Guardian

Mike Igini, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Cross River State said there are prescribed guidelines and timelines for campaigning for a position and the pasting of aspirants’ posters at this point in time is way outside the timelines. He advised all political groups is to take a very long and careful perusal of  Sections 99 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, as well as 25 and 31 of the Electoral Act.

What is your take on the campaigns already going on, openly or underground, towards the 2015 election?

I think something most be fundamentally wrong with us, as a people, for all these self-inflicted unending controversies and distractions.

As I have stated in other media, while political competition is a normal part of democratic politics, we must keep in mind that  competitive democratic election is only a means to an end and not an end in itself. The end or ultimate goal of periodic election for which democratic politics is embarked upon is the development of the wellbeing of the people.

When politics leads to a situation where people can no longer conduct their normal businesses, cannot be guaranteed peace of mind or an enabling environment to prosper, that type of politics has no place in a democracy and becomes the politics of politicians, and not politics for the improvement of the wellbeing of the people.

So, we must always keep that goal of public wellbeing and community development as foremost, so that we do not turn political competition into adversarial blood-sports.

I say this with all seriousness, because of the continuing  polarisation of the country along needless and unhelpful lines of ethnicity, religious, zones and other forms of insipid arguments.

If we are actually copying the American system, why don’t we  take the good lessons of national pride from the Americans? The Americans are able to separate national interests from personal interests and the development of their country in totality, yes we also see polarisation, but this is more on policy issues that affect the people not primordial sentiments of religion or zone, south or north.

We have  no consensus on any issue as a people, no common agreeable interests; there is absence of national unity, because all the component groups see Nigeria differently, in relation to them.

That is why our politics lack  intellectualism and not  defined by the real issues that matter to Nigerians. Otherwise, why should this be an issue now.

Having said that, campaigning may be active or passive. Active campaigning has legally prescribed timelines and procedures.

For the real elected political gladiators, l presume they know that they have to deliver on promises made in the last election and have a scorecard, but for so-called supporters/mobilisation groups, who profit from such exercises, campaign must be now.

So, we must separate the untimely distractive  actions of such individuals from those of political parties on campaign, as regulated by Section 99 (1) and (2), in order not to castigate individuals unnecessarily.

My advice to all political groups is to take a very long and careful perusal of  Sections 99 especially, as well as 25 and 31 of the Act, because at the moment, INEC has no list of  candidates for the 2015 elections.

However, political parties may wish to call members and well-wishers to exercise restraint to avoid these distractions.

Is it not too early?

It is absolutely too early; there are prescribed guidelines and timelines for campaigning for a position.

The framers of the constitution and electoral laws anticipated that there should be ample time for governance and service delivery, so that the means does not become the end.

Election is a means through which people are elected, based on set programmes, as promises by which those elected  are adjudged as having performed or not. Election is not an end in itself.

This is the time for work and all should be seen to be working to deliver.  It is only the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) really, as is the practice  elsewhere, that normally commences preparations for next elections immediately after the conclusion of one through reviews and so on.

This is without prejudice to the right of political parties to organise themselves, internally and  properly, ahead of future elections.

Would it not cause a distraction and with this, do you expect any better performance this year from government?

I believe what is expected from government is a question that is best addressed by the government spokesperson.

But as a citizen, I expect all elected officials to justify the mandate of their electors by working diligently to ensure concrete benefits to the public.

In my view, that is the best form of campaign when the time comes, being able to say ‘these are what have been achieved.’ That is what the electorate would use to make a choice of either the incumbent or a challenger who has wish-list of promise of what he or she would do if elected.

We saw this demonstrated in the just-concluded United States (US) election, where Mitt Romney’s proposals  and his previous public service records were scrutinised.

It should be a party’s responsibility to have monitoring mechanisms to ensure that what it promises the voting public, in terms of policies and deliverables, are indeed delivered by its elected candidates.

Where there are below per performance, a party should have evaluative procedures for instigating remediating measures to meet the peoples’ expectations.

What would be your advice to the campaigners and their sponsors?

I would say that for now, they should allow elected officials to concentrate on governance and allow Nigerians to appraise such governance, so as to be able to make informed choices during elections on which party and candidates assures them better wellbeing.

Would it lead to the over-heating of the polity that is already grappling with security challenges?

It all depends on how we react to some of these issues. I believe we are giving undeserved attention to actions of unidentified individuals, which in the first place, is the primary objective of seeking public attention.

Ordinarily, these posters matter would mean nothing by late next year or by January 2015. It all bothers on the rightness or wrongness of such activities in relation to the extant laws, as pointed out previously.

‘Election Campaign Is A Timeless And Continuous Process’

IN liberal democracy, based on periodic elections, election campaign is timeless, in the sense that every election is preceded by campaign promises anchored on the vision of the candidate, canvassing of political party manifesto and general appeal on the electorate on why they should choose your party and vote for your candidature.

The outcome is that immediately a candidate wins an election and is sworn in, it becomes incumbent on him to unfold his plans, based on his party’s manifesto and various promises he/she made to the electorate.

The implementation of the government programmes are most of the times well publicised and the non-implementation is also publicized by the opposition, this to a large extent forms the nucleus of the campaign.

Campaign, therefore, in liberal democracy takes a lot of shapes and forms and the political landscape cannot be over-heated in any way.

Pasting posters is just the icing of the cake and therefore in our situation, the pasting of President Goodluck Jonathan’s posters need not raise the fuss it generated.

