THE BROOM, THE UMBRELLA, AND THE LABOURER- A LOOK AT NIGERIA FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS
It is 5.45 am on a Monday, and it is the usual hustle and bustle on the street of Lagos, the air is filled with smokes of Cigar from the area boys who smoke and drink at the corner of each bus stops. Everyone is rushing somewhere, either to their place of work or a scheduled designation, the day is still quite dark, and the morning cold still stings your skin as the weather during this period is one of the coldest in the year. The road as usual looks thirsty for blood as motorists and the signatory yellow and black Lagos public transport try to establish their dominance on the busy road, a common display of madness on the Lagos road which is not an unfamiliar one.
As I pass the Apongbon bridge, I noticed the uncompleted railway which appeared like a skyscraper above the bridge, it has been in development for more than ten years which reminds me of the phrase “Mega-city” which was used quite more often by the Lagos government to portray the city, the mention of the term mega-city became a regular phrase to their planned blueprint, it even began to sound like a slogan for their party. I first heard of the term mega-city as far back as the regime when the “All progressive congress party” APC was still “Alliance for Democracy”. Sometimes I wondered if they understood the meaning of mega-city and was hopeful that they did not mistake the meaning for being an aesthetically beautiful city because, in simple terms, it just meant a city with Just more than a million population and even if they did mistook the definition as the former then they have failed both intellectually and in its expedition.
The Nigeria Election is forthcoming and there is an unusual twist this time around, the two major parties All Progressive Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have a major contender which is the Labour party (LP). Another interesting fact is that the three candidates are from the Three major Ethnic regions in Nigeria (West, North & East)
An Election of Entitlement, Tribe, Religion, or Ideology
It is a known fact in the politics of the world that a politician puts his party first before the people and Nigeria’s politics is no different.
The APC has in all ramifications chosen the Flag bearer of their party who is an ex-governor of the “Mega-city” Lagos state, a motion driven by an agreement with the current president which is the basis for his entitlement to the seat of the presidency, an entitlement that has become an eyesore to the people, we the people would later find out about this agreement from the flag-bearer himself when he felt he would be betrayed. He later won the primary election in a landslide victory; the party had no choice but to make him the flag-bearer even though his state of health is undoubtedly not sound, and his source of wealth remains questionable.
Another problem arose when he wanted to select a running mate, he is expected to pick a running mate who is of a different religion and tribe. This is an unwritten rule based on democratic maturity just to make all tribes and religions inclusive in the helms of affair or at least to look fair and equitable. But he only fulfilled the tribe aspect as they are both Muslims. This is no offence as far as the candidate is competent but in this case, it seems doubtful since the running mate was a former governor of Borno state who has failed in curbing the insecurity caused by the terrorist group (Boko haram) in the state. The party even went ahead to hire fake bishops during the unveiling ceremony of their running mate just to prove a point that Christians were in support of the decision, but the plan failed woefully, and the lie was exposed on national television.
The PDP Presidential candidate is no other than the popular ex-vice president, he was the first vice president of Nigeria under the fourth republic and he served for 8 years. The ex-president he served alongside said he made a mistake choosing him as his vice president and he will never endorse him to Nigerians because of his corruption cases that the ex-vice president needs to answer to these cases. The ex-president later forgave and endorsed the ex-vice president for the seat of the president in the 2019 general election even though the ex-vice president never answered to the corruption cases. He lost the election to the current president of Nigeria. This is Nigeria politics in a nutshell.
The LP flag-bearer is an ex-governor of Anambra state, He was previously vying for the presidential ticket under PDP but resigned from the party and went on to join LP. He was also the former running mate to the PDP presidential candidate in the 2019 general election. A few days before his resignation from PDP, pressure had mounted on him to dump the party, particularly after the party threw the presidential contest open as against its zoning policy enshrined in its constitution. Following the development, his supporters read in-between the lines that the party may be planning to ensure the emergence of a northern candidate. His supporters told him to dump the PDP and contest in the 2023 presidential election on the platform of another political party. The support groups warned him that he should not be part of what Nigerians want him to change hence, his movement to the LP.
He has become the favourite presidential candidate of most of the youths and churches in Nigeria due to the way he spoke boldly about his achievements and stainless record when it comes to zero tolerance for corruption and misappropriation of public funds. He boldly tells anyone willing to dig deep about him to go and verify everything he says and till now no dirt has been found on him. His running mate is no different from him as they share the same process, foresight, and ideology. Together they are a force to reckon with and now they stir fear in the camps of the other party due to their large follower base as the large following is now seen as a movement. Although the Labour party has a lot to do about its party structuring as it is nowhere close to the APC & PDP party in terms of political strength but it is not impossible to be stronger than the two dominant parties considering the fact that the LP Presidential candidate was once considered an underdog by many.
A glimmer of hope
In the just concluded election in Osun state, the current chairman of the ruling party (APC) refused to acknowledge the governor-elect as the winner of the election despite the congratulatory message from the president to the winner who is from PDP. This speaks volumes because it shows that the president does not want to be involved in any shenanigans that involve tampering with an election result as he has displayed that he is keen on leaving a legacy in terms of the electoral process in Nigeria which would be a big win for him following his administration failure in all other aspects of the Nigeria Environment.
I could only come up with one name for this article, which is the broom, the umbrella, and the labourer. The broom is the official logo of the APC and the umbrella is the official logo of the PDP, the term Labourer is a denotation for the Labour party as they were recently addressed as a Labourer by the presidential candidate of the APC. Nigeria’s general election will commence on Saturday, 25 February 2023. Hopefully, the date remains constant.
