CAMPAIGN FLAG OFF: WHAT ARE THE EXPECTATIONS FOR 2023 ELECTIONS?
Campaign for 2023 presidential and national assembly elections officially kicked off today 28 September, also awaited is that of state activities in few weeks’ time.
The main competitors, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and the All Progressives Congress (APC) rolled out their drums hosting activities important to their victorious expectations but as has been the case with the country’s political campaigns, the other political parties seem to be calm or non-existent raising questions about the essence of their establishment.
Feelers from the public show that the country’s political parties’ systems and their candidates are obviously lacking in ideologies, clear cut manifestoes on what to offer to the people and more worrisome, is the gross deficiency of issue based strategies for delivering on their promises.
Core questions among the electorates bother on how ready and genuine are candidates and their parties towards effective delivering of the dividends of democracy for the country’s advancement as making campaign promises without delivering on the expectations is quite becoming a norm with its accompanying voters’ aparty where only a small fraction of the people vote.
Although Nigerians are becoming more enlightened on their rights and expectations from the people that are elected to run the affairs of the country, the corruption level and state of the economy lead to the sale of their rights to candidates who do not in any way mean any good for the people but are rather moved by inordinate ambition to plunge the country into any direction and situations that suit their personal aims and aspirations.
For a country already almost over shadowed by myriads of challenges, to elect the appropriate candidates in the 2023 elections should be taken as a country-sustaining task that should not only be left in the hands of the electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, candidates, parties and their supporters but in the genuineness of the electorates to save the country from the political escapades of wrong hands.
