2019 Elections: After All Said And Done -By Efosa Taiwo

2019 Elections: After all must have been said and done – By Efosa Taiwo
With the forthcoming 2019 elections being the hottest and the most rife discussed event that has disrupted the Nigerian society lately, it is no gainsaying that the elections would mark a significant epoch in the sands of the history of her democracy when it saunters in, most especially considering it is set to be the costliest election in the chronicle of the political records of the country with a whopping N242 billion already earmarked for it.

As contrasted to the 65 million registered voters in 2015, 84 million registered voters, as revealed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are set to wield their franchise when they haunt the polls on election day with the famous and controversial Permanent Voters Card(PVC), consequently delivering to Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora an adjudged competent political pilot that will pilot the affairs of the country at least, for the next four years. 

It is the unsheated hopes of well-meaning Nigerians that the forthcoming elections would be one that would be a variant from the previous elections that have been characterized by rigging, ballot snatching, vote buying, electoral violence and litany of electoral anomalies into one that fragrances fair, free and unquestionably credible electoral process. 
From the political masquerades, there has been a constant dance of diverse antics, politickings, electioneerings, gimmicks and permutations as the political clock keeps chiming soundly to their sensory and political organs, and this time around, the electorates are palpably recipients of the chimes.

Again as the major highlight, the two major political parties are unarguably set to lock horns with each other in a bid to outnumber and outwit one another as regards scooping the majority votes of the electorates expedient to mounting the most coveted political seat in the country that nestles at the Aso Rock. 

While one has had the luxury of holding reign of the country for 16 years before being booted out by the ruling party, the other nicked victory at the last election, springing up hopes of a ‘changed’ country as opposed to the gross misrule the country was inexorably cladded with by the then outgoing party. 

After four years of having tasted what it is like to sit in corridors of presidential power and give off what they had in store for the country, the ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate have to the appraisal of most Nigerians performed woefully during their dispensation with nepotism, hypocrisy, incompetence, tribalism, corrupt cases and all fashion of shortcomings discolouring the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Similar to Abraham Lincoln’s burning desire in face of daunting obstacles to champion the campaign for equal rights in America, Buhari and APC are not giving up on their dreams for a ‘changed’ Nigeria and have deemed it prudent to once again slug it out with the other registered 91 political parties poised to vie for the electorates’ votes on election day, with the most notable being the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the coveted seat at Aso Rock and others splattered across the country; hence cementing their presumptuously guarded reputation as the current imperious party in party politics in the country. 

It would be corresponding to a farmer who has toiled and expended enormous resources to have gathered a bountiful harvest of tubers of yams but never made provisions for a barn to safeguard the yams from the prowling eyes, stashing fingers and nimble legs of his archenemies if after the election the elected men and women fail to measure up and over their vaunted promises.

There is every imperativeness to goad and counsel the candidates who are on the brink of getting elevated to political posts by the elevator coming in the mould of the votes of the electorates to conduct themselves ethically and patriotically while in office, get to pull their weights purposely to change the narrative of Nigeria to the world and eschew selfish interests for the benefits of Nigerians. 

Nigeria is bedeviled with horde of ills that urgently needs to be reversed. Ills ranging from dearth of basic infrastructures in most part of the country to teeming numbers of unemployed citizens to a shambolic economy that endlessly spikes daily the poverty index down to inadequate attention to educational system alongside a poor health care system and most notably among the scores of ills is insecurity that is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in the country. 

It is the smouldering optimism of Nigerians, that the aftermath of the elections would bring to the surface elected officials that would bring about the much needed transposition of the country from the seemingly moribund state it is plunged into politically, socially and economically into one that can make an average Nigerian man beats his chest and pontificates about his country. 

However, it is very easy and commensurately convenient to sit back after casting one’s votes with the utmost confidence and impregnable conviction that one’s elected officials would go about executing the duties expected of them without one’s inputs whatsoever. 

When a farmer plants and goes back home to sleep for days and wakes up one morning after having had a filled stomach of sleep to go back to his farm, he would not only discover the pillage of his produce but also get foisted with the conundrum of having to discern his farm because of the untold number of weeds that have expropriated it. The citizenry, clearly, has its pivotal roles to play in the game of democracy to ensure that at the blast of the referee’s whistle; jubilations and felicity would eclipse its camp.

Accountability is a vital role of the citizens. And in this context, it flows in twofold vis-a-vis holding oneself accountable as followers as regards one’s conducts toward a progressive nation and holding the leaders accountable unabatedly to their ideal responsibilities while in power.

Meanwhile, it is being reckoned unequivocally that good journalism is the anchor for a progressive nation, therefore; the media practitioners cannot afford to efface themselves when it comes to either jumping on the train that will convey us to the ‘Next Level’ or the juggernaut that will glide us to ‘Get Working  Again’ with their sharpened tools necessary for having the driver focused on the journey. The enhancement of smoldering vastly reposes in the media. Sequel to the elections, Nigerians are waiting to see ethical journalism being practiced by its practitioners.

Just like the beauty of the forest does not lie with a tree, the growth of a country explicitly is the onus of everyone, and it goes beyond the elections.

Efosa Taiwo is a campus journalist and a student of the department of mass communication, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic.