Kayode Komolafe: The political issues and non-issues

by Kayode Komolafe

Jonathan Goodluck

There are enough issues to occupy the attention of any party or politician interested in discussing them with the aim of finding solutions to problems confronting the people. That is why the political parties should embrace politics of ideas.

The recent exchange of tirades between the presidency and the newly registered, political party, All Progressives Congress (APC), was a huge distraction to the public sphere. Certainly, the public mood does not deserve such an extravagant flight from the reality of issues confronting the people to the domain of non-issues.  Perhaps, in a lighter mood, APC’s interim chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, “invited” President Goodluck Jonathan to join his party.

Here we are talking of an “invitation” to the national leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party in power at the centre and in most of the states and local government areas. Akande went further to insinuate that Jonathan’s performance was akin to “kindergarten” governance. Expectedly, presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, fired a riposte asking the septuagenarian, Akande, to “respect his age”. Other partisans have since joined the festival of abuse from both sides. Pray, are these the issues that the government and opposition should be talking about at a time the nation is faced with burgeoning problems?
There is indeed a surfeit of issues for the PDP, APC and other parties to discuss rather than wasting their moments in the public sphere on non-issues and trading of insults.  These issues are begging for “edifying elucidations”, to borrow from the title of the column of Dr. Okey Ikechukwu on this page.  Definitely, what is needed is not abuse. The issues are patent enough in a country where by official admittance over 10 million children are out of school and youth unemployment has become a socio-economic plague.

From the Sahel to the creeks the nation is confronted with insecurity of different hues. Poverty looms large menacingly on the national horizon. In such a socio-economic climate, politicians should not be content with raining abuses on one another. They should be debating these issues manifesting themselves in the various departments of national life. Since the politicians have elected to bring 2015 closer than it should ordinarily be, the issues should now be put squarely in focus in their pronouncements. It is time for the politics of issues! Yes, it could be conceded that elsewhere politicians employ wisecracks to lighten the rigour in the discussion of issues. But jibes are never a substitute for issues.

In fact, APC was unwittingly being unfair to itself by playing up the insults at a time its programme was being unveiled. It is the programme that should provide the substratum for a vigorous debate about the future of this country. The party should be identified with such a programme and not the undue distractions.

Doubtless, it is important to examine each substance contained in the formula that APC is offering as a cure for Nigeria’s problems. This should, of course, be done in comparison to what other parties are offering. The question to ask is this: are there real alternatives on display? From its published manifesto, there is ample evidence that the APC strategists have reflected on some of the issues before the nation.

The party has presented an eight-point agenda with the following items: war against corruption, free education, accelerated power supply, food security, affordable health care, accelerated economic growth, Integrated transport network and devolution of power. With a mix of policies the party intends to address the problems in the areas of job creation, environment, insecurity, political violence, the oil and gas industry, the Niger Delta, gender, youths, human rights and housing. The programme also includes plans for persons living with disability, senior citizens, local government system, prisons and foreign relations. The national publicity secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, reportedly dismissed the APC’s manifesto as a familiar story.  There is nothing fresh in it, according to Metuh. Now, that may actually be a compliment of sort instead of the legitimate criticism that Metuh probably intended. It shows that a national consensus may be emerging around these issues. The issues are probably familiar because all the parties have come to acknowledge them as national problems.
Compare the APC formula to Jonathan’s goal of transformation. The issues being discussed on the streets are also embodied in the Jonathan’s transformation agenda: electricity supply, jobs, agriculture, rural development, water resources, transportation, oil and gas, technology, education, health, Niger Delta, security and women and youth development. The President’s mid-term report contains the achievements recorded by the administration in tackling some of these issues. It is the job of the other parties and indeed the larger public to interrogate these claims. It is more useful for the public purpose to do so rather than wasting time on non-issues.
The items on both agenda may indeed be similar, but a party could be distinguished from the other on the strength of policy articulation and the mapping out of strategies to realise the outcomes. There could, of course, be different strategies to achieve the same goal. After all, the agenda is all what the party intends to do; the other more practical question is about how it intends to do so when in power. These are areas in which public debate could be healthy and enriching for the political economy. Each item in transformation agenda of the APC formula could take time and mental energy to articulate.

Unfortunately, policy articulation is not yet a distinguishing feature of this era. Yet, it has not always been this way in Nigeria. To be sure, there was once politics of issues. In the Second Republic, all the parties could be identified with one signature policy or the other. A few examples will suffice here.  The Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) was associated with free education while the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) pushed its preference for qualitative education. The UPN had integrated rural development in its cardinal programmee while the NPN pursued its Green Revolution unrepentantly; the river basins across the country remain the monuments of that much-articulated policy.

The People’s Redemption Party (PRP) articulated policies that were liberating for the peasant and the talakawa, the poor. Its mass literacy programme was remarkable. These were the issues of the time even when the politicians of that era still had time for some taunts. As a matter of fact, the UPN leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in preparing for the presidency in that republic had written The People’s Republic embodying his vision for Nigeria as well as The Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria in which he spelt out the policy steps to take in order to realise the vision.

Incidentally, both Akande and the (embattled?) PDP’s national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, were players in that era at different levels.  Sustaining the public debates of the party’s programme is actually the job of the party secretariat under the supervision of the chairman. That is the point Chief Ebenezer Babatope seems to be making in the course of his current campaign for the post of the National Secretary of the PDP. He is indisputably experienced in party organization. It is, however, up to his fellow party members to recognize this huge asset in him.

The germane point in his public statement is that it is the duty of the party to articulate and defend the programmes being executed by the government that comes to power on the platform of the party. The party structure should be so equipped to perform this important task in the democratic process.
There are enough issues to occupy the attention of any party or politician interested in discussing them with the aim of finding solutions to problems confronting the people. That is why the political parties should embrace politics of ideas.

 

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Read this article in the Thisday Newspapers

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

One comment

  1. I have always said that the worst thing that happens to democracy and every democratic country is the institutionalization of a political party that produces the president. Political parties like PDP, Democrat, Liberal party etc have nothing to do soon after Government is formed. As we speak PDP has become an arm of Government, bringing to four instead three arms of Government namely; legislative, Executive and Judiciary… With PDP as the fourth arm. Party manifestoes and constitutions are mere instruments in the hands of party faithfuls. They have nothing to do or contribute in governance. Only the constitution of the country has. In Nigeria today it is the party (PDP) that is supreme and not the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. Forgetting that PDP is owned and controlled by very negligible few, not ALL Nigerians . What a shame! My submission is that party politics is the bane of world politics. Therefore, all political structures and institutions should be dismantled soon after Government is formed. For the aviodance of doubt, the constitutions of every democratic country recognise ‘political party’ and not PDP, Democrat, Liberal party etc. This is a panacea for global peace. This is the only way to end ‘Gangsterism’ and enthrone Real Democracy.

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