by Reno Omokri
Something is happening in Nigeria and it is not apparent because it is subtle. A Machiavellian gimmick is being played on Nigerians and this trick is called Choice Blindness.
Choice Blindness is a phenomenon in which people are offered a choice between or amongst options but after electing for their preference, they are given the choice or choices they rejected but told that it is the choice they accepted. The gimmick relies on the inattention to detail of the choosers for its success.
Choice Blindness has been employed in marketing to pass off inferior products as the product that is the market leader. It is also used in politics to sell the electorate on a politician whose marketability has some deficiencies.
Closely linked to the gimmick of Choice Blindness is the mirage of the Placebo Effect. The placebo effect can briefly be described as the effect you get when you have a malady or sickness and are then showed the medicine that should cure the malady or sickness but before it is administered to you it is switched with another medicine that looks like the original medicine but with none of its potency.
The effect on the body to heal itself when convinced that the right medicine has been administered even when it has not is called the Placebo Effect.
The political opposition in Nigeria, as I would demonstrate with facts and figures, is employing these gimmicks on the misguided notion that Nigerians are not politically sophisticated enough to differentiate shadow from substance.
For a start, they promised Nigerians a fully Democratic Party that would offer superior ideas to leadership with the aim of addressing Nigeria’s challenges.
Having sold this idea to Nigerians, they have proceeded to do the exact opposite of what they promised hoping, no, expecting that Nigerians will taste their placebo and behave as if we have tasted the real thing.
Let me prove my point.
Three opposition aspirants have so far declared their intention to seek the nomination of their party in order to contest the February 2015 Presidential election against the Peoples Democratic Party’s nominee.
Now, going by their stated aim, one would have expected that these aspirants would have told Nigerians their ideas and plans for their betterment.
You and I watched their declaration and I am sure like me you cannot point to much ideas or plans.
In fact, my first reaction on watching these declarations on television was to ask why anyone would spend so much money putting together a declaration only to spend most of their time attacking the President, his party and the government he leads without telling Nigerians what ideas they intend to nurture into policies which would change their lives for the better.
I know that they have hired sleek and expensive foreign political consultants but if Nigerians had wanted to be governed by foreign consultants our fore fathers would not have fought for our independence.
Foreign consultants can teach you all the tricks of Choice Blindness or the political placebo effect, but they cannot bring out democracy where there is a natural inclination to dictatorship, they cannot bring out progressive politics from people who are retrogressive by nature and they certainly cannot bring forth political stability out of people who change political parties more often than they change cars!
For instance, a progressive is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.
Now, the APC in calling themselves progressives are simply implementing sleek political mind games.
Look very closely at modern day Nigeria and ask yourself who is behind the social reforms or new, liberal ideas that have seen Nigeria in 2014 emerge as the largest economy in Africa, increase the life expectancy of her citizens by 10% (from 47 to 52 years) and increased rail traffic by 420% (from 1 million per annum pre Jonathan to 4.2 million today)?
Who is behind the 125 new Almajiri model schools that never existed before 2011 and has successfully removed huge numbers of Almajiri scholars from the streets to an environment that is conducive for both Islamic and Western education?
Who built a Federal University in ALL states that previously did not have any?
Who was behind the convocation of the first successful National Conference in Nigeria’s history?
Who signed the Freedom of Information Bill into law (a law that has not been domesticated in the so called progressive states)?
Who introduced a new National Automobile Policy which has seen Nissan, Kia, and Hyundai open up factories in Nigeria?
Who is behind the policy of introducing e-wallets for almost six million farmers so that fertilizer, seeds and information could be passed to them without a middle man, an action which led to increased yield and a reduction in Nigeria’s food import bill by almost $4 billion per annum?
When you really come down to the facts you soon discover that progressiveness is not something that you say as much as it is something that you do!
When opposition aspirants gathered all kinds of characters to use some of the most disrespectful words on the person of the President during their declarations, they thought they were doing him a disservice, but what they ended up proving is that in President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria has a leader with a tolerance level that is attuned to democracy.
I may not be an expensive sleek foreign consultant, but with the little I know, I am convinced that a better way to run an opposition party would be to have alternative plans.
If for instance you are against the education of Almajirinci, then tell us your alternative plans for their future. If you are against the revival of the railways from Lagos to Nguru, by all means let us know what you would have done differently. If you are against the conditional cash transfer to nursing mothers who go for ante natal care or executive order which opened up the Nigerian Defence Academy to women for the first time ever then please inform us of your own plans for womanhood.
Insults are not plans. A political party must distinguish itself by its ideas not its broadsides.
For instance, when you think of President Jonathan, the Transformation Agenda regularly comes to mind.
You can measure the Transformation Agenda’s effectiveness on the economy in that we have transformed from the second largest economy in Africa to the first. Health has transformed in that maternal mortality has reduced by 20%. Roads have transformed in that you now spend less time on major roads such as the Abuja-Kaduna road and the Benin-Ore road. Sports has transformed in that Nigeria currently holds the African Football Championship in both male and female category.
But when you think of those who attack him what comes to your mind? That’s right, nothing! No idea, no agenda, no plans.
This is what happens to you when you spend your time assassinating another person’s character instead of building your own.
Governing a nation is a most serious undertaking and you can not bluff your way to the ballot.
An empty barrel may make the most noise but a barrel loaded with ideas will make the people’s choice. Politicians worth their salt make news rather than noise.
Let me end this piece by saying that every information that does not lead to transformation is entertainment. Nigerians do not want leaders that will entertain them. They have professional entertainers who are quite good at their job. Nigerians want leaders that give them the information that transforms their lives which is why they listen to President Jonathan. President Jonathan is too busy perfecting and communicating his plans to better Nigeria to be involved in criticizing others.
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Reno Omokri is Special Assistant to President a Jonathan on New Media.
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
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