Mainstreaming IGR expansion in 2023 electioneering campaigns

the economic harrows of the past seven years. And not this administration alone. We have always buckled under the weight of tolerating and accepting political candidates with little or no clues about how to optimise the revenue-generating potential of our country at different levels of government. It is worse at the subnational levels.

Finally, the growing awareness and determination of many Nigerians to obtain voter cards is the first and most crucial step. This is, however, not enough. Civil society organisations have a substantial role in educating the public on how to take political candidates to task on how they intend to raise revenue to finance most of their manifesto promises. Recently, the accountant general of the federation revealed that we have commenced borrowing to pay salaries. This situation was only customary at the subnational level. Now, even the centre appears not to be holding and reminding us that we are probably stepping onto the threshold of amplified economic difficulties. But we can save ourselves from that impending disaster by challenging the claims of political candidates shown in their manifestoes. Manifestoes are not necessarily documents for reference when evaluating the performance of political office holders by matching their programmes and achievements against their earlier claims.

A good manifesto must be comprehensive enough regarding the fund sourcing programmes of a candidate and prudent deployment while demonstrating that the claimed outcomes are indeed possible. Candidates seeking electoral votes can only go as far in explaining these to the extent to which the public voting demands such explanations. It is he who wears the shoe that knows where it pinches. But it does not appear that we who wear these discomforting shoes know the source. This is the time to make a difference.