Election present voters with important choices. Whether is a local race that will affect your community or a national race that could change the direction of a country, it is high time to consider the issues which you care about which candidate you support or an insight of what you’ve got for the electorates.
The emergence of Governor Yahaya Bello has brought new people into politics and reignited activists across the state. As people on the left aim to resist what they view as colossal failure and harmful policy and the people on the right are seriously engaged in praising the government.
Both sides are debating the effectiveness of various political strategies but our major problem is not on those on the right, rather the aspiring candidates who has no single manifesto other than using Bello’s maladministration to convey their personal interest.
My fellow Kogites, they are several questions you need to ask yourself before you judge a candidate which are: what you’re looking for in them, their accessibility nature, their stands on issues, how other people view the candidate and sorting it all out.
But today, we’re all money courteous, often bound with wealth. This derails the entire process of democracy, resulting in a vicious cycle. We should be very alert and inquisitive to support any aspirant that are peoples courteous and not money courteous.
Our sole aim in politics should be positive transformation and not wealth. A lot of aspirants are using obsolete tactics on our personality that are only useful to the gullible ones.
Today I’m very proud of Hon Sadiq Abu, Benjamin Ikani Okolo, Hon. David Zach, Zakari Alfa …..these people are very accessible, they have core values, they AT LEAST give listening ears to their subjects. They are always on ground when the need be.
We’ve seen aspirants today, a lot of them who have served for years without tangible projects and they are neither campaigning nor accessible as the Case maybe. Only God knows what such people are relying on. Is it MONEY BAG at the polling units? NO! Money will be very useless because I believe other aspirants can still do the same thing, party too will be useless.
In fact! 2019 will be a different thing entirely in the history of Kogi State. The success of any aspirations regardless of his party hinged on how the people loves for him. But in today’s politics, the power of the electorates have been undermined. The reasons for this not farfetched, the electorates themselves have sold their conscience because of materials gains. They subjects themselves to a perpetual servitude without regard to their personalities.
This trend is on high increase. They don’t to seem to understand how cruel is this attitude to their personalities. The neglect of the electorates is also as a result of must win attitude displayed by the various political parties which results to electoral malpractices, such as snatching of ballot boxes, doctoring of election results, hiring of stooges to help deprived the electorates of their franchise. This attitude made the aspirants not availing themselves to the electorates, why? Because having understood the weakness of electorates, they believe that they are weaklings and that when they need their services they know how to get their minds. They believe that electorates are poor segment of the society and any little benevolence will make them changed their minds.
In conclusion, our politics today is been dominated by aristocracy in which the rich have the way and the poor becomes the phlegm.
In order to ameliorate this unhealthy philosophy in our political system, the electorates have to considered themselves a stakeholder and any mistake from them will offsets our nascent democracy. They have to come to terms with realities. I know that everyone has need to satisfy but in doing that, you have to be careful to protect the destiny of our future generation.
Today is known but what about tomorrow? To the serious minded aspirants, they should be able to map out strategies on reaching depths, they should try and extend their tentacles and the electorates should also add value to themselves to remain relevance on or before election.
– Yakubu Yousef
