Why Nigerians Must Vote Wisely
The purpose of election is to choose those to take charge of state affairs known simply as governance. Good governance is showcased when those administering the state approximate the yearnings of the people to enhance their well-being.
As usual, as the elections are due again, political parties in the country are singing praises of themselves to high heavens, individually adjudging themselves as having done well to be allowed to continue or to take over at one level or the other.
As the campaigns for the elections enter their climax, what needs to be remembered is that issues should be about how policies and actions of government affect the lives of the people and not about discrediting people, character assassination or undue noise-making. If good governance is about making life better for the people, provision of amenities to bring them comfort and make life easier for them, then campaigns have to be issues-based and not about “stomach infrastructure” - offering of money, first class phone sets, food items as rice and a host of other things, including making vague promises as we have it currently going, to sway votes. The electorate needs to know one thing; those politicians and political parties that have resorted to this path are only out for their selfish interest and not to serve. If on the basis of a pot of porridge, they surrender their mandate to them, they should be prepared in the next four years when they would
fully exhaust their mandate to repay in return all they are collecting now in the course of the campaigns. Four years, we should remember, in the life of man is a lot, it is enough to change the lives of many people.
Paramount in our lives today are issues of insecurity, corruption, electricity supply to drive the economy, impunity in high places, disregard for rule of law and due process, inaccessibility of the people to political office holders and a host of others, including lack of appropriate recognition for such grassroot bodies as Community Development Associations (CDAs). CDAs, as community based grassroots associations, are agents of change, possessing powers and the machinery to propel political office holders in the right direction of becoming people- oriented. As laudable and awesome as their roles are, it is regrettable that only one state in the federation has seen the need to empower them legally.
With such strong ties with the CDAs, Lagos State today remains the most relatively peaceful in the country. Apart from the vision of the sort of committed people God has given the state to run its affairs, way back in 2007, the state governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, established the State Security Trust Fund consequent upon the challenges posed by rampaging armed bandits. The trust fund instantly gained acceptance, funds came in from the wealthy and corporate organisations to mobilise and equip the security agencies to subdue the festering violent crimes of then.
Against all odds also, the Fashola government has now invested into power provision for the state government secretariat, institutions, agencies and the Central Business Unit in Central Lagos, which are completely now dependent on the uninterrupted power supply from the electricity project of the state. The thinking of the Fashola government in embarking on the project was that since no state government can meaningfully at the moment go into electricity generation, transmission and distribution under the prevailing national arrangement, taking those agencies and the central business unit from the little allocation of supply to Lagos from the national grid will leave more current for supply to the residential areas. But this has never been as national generation has continued to dwindle with the managers of our national life unable to proffer a solution. Should we allow these visionless people take over Lagos and wreck our working system?
Obasanjo’s embargo on allocations to the state’s local governments from the federation account over the creation of Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) never really undermined the financial commitments of the state government. Salaries of state and council workers were paid as when due, thanks to the brilliant Accountant–General of the state then, Akinwumi Ambode; first, he was permanent secretary in the State Ministry of Finance and later, the Accountant-General of the State. In that trying period for the state, he re-engineered the state government’s IGR machinery and raised the monthly earnings from N600,000 in 2006 to N20 billion today. A strident believer in equitable distribution of wealth, resources and power, like Fashola, Ambode is not a professional politician and would neither disappoint the way politicians do nor distance himself from the grassroots.
Dislocation of a government from such grassroots associations as the CDAs implies that the government has severed itself from the ordinary people.