2023: Go For Issue-based Electioneering, Not Character-assassination – Olokoba

As 2023 general election inches closer by the day, a pro-democracy activist and National President of the Campaign for Dignity in Governance (CDG), Razaq Olokoba has advised aspirants to focus on the issue-based campaign and eschew character-assassination. In a media interaction in Lagos, he admonished them to dwell on issues of national importance. SIKIRAT SHEHU brings the excerpts:

What advice do you have for all the aspirants who have already shown interest in the 2023 election?

Well, for all contestants both in the north and the south, this is the period the true Nigerian nature should come out of every contestant. What do I mean by that? This is the time people should know that, my ambition is not more important than the interest of the country. That Nigeria is bigger than my ambition. That, my ambition is for me to come and serve the people; and that, if my ambition to become the president of Nigeria would jeopardise a lot of things in Nigeria, I am ready to sacrifice my ambition. This is what everybody must have at the back of his mind. And it is expected that contestants from the north should be the ones campaigning for power shift from the north to the south. For the contestants from the south, this is the time to also demonstrate in their utterances that this is a joint oath for all of them to abide with, and that, there should be no southern agenda.

What do you mean by that?

I mean any manifesto, campaign or utterances that would indicate regional agenda should be jettisoned. What I mean is that phrases like this is our time, it is our turn and it’s our period should be carefully used, so that the interpretations of that should not create fear and mutual suspicion in the mind of our northern brothers. So that they would not say, if that is what power shift is all about, I would not be part of it. If it is the southern agenda you are bringing on board, I won’t be part of it. We should be seen as leaders emerging from the south. Not that a southerner is emerging to come and rule Nigeria. It should be a kind of a leader to serve Nigeria emerging from a part of Nigeria. It should be Nigeria’s agenda all through. Not that southern leader coming up with all sorts of things. Whatever programmes coming out from our brothers from the south must be the ones that would cement the unity of this country. Not the ones to create fears, doubt, or make our northern brothers to be jittery.

What do you mean about ‘no to character assassination’?

It is a concern that all Nigerians should address. The popular demand now is for the power to shift to the south. And the most acceptable decision expected from all the political parties in Nigeria today is the zoning of the presidency to the south. And if in the middle of the demand that the slot should come to the south, all the contestants demonstrating their intentions should educate their followers because it appears to me that some of the followers of some aspirants are behaving as if they are under a spell!

When something is zoned to you, and the campaign slogan that you think is appropriate is to begin to decimate other candidates of other people. That is a wrong move. APC may not go anywhere with this type of strategy. And it is familiar terrain to the PDP that led to their fall. When PDP wanted to lose at that time, this was what they embarked upon. They were decimating each other. And that was what strengthened the APC at that time. And that was what gave Buhari an edge too at that time. It was because the PDP were busy destroying each other then. So, while they were busy decimating one another, the APC was consolidating ahead.

So, the APC should be told in clear terms that, if they also start to decimate each other, the PDP would also be busy consolidating its members. There are so many challenges before this government that the people think should be addressed by the President or by the government. That is a lie. The challenges are so enormous that nobody should cause additional crises through the assassination of other contestants’ characters. Against this foregoing, the APC should start sanctioning followers of the contestants decimating other fellow contestants for the sake of sanity.

If you look at the array of the people that have already come out or those being persuaded to come out and contest, like the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN). They are people of high integrity. Talk of people like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Kayode Fayemi, a sitting governor and Chairman, Governors’ Forum of Nigeria and Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the current Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. These are the people who are properly, sufficiently and eminently qualified to rule this country successfully.

And it pisses me off when I read or hear a lot of blackmails aimed at destroying any of the above-mentioned people of high calibre. Or saying something terrible about Tinubu or Fashola, and I wonder why because these are our first eleven in Nigeria that the rest of the world considers as brilliant brains that can assist the country to climb the ladder of development and growth. So, it is not proper for us as a people to, in the name of contesting for the president to now begin to decimate and destroy the very people we used our resources to secure the high places for!

What implication do you see in that?

The implication of that is that it would now look strange to the world reading about how these people are being brought to ridicule in the name of politics! If there are issues you want these people to answer, pose the questions politely and let them answer them. That is the pattern in the rest of the world. You don’t bring out pictures of someone who the Senate has scrutinised and given a pass mark to go and serve and start to decimate him! Or someone who is the Number 2 in the country and we begin to refer to him in derogatory terms. What kind of people are we?

If we say all these people aspiring to be president are truly what we call them, the people who had served us meritoriously in the past and are still serving us well, who then are we as a people? And they have had their glorious moments! Who then are we as a people? If we continue to tell the world that these people are not qualified to be president, one would begin to wonder, who else can do it again outside these crops?

What then do you think should be done to arrest the ugly situation?

It is simple. To me, every aspirant should give his followers a code of conduct to guide them against misconduct and misbehaviour; that, henceforth, nobody should decimate other aspirants. What should be our concern is what can your candidate offer you and I and the country as a whole? We want to read to know what Tinubu can offer Nigeria. We hear Fashola also is coming out; we want to hear and read about what he can offer us. Osinbajo has been Vice President for almost seven years now, what can he offer us as President? Fayemi is still a sitting governor. What has he done for his people? What would he offer us as President? These are some of the things we want to be reading and hearing about and not negative things about their personalities.

But they say all these and make all these promises during campaigns, but when they got elected they are not able to keep to their promises. Those you mentioned, are they the only ones you know?

No, no. There are other people who want to come out to the contest. Let them also tell us in clear terms how they would want to address the security challenges in the country. How they would provide a proper structure that would give employment to 70percent of the unemployed youths in the country in clear terms. How would they want to address the economy that is in shambles, among other challenges that are facing Nigeria?

The political structure since the time of Obasanjo is responsible for our calamities and woes, how would they address that to bring Nigeria back on good footing? Those are things we are interested in, not conducts that would define us as primitive and uncivilised people.

We should warn that followers and the candidates themselves should desist from that perilous path that caused the fall of the PDP and paved the way for Buhari’s emergence as the President. APC should be told to learn from that pitfall to avoid history repeating itself.