by Chi Ibe

We hope that this would not be a short-lived honeymoon and we shall not once again see ourselves thrust into gutter politics by either or both candidates.

Let’s be clear – what the former Central Bank governor, Charles Soludo did last week was as far from altruistic as America is from post-racial.

His ‘Beyond the Elections’ piece was a self-invested and self-interested action that made us cringe once of twice as it spoke first of its writers busy live cavorting with the international finance elite and signing unspecificied deals that levitate him far above his nation’s pedestrian politicians, which he all but designated as beaneath him.

Be that as it may, sometimes the message beautifies the messenger.

The 2015 General Elections could not have come at one of the worst possible times for Nigeria: a raging insurgency in the North-East that has seen us lose territory for the first time since the end of the Civil War in 1970, a government whose main source of income is being threatened by low crude oil prices, a Naira rapidly falling in value and so on and so forth.

One would have expected that the elections will be wholly focused on these issues, but this has been far from the truth. The two major candidates, President Goodluck Jonathan of the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC) have engaged in throwing brickbats at each other, either directly or using proxies.

Who can forget waking up to the distasteful advert by Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose splashed on the front page of two national dailies on the 19^th of this month where he was predicting that Buhari will die if he becomes President? What of the attempt by a group supporting Buhari on Monday to engage in gutter campaigning in a newspaper advert? This is not to mention the numerous instances where the personalities of the candidates have been under dissection far more than what their plans for Nigeria are, not to talk of selling each candidate’s plans.

The lengthy article by the former Governor of the Central Bank, Chukwuma Soludo published in the Vanguard Newspapers which dwelt on the handling of the economy by the present administration and the proposals by the opposition has generated a lot of conversation.

It has elicited responses first from both parties, and then from the Office of the Minister of Finance, who served together with Professor Soludo in the Obasanjo Administration. While the responses have varied greatly in language and tone, it has forced all relevant parties to respond with their plans for the economy and the facts in their possession, or how they chose to portray them. This is not to mention the intense debates by supporters of both candidate and those who are sitting on the fence, on social media.

Without doubt, the lengthy epistle by Soludo has brought our focus back to where it ought to be: weighty matters such as an economy under threat by low crude oil prices, an insurgency that does not show signs of abating, and what specific form of transformation or change should we be expecting from either party.

If the first article by Soludo made us focus our election debate on the economy, no one was prepared to his response to the largely ad hominem attacks in the reply to that article by the Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

He has taken the debate from what was a broad swipe at the government’s handling of the economy and the proposals of the APC for the economy to an analysis of the performance of Okonjo-Iweala first under the Obasanjo administration, and then in her present second stint. In doing so, he has also questioned her competence and the competence of her principal in economic matters.

In the coming days and weeks as the elections approach, and presidential debates as well which we are desperately hoping both candidates will attend, we expect to see both candidates raise the quality of their arguments on the issues that matter, the ones that affect our livelihoods.

This is not to say that the personality of candidates do not matter in elections; on the contrary, both personality and visions should be studied in great deal. However, when campaigns focus excessively on personalities and in damaging, wholly negative ways while ignoring analysis of the visions of their opponents and not selling their own visions, it leaves the people rather fearful of the past without giving them hope for the future.

We believe that Nigerians, irrespective of the candidates they are supporting and the views they hold of Professor Soludo’s article, owe him gratitude for forcing both parties to focus on the issues that define the times we live in.

We hope that this would not be a short-lived honeymoon and we shall not once again see ourselves thrust into gutter politics by either or both candidates.

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