More Important Than 2015

The most important thing in Nigeria today seems to be 2015 election.

It’s two years to the election year of 2015 and the gathering clouds of politicking gets thicker by the day. Virtually all ministers, lawmakers, governors and other elected and political office holders want to either secure their present position or move a step further by getting into a higher office.

The quest to remain politically relevant has eclipsed the numerous challenges facing the country.

The growing rate of unemployment, poverty, insecurity, hunger that Nigerians suffer as a result of the ineptitude of those in authority are unimportant. Every thing is now about who becomes what, who gets what in 2015.

Our leaders at both federal, state and local government levels have placed their greed and personal interest above everything. Some governors are practically administering their states from Abuja while some Abuja based political office holders who have interest in their states spend virtually all the time politicking in their various states abandoning their statutory duties.

In the past few days there have been accusations and counter accusations from the ruling PDP and opposition parties of how some politicians have started campaigning even as the Electoral Acts says otherwise and the Independent National Electoral Commission has warned against it.

If only our leaders should realise they are in power to serve the people then nothing should be more important to them than ensuring the well-being of the people.

If only they can devote a reasonable percentage of their time and resources they use in skimming for 2015 and use it for the provision good roads, water, electricity, power, and other needed infrastructure to the citizenry it would been seen as a wonderful development.

Can those in authority pay more attention to insecurity, kidnapping, child trafficking, armed robbery and other social vices which have slowed down Nigeria’s move to proper nationhood? Our health facilities are in shambles, more and more Nigerians are now living in fears because of eminent flood predicted by NEMA, the number of unemployed youths is in the increase, there are no industries to absorb the teeming unemployed graduates. Responsible leaders who bother about the welfare of the people, should spare more time, finding lasting solutions to these problems instead of desipating their energies fighting over positions.

I totally agree with the Speaker of House of Representatives, Mallam Aminu Tambuwal that there is need to separate politics from governance. In his opening speech during the commencement of the seventh session of the House of Representatives last Monday, he admonished his colleagues, “we must resist being distracted from the delivery of our mandate which is only half done…”

He charged the law makers to strive to serve the people that elected them conscientiously.

Two years is such a long time to abandon the citizens to their fate while the leaders go about seeking for selfish interests. No one says they should not be ambitious but let their performance and public acceptability speak for them.

Let good governance and service delivery be the tools they will use in winning the support of the electorates in 2015.

It is also my candid opinion that INEC should do more than issuing threats on those who violate the Electoral Act. A proper investigation of the reported cases should be carried out and adequate sanctions meted out on the culprits. Nigeria should be a country governed by rules and regulations and not a country where any thing goes.