This article was coined from Extra metro watch.
We expect these attacks, which are part of the election campaign, justling. However, these soundbite attacks are not enough to feed the political appetites of the electorate.” – Dakuku Peterside.
We are in another election season. Political parties, jobbers, and candidates deploy everything to convince innocent voters that they mean well and have a clear agenda to transform society. Most people – con artists, comics, and patriotic citizens – attempt to present what they intend to do when elected to office. In their various interactions with the public and the media, they make statements of promises to the electorate to win their votes. These statements give an indication as to what matters to the candidates and their vision of the future of society.
No tool encapsulates the ideals and priorities of the candidates and their parties like the manifesto. Ideally , a manifesto is a compilation of the broad vision, development philosophy, ideological leaning and sector-specific policy options that a political party intends to pursue once elected.
Parties have manifestos and it is pretty much fixed, however updated regularly. Candidates of parties have an agenda or programme, which should align with the manifesto of the sponsoring party. In our clime, a candidate’s programme is often referred to as a manifesto and that is the context in which it is situated in this column. A manifesto is one of the ways of evaluating whether candidates understand the issues confronting the people and have good plans to solve them. It is also a tool to hold parties and candidates accountable for promises made during elections.
The reality in Nigerian political culture deviates, albeit in a slightly different way, from the denotative nuances of a manifesto. In Nigeria, a manifesto is more of a tradition, a political culture and not an essential requirement in a political contest. Whether citizens take it seriously or not is another matter. The belief in Nigeria, following historical precedence, is that manifestos are almost acts of a confidence trick – soundbites and promises that are intended to trick but never kept. Nevertheless, the expectation is that all political parties and presidential candidates will present their manifestoes or agenda to the public.
Two of the four presidential frontrunners have released what is somewhat of a manifesto. Atiku Abubakar of the PDP released an abridged version of his manifesto captioned “new covenant” or “my covenant with Nigerians”. Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC issued “Hope Renewed”. One common thing to both manifestos is that they need more detail on how they intend to accomplish what they have outlined. Labour Party’s Peter Obi and NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso are yet to release any manifesto officially. Peter Obi had argued that getting wordsmiths and consultants to write and package a manifesto is not enough; candidates should be able to speak to Nigerians about what they plan to do, how they will do it and where the funds will come from to fulfil their promises.
The campaign managers and spin doctors of the two main parties, APC and PDP, are already jostling to place their manifestoes at the centre of media and public attention whilst attacking the essence and content of each other’s manifesto. Dele Momodu, journalist, and media manager of the Atiku Presidential campaign launched the first attack by describing Tinubu’s manifesto as bad recycling of late MKO Abiola’s 1993 manifesto calling it “APC manifesto of lies”. As expected, he got an immediate reply from Festus Keyamo, who described the Atiku-Okowa manifesto as merely a copy of President Buhari’s projects. At least Nigerians who have consumed enough bad news now have some comic relief.