One was surprised that even the handlers of the President reacted sharply in self-denial, distanced themselves and heaped all sorts of insult on those who pasted the posters.

Methinks that the reaction of Jonathan’s men was an unnecessary act of desperation and kind of using sledgehammer to kill an ant. The self-denial of his men was the greatest distraction, as nothing stops the President to say he is running or alternatively say he is not running. This could have put paid to the whole fuss.

For the President’s traducers, one can position them as those who still view the presidential primary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as election before the main presidential election. They are wrong and living in the past.

One needs to remind them that they were not born into the PDP’s family. In fact, they are all older than the party and should be bold enough to leave the party if they feel it has been hijacked by the Jonathan’s political machine.

Secondly, and most importantly, this is a very wrong premise, because the merger among the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and other progressive forces will throw up the major challenger and indeed the candidate to beat.

If the merger is consummated earlier than predicted, will anybody stop the new party from campaigning?

In actual fact, the process leading to the merger is a campaign in itself, for intrigues, scheming and jostling of offices are the spices of democracy.

What is advocated is that it should done within the confines of law.

In simpliciter, what is over-heating the polity is the absence of free, fair and transparent election, a scenario, as mentioned before, where some people rate the primaries of the ruling party as the main election, not how early the campaign starts. Campaign is a timeless and continuous process.

This means that all efforts should be geared towards laying the foundation for enthronement of the sanctity of the ballot box, where the choice of the electorate triumphs over the whims and caprices of party leaders.

In sum, it is very unfair to peg or build mountains out of mole hills by fixing when and how the campaign should be executed, unless it fouls the laid rules of engagement.

-Osita Okechukwu, National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP)

‘Those Attempting To Start Their Campaigns Are Beating The Gun’

IT is very unfortunate that rather than focusing on issues of governance, our politicians are looking at 2015 elections.

The Nigerian nation cannot be in a perpetual election cycle; there should be a season for election campaigns and a time for governance. And the difference should be clear, so that programmes and projects that were promised during the electioneering campaigns may be delivered upon.

This is a form of political fraud where you keep on promising and deliver nothing all in the name of defending the privileges of office.

Our politicians should know that were elected into office in order to serve and not just to enjoy office and make more empty promises.

Of course, there should be a law against early campaigning. INEC should be empowered to bar people who commence campaign before the official start of the campaign season.

Politics is supposed to be a high game and the rules must be scrupulously followed.

Campaigning is a distracting activity. Once campaigns commence, no meaningful work can be expected from political office holders.

Since campaigns detract from executive performance, it should be conducted only during its season.

The time between campaigns is a time to perform on promises by the winners, and form new alliances by the losers.

The losers should also monitor policy performance by the government in power. For example, it was Chief Obafemi Awolowo who first called attention to the on-coming recession during the NPN (National Party of Nigeria) presidency of Shehu Shagari.

The losers should act as a watchdog of society and therefore keep the ruling party on its toes.

Some Nigerian politicians are given to making careless statements, which could jeopardise national security, given that we are fighting an insurgency in the country today.

Political campaigning can be a cover to subvert the government and reveal security plans and strategies aimed at defeating the enemy.

Nigeria needs responsible and responsive leadership in 2015. The leadership must be service-oriented and people-oriented. It must have empathy and probity.

Nigerians should be able to hold their leaders responsible for what goes wrong in society, including the economy. A situation where millions of youths are unemployed is unacceptable.

Electoral campaigns are necessary to acquaint the electorate with the programmes and promises of the candidates.

However, when it starts off too early, it soon hijacks the attention of the politicians, distracting them from the job of solving important problems in society.

Those attempting to start their campaigns are beating the gun. And as in every race, if you beat the gun and you are caught, you may be disqualified. Same is true for politics.

The responsibility for samitizing the political environment rests on INEC. This agency shoud stand up to be counted.

-Ona Ekhomu, Chairman of Trans-World Security

‘It Won’t Cause A Distraction To An Already Confused Political Class’

THE campaign by the politicians depicts their selfishness. It typifies their usual character of disdain for the ordinary man on the street, whose daily existence is being eroded with their visionless policies.

One would have expected the political class to be more concerned about how they have been able to ameliorate the people’s living condition, but they are busy now clandestinely jostling for elective positions in 2015 that some of them are not even sure if the Almighty will give them the grace to witness.

It is too early, because their concern, if indeed they are sincere, should be to examine how far they have treated the people, in terms of dividend of good governance. They should stop this nonsense.

The truth of the matter is that it won’t cause a distraction to an already confused political class, who are more concerned about their comfort, rather than the comfort of the masses.

The pertinent question ought to be in what ways have they ameliorated the peoples living condition since the birth of democratic rule in 1999? The earlier the Nigerian people realised that this government has no plans for them, the better.

The campaigners should stop it forthwith and rather concentrate on the task at hand by seeking help on how to tackle the myriad of problems confronting the Nigerian state, because they have shown clearly that they need help, rather than distracting from their incompetence by this campaign.

Definitely, it would lead to the overheating of the polity that is already grappling with a lot of hydra-headed monster of challenges.

In 2015, we need God-fearing, sincere, bold, patriotic, purpose and vision-driven leaders, who will be humble enough to seek solutions to problems from the citizenry when he loses steam and who will be courageous enough to realise that the structure of the Nigerian state is faulty and in dire need of restructuring to move it forward.

We need a leader who will not be making empty promises just to fool the people, but is rather interested in creating his footprints in the sands of time through courageous and people-driven action.

-Nelson Ekujumi