Saturday, February 17, 2018

The flaw with elections





The choice of the next true leaders of the country will be a formidable task indeed. This is so because any mistake about it will spell doom for the Nigerian state and its entire people. It will affect our future and can stunt our growth in the long term. 

There is a lot of rubbish to be cleared when this present regime expires in a matter of 13 months from now. The job facing the next government will be taxing. Not just anybody produced by an election can do it.

Who will be the next leaders is not a matter for contestants, politicians, the ruling party or the incumbent government. It is a matter for the masses, the electorate. In the past when the masses abdicated this duty, it landed us in the quagmire in which we are today. Impostors rather than true leaders went in to lord it over the people and deny them any say in how they are governed.

This is the time when misfits and charlatans weave their way in to be voted for while real people who can do the job are schemed out and shoved aside where they become voters rather than people to be voted for. This is where the battle is lost and the ultimate bane of our democracy. The main challenge of our electoral system is how the right people can emerge as candidates to be voted for.

It is at the earliest stages that unwanted people are recruited and imposed as candidates whom the masses are forced to get out and vote for on polling days. What are called primaries here are pre-meditated schemes meant to rule out the people's actual choices and tie the hands of the electorate. 

With this old method and routine, elections are already won in favor of unwanted, bad people to occupy positions of power. Elections become fruitless exercises. The early stages like now are when election observers are needed, not on election days, after the havoc has been done. The selection of candidates for 2019 ought to be thorough and democratic.

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