BY NICK DAZANG
On Wednesday September 28, 2022, two major milestones will be reached on the electoral front. On that fateful day, we would have arrived at the ninth out of the 14th milestone on the way to the conduct of the 2023 general elections.
By the same token, and based on the Timetable And Schedule of Activities for the 2023 General Elections issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in February this year, campaigns for the general elections will begin in earnest on the same day(September 28, 2022), 150 days to Election Day.
Ordinarily, campaigns are conducted to engender a free and open discussion on who is the best candidate and which party, based on its high-minded agenda, is best poised to squarely address our concerns and challenges.We expect our impending campaigns to be no less muscular and lively.
We expect them to define and climax into the conduct of the best elections in our history. We expect them to excite and titillate the political firmament. We expect them, particularly the rallies, town halls and debates, to be full of colour and circumstance. We expect them to be agog with pomp and sound bites. We expect that the arguments that will undergird the campaigns will be reasoned and cogent.
We expect our media to be suffused with messages which stand the candidates in good stead. We expect campaign speeches to be studded with exalted and ennobling visions of a greater Nigeria. We expect campaigns which unite, rather than focus on our fault lines and things that divide us. We expect the campaigns to be civil, refined and issue-based.
But if we are to go by the pronouncements of some of the enablers of our presidential candidates, who before now stridently canvassed positions or take issues on behalf of their principals, then we have every reason to fear or harbour reservations. For they carried on as giddy and inebriated enforcers, slinging mud and calumnising their principals’ opponents.
They also issued highfalutin claims and inflammatory rhetorics, thus setting the stage for wild, outlandish and ridiculous promises in the mould of unscrupulous politicians of yore who would promise to build bridges even where no rivers existed or literally putting the Atlantic Ocean on fire.
The grim reality which confronts us and the terrible place in which Nigerians find themselves today should persuade even the most reckless and delinquent politician that only well thought out and sombre arguments will do. Candidates must thus refrain from incendiary speeches or pronouncements which tend to cast unnecessary aspersions on their opponents. They should abide scrupulously by the provisions of the electoral holy grail, namely the Electoral Act 2022. Permit me to quote from Section 95(1-6) of the Act: A political campaign or slogan shall not be tainted with abusive language directly or indirectly likely to injure religious, ethnic, tribal or sectional feelings.
Abusive, intemperate, slanderous or base language or insinuations or innuendos designed or likely to provoke violent reaction or emotions shall not be employed or used in political campaigns. Places designated for religious worship, police station and public offices shall not be used-a) for political campaigns, rallies and processions or, b) to promote, propagate or attack political parties, candidates, their programmes or ideologies.
Masquerades shall not be employed or used by any political party, candidate or person during political campaigns or for any other political purpose. A political party or member of a political party shall not retain, organize, train or equip any person or group of persons for the purpose of enabling them to be employed for the use or display of physical force or coercion in promoting any political objective or interest, or in such manner as to arouse reasonable apprehension that they are organized-trained or equipped for that purpose.
A political party, person or candidate shall not keep or use private security organization, vanguard or any other group or individual by whatever name called for the purpose of providing security, assisting or aiding the political party or candidate in whatever manner during campaigns, rallies, processions or elections.
If the candidates and political parties are to carry themselves in a sublime and decorous manner, the Media and Civil Society have salient roles to play in tracking and publicizing their promises and holding them to account. The Media should give unfettered opportunities for the candidates to ventilate themselves. This will enable the voters to study their pronouncements and make informed choices.
And in providing these unhindered platforms, the Media must be as fair as possible, thus giving equal or near equal space and time to the candidates. The Media must vigorously interrogate the candidates and political parties. Assumptions must not be erroneously made on the bases of sentiments and emotions regarding the candidates.
This way, we shall avoid the costly mistake of 2015, when Nigerians were wowed and beguiled by the putative and assumed integrity and high sense of patriotic fervor of one of the candidates only to be disappointed thereafter.
“No doubt, peddlers and purveyors of fake news will have a field day. But the traditional media, with their army of gatekeepers,must comport themselves responsibly, playing their roles as veritable custodians of the truth. They must refrain from amplifying or weaponizing pronouncements that fan the embers of hatred or incite the people to violence.
*Dazang, a public affairs analyst, wrote via: nickdazang@gmail.com
