-By Austen Akhagbeme:
Beyond the fallacy of identitarian commitment being displayed by most Nigerian political parties and their followers, especially in this troubled political dispensation, efforts should be made by the citizenry to demand strictly, a people’s manifesto from all the political parties and their presidential aspirants.
The political jamborees masquerading as campaign rallies will only become meaningful to the average Nigerian when those who promised to change our state and improve our estate, put such ideas, policies and strategies in a concise, understandable and accountable manner such that interrogating such promises by all and sundry will rekindle hope to our collective consciousness.
And until and unless this is done, our campaign “rallies” will be reduced to grounds of insults, deception and foolery. Unfortunately, this organise pre-election deception is always aesthetically pleasing to the undiscerning, the reason we hardly bother to interrogate deceptive realities of the polity and the shenanigans of our politicians.
It is high time we demand the right balm to soften our collective pain and the right method it will be administered by the right physician. There are known and popular disorders bedevilling our system and those who promised to correct them must tell us how it will be done and why they are the right people to do it.
Beyond the declared policies, blueprints or action plans, let us question the antecedents of these politicians vis-a-vis their truthfulness and capacity to perform.
Let us demand a people’s manifesto that is unblemished, not blinded by the usual nuances of religion, ethnicity, selfishness, tactlessness and morbid ignorance. A manifesto that will engineer a paradigm shift and a sweeping change in all facets of our national life.
Just like Marx and Engel’s popular treatise, “The Communist Manifesto” stated, ” the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains….” Nigerians have nothing to lose by asking for a change from our predatory elite class. Rather, we have a nation to win, gain and build.
