Let a hundred
flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend —Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) founder of modern China.
Organizing a presidential election debate to prepare us for informed
choice in Nigeria’s poll in 2019 without the face of tomorrow is a failed
enterprise from the takeoff point. Two of those capturing that future, Tope
Fasua of Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) and Omoyele Sowore of the
African Action Congress (AAC) are among those being shut out of the debate.
That amounts to denying the future a say in our affairs. That’s disastrous,
because a loss of those who stand for the next generation and a vote for the
jaded geriatric age is a dirge for democracy and society.
The Nigeria Election Debate Group (NEDG) and its electronic media
partners, Broadcasting Organisations of
Nigeria (BON), are shortchanging the people by aligning with the establishment
forces to disallow these renaissance politicians a voice.
By restricting the debate, largely, to the old school of Muhammadu
Buhari of All Peoples Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), NEDG/BON are limiting the capacity for a critical gauge and robust
intellectual combat necessary to arrive at the right material for leadership
and governance.
They are also saying we must always pick our leaders from among those
who have been ruling us. But these have failed us repeatedly and can’t be
trusted to reinvent themselves. If a person has ruined you a thousand and one
times in the past in joint business ventures, and returns with the same bag of
tricks asking for a chance to run another deal with you, what are the odds in
your favour that you would be alive to
tell the story of the raw deal you would get from him? What is the guarantee he
won’t move you to the next level of fatal perfidy and knavery?
There is the disingenuous argument that the new face of Nigerian
politics is noticeably represented by Kingsley Moghalu (Young Progressive
Party), Obiageli Ezekwesili (Allied Congress Party of Nigeria) and Fela
Durotoye (Alliance for New Nigeria). That can’t be the case when the radical
components of the new breed of the dialogue in the likes of Sowore and Fasua
are out of the circle. If we are presenting the best of the system for a debate
to prepare us for next year, we need also, for the sake of sake, to offer the
pre-eminent of the resurgent class. There must be a level playing field, as the
politicians are wont to say themselves. Otherwise, the debate would be flawed
and its outcome painfully unrepresentative of the democracy we claim to be
practicing. How can the option we settle for at the poll in 2019 not be blurred
if the process is so full of disfigurement, bias and predetermined options?
That was the point Ezekwesili was making when she called on NEDG/BON
to review their position and bring in Sowore. She said: ‘’As a country, with
huge contingent of parties fielding candidates for election, it does make sense
to at least allow more than 5 such (new parties) in the most influential of
Presidential Debates…I especially want to see a candidate like…Sowore…He has
been diligent in crisscrossing Universities to awaken our young to engage in
politics…He is doing the country a great service because we must have that
generation of Nigerians fully understand and embrace Plato’s counsel: ‘those
who think that politics is beneath them shall be ruled by their inferiors’.’’
It’s the same with Fasua. Nigerians want him to stand along the other
candidates to proclaim and defend his reformist theories on development
economy. He doesn’t believe we can survive on the regnant policy of tying our
fate to a system that has stagnated us because of visionless leadership. He is
known for his shock antidotes to our problems.
One such is his postulation that ‘’Nigeria is better off selling palm
oil, not crude oil’’. This is his discovery: ‘’The last time I bought palm oil
around Owo, Ondo State, I recall it sold for something like N2,500 for a four-
litre jerry can. That is like N625 per litre. At peak, palm oil sold in global
markets for up to $1,500 a tonne, or $1.50 (N450) a litre. The highest price of
crude oil is approximately N280…So perhaps, we are better off propping up palm
oil as our chief export product… We would not need to depend so much on foreign
‘investors’. It will be less injurious to our environment.’’
Let our presidential debate organisers bring in the new breed players
with their revolutionary ideas on rebuilding Nigeria. We need their speed and
new thinking in addressing the problems created by a succession of self-serving
establishment rulers.
Let’s take a cue from ancient Athens. Her citizens never welcomed
anyone who wouldn’t bring in new ideas to this historical city that had been
home to the great trio of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the founders of
Western philosophy. It was said of the Athenians: ‘’…all the Athenians and
strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to
tell, or to hear some new thing.’’
In the poll of 2019, we should accommodate only politicians who will
offer us fresh and untried ideas to furiously drive development strategies. The
journey starts with the current debate.
*Ojewale writes from Ogun State
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