nigeria’s challenges. If this were the case, it is wise to hoard their plans and ideas while degrading proposed solutions from their opposition. When campaigns are flagged off, their solutions become fresher, superior, and a vast improvement on those wasted during speaking tours.

Therefore, it may be too early to criticize Peter Obi in the way he communicates at this moment. I can think of two things that may happen if he chooses to focus on solutions at this time. Whatever new ideas or solutions he proffers right now could easily be taken up and implemented by the Buhari regime. Or his competitors will unashamedly copy, clone, plagiarize and improve on the idea on their party platforms. One wishes that future amendments to the Electoral Act will compel the candidates to publish their platforms and within a specific time window during electioneering.

It would be nice if candidates chose this window, before campaign take-off, to be didactic in their approach to explaining their understanding of citizen challenges. We like to identify those that are at home with the challenges, able to classify them clearly and communicate them convincingly. This will give us the assurance we need. It demonstrates that they understand the problems. More importantly, they will feel duty-bound to implement their solutions when they get into power.

Going the opposite direction portends danger when candidates avoid issues that voters care about. Problems and challenges provide opportunities to budget and spend funds with little or minimal accountability. We saw this when the Central Bank squandered foreign earnings to “defend the naira” and “subsidize” imports of petroleum products. We also see this in huge budgetary appropriations for defence. Therefore, watch out for candidates that focus on religion, ethnicity, and other things that have nothing to do with the socioeconomic conditions of citizens. They are most unlikely to provide this one assurance we need to keep hope alive that our country will get better during their term.