The Us Presidential Poll and Beyond

The recruitment process of the American President holds lessons for Nigeria

Come next week Tuesday, November 8, Americans will go to the polls to elect their next president. The Democratic Party candidate is Mrs. Hillary Clinton, a former Secretary of State who had also been a senator. If elected, she will become the first female American President and also one whose husband is a former president. Her challenger, Mr. Donald Trump, of the Republican Party is a maverick. A billionaire businessman who has no temperament for political correctness, Trump has done and said many things in the course of the year-long campaigns that would ordinarily end the career of any political office seeker. Yet he still commands huge following.

Although it is the business of Americans to elect their president, the world is nonetheless always interested in who occupies the White House. It is even more so this time for several reasons. However, while many have harped on the temperament of the two candidates, what we consider rather important is the meritocratic essence of the American presidential campaign which is usually enlivened by the culture of open and rigorous debate and almost endless engagement of the candidates with a national electorate. In the process, those seeking to lead the people are exposed, interrogated, cross-examined and generally subjected to a form of examination on practically all issues.

As dictated by the American political leadership recruitment process, nearly every aspect of a candidate’s suitability is put under the microscope of public scrutiny during the campaigns: morals, elocution, marital life, education, civics, world geography, experience, honesty, sincerity of purpose, respect for national values, understanding of the place and mission of the United States in the world, etc. Along the way, some aspirants drop out of the contest, based on their inability to go through the rigour of party and public screening even if they have all the money in the world.

At the end, it is safe to conclude that candidates fail or succeed in the race to the White House on the basis of their performance in these series of rigorous examinations of their lives and what they stand for. It is also on that basis that the outcomes of the United States presidential elections are almost always predictable where wide disparities exist between the candidates of the two parties on the public perception of where they stand on those issues.

However, whatever the eventual outcome of the presidential election, there are several lessons that we can learn from the United States. One, a democracy that is built on meritocracy is more likely to deliver sounder governance than a polity of assumptions and ascription such as ours. Two, when people are involved in the entire process of selecting who governs them, such a system usually breeds accountability. Three, a process that involves such rigorous interrogations will definitely bring out the best and worst of the candidates thus making it easy for the electorate to make informed and rational choices.

Unfortunately, the situation is different in Nigeria. Over the years, we have had our leaders practically handpicked and anointed by rabble factions of some renegade conclaves called ‘parties’ or by some political godfathers. That perhaps explains why, either at the federal or state level, those who aspire to lead the people are shielded until they emerge in positions of power to display how ill-equipped and inappropriate they are to hold any office. Then an electorate that was indifferent to asking the uncomfortable questions begins to whine and grumble. We cannot continue to run our nation on the basis of such political cynicism.

Therefore, Nigerians must begin to imbibe a culture by which those who aspire to lead our people, especially at the gubernatorial and presidential levels, are subjected to a rigorous process of engagement with the people by way of public debates that will assess their suitability for the offices they seek. That is the beauty of American democracy, even with all the imperfections that have come to fore in the current presidential election campaigns. And that is what we must aspire towards as we seek to deepen our democracy in the overall interest of our country.

QUOTE: Nigerians must begin to imbibe a culture by which those who aspire to lead our people, especially at the gubernatorial and presidential levels, are subjected to a rigorous process of engagement with the people by way of public debates that will assess their suitability for the offices they seek. That is the beauty of American democracy, even with all the imperfections that have come to fore in the current presidential election campaigns