Media as Agenda Setter for Elected Political Office Holders

Isaac Olusesi writes about the conscious need for the press to set agenda for elected political office holders at both federal and state levels ahead of the May 29, 2023 hand over date.

Now that the 2023 general elections in Nigeria are over, talking matter–of–factly, the candidates who won at the polls as declared by the election umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have tall and wide responsibilities with obligations to the constituents. And that’s better dispensed beyond the range of partisan considerations to avoid compounding image problems for the political parties on which platform they were elected.

Any crippling contradictions from the aggrieved candidates and interest groups, partisan factions and fractions or intra oppositions should be resolved judicially in favour of who actually won, translated to victory to people’s power.

The strength of the elected political leaders lies in the reputation of apolitical representation – calm, just, kind and utilitarian – with major stake in the survival of Nigeria as a conglomeration of electoral constituencies with the constituents who have become more desperate for good leadership.

The constituents are wont now to get out of the bankruptcy of unprofitable representation of the past. That developing matrix or condition will give popularity and spread to the newly elected political leaders as rare, selfless species in noble self-sacrifice, exemplary patriotism and populist empowerment who have the resolve and sagacity to get things done for the constituents.

The new leaders know that the welfare of the people is the real reason to be in politics and are ready to represent the people very well for they are part of the people and are accountable to the people with passionate integrity.

To be otherwise, adhering to self-credo and sideline postures could be a huge negative for the elected leaders as that would turn them to political gamblers who soonest get all permutations exhausted, and to the rescue from imminent electoral disaster at the recall polls, that’s the next general elections.

The next polls will force them back to their constituents to render stewardship account and have their mandate renewed for another term, if they do so well today.

Nigerian democracy can no longer be said to be on trial after decades of successful leadership successions on course.

Rather, it is the politicians who have not professionalized the craft of politics and politicking to get divested of the toga of weird and odd partisanship that make acute enchantment of bad politics ironically attractive to them.

While practically, quality public interest politics is sacrificed in the process by the day when that ought not to be.

The call by a section of the political class for the annulment of the results of a particular stream of the 2023 general elections, the presidential poll, is less than being honest.

The elections were not crisis ridden, after all; not ones built on the quicksands of any devastating faults and riddled with any serious socio- political upsets or escalated into fiercely violent disputes. Neither did the elections get the body politic polarized or dismembered to cast forlornness, hopelessness on the homogeneity or oneness of our nation.

I put my foot down with all rage against the call and I ask, in what name is the call being made if not in the name of the eerie, spooky and bizarre partisanship in consort with some international interference in the internal affairs of Nigerian sovereign state contrary to the United Nations Charter of Non-Interference?

So much of laborious efforts goes into making the elected political leaders. The aspirants to political offices, made to swallow hook, line and sinker the impression that they would win or their candidacy would count, take on the trouble to have themselves presented to the political parties for consideration for nomination and get registered with INEC as official candidates for elections.

Quite a lot more. The constituents, of voting age, have to get registered as voters, listen to the candidates at campaigns, line up for hours, almost unending, out there under the sun scorch or water drenching from rain to collect Permanent Voter’s Card. And under similar conditions akin to harshness of weather, the voters cast their votes for choice candidates.

Yet, with impunity, the voters, on the election day are robbed of monetary Welfare Appreciation Allowance (WAPPALL) for breakfast, lunch and transportation back to their respective destinations of kilometers of roads, near and far. The voters, left to no emotional care or monitor were additionally tasked  to wait behind and ‘ _shine, shine_ ‘ their eyes on vote counting, but with the eyes already made blurred by politicians’ self centeredness and false pretences.

From the reports across Nigeria, the dare-devil thieving politicians had good money in several millions of naira handed them by the topmost leaderships of political parties as largesse for transfer to the voters on the election day.

Money transfer, the voters’ welfare package called WAPPALL, unofficially, across political parties during the last the general elections, is a cousin to the nation’s cashless policy of the time.

The monetary largesse, privately pocketed by politicians, did not get to the electors as politicians defaulted. And in the aftermath of the election results, the sensibility of the defeated political parties’ leaders ceased to respond very well to conversations on the election outcome, going by the social media reports.

Sanity should impel the political class to concede defeat and accept the outcome of the elections, and not by taking certain steps surreptitiously, secretly to frustrate the winners from doing effectively in office.

From Oriade state constituency of Osun State, Hon Babatunde Desmond Ojo’s concession to the election outcome that didn’t favour him, barely 24hours after the poll results were officially released, speaks to the compelling post -poll cooperation. Desmond, too unknown to me, gets my kudos for his witty sportsmanship. And timely, of course, yes. Unlike many Nigerians of his ranking in politics, he’s said to be polite and suaver.

Acknowledgement or admission of poll results by election candidates collapses the climax of the complex political confrontation, attacks and counter attacks reached, particularly on the election day and shortly after the election results are announced.

The political dynamics of concession to defeat, marked by the interplay of voice protests in intensity and impact between the political leaders and cadres of the defeated political parties as are happening to the polity today tend to pose challenges to the legitimacy of the political system.

In the circumstances of the challenges, an euphemism for troubles, to the election outcome and long way off, Nigerian press has a huge role in the next republic, come May 29, 2023.

Press editorials should be agenda setting to inculcate or inject into the nation’s newly elected political leaders, the patriotic use of political power. It is the responsibility of the media to deploy the advantage of being the watchdog of democracy to educate the elected leadership to see past the routine pre-occupation with self-survival in political office.

The new crew of political leadership ought to think of themselves as the next generation of statesmen of the regime of rectitude in political office with commitment to nation building reforms, while it is the nationalistic duty of the press to the newly elected leaders who must be well managed.

Only the press reared in integrity, courage, acuity, and walk the tightrope staked in the continued survival of our democracy can hold the political leaders accountable to the people.

But the other press in praise singing, court jesting and trading in bias or prejudice ‘ll get summersaulted from outsized distrust and suspicion from lusty support for just a section of the political leadership for unmerited favour.

What’s best is that the press editorials as agenda setting ought always to be written in such a way to inoculate the mentality of the politicians, winners as well as losers, with the philosophy of clean, non-partisan leadership and politics, effective governance and stupendous development to reflect shared trust, shared integrity, shared discipline, shared accommodation, and shared magnanimity in defeat.

This will nip in the bud all tendencies towards frustrating the maturation of development politics, development governance and development public policies.

Complementing the press agenda setting, the elected political leaders of the next republic should always make reference to the nation’s constitution whenever there’s a procedural conflict to resolve.

Guided constantly by the constitutional provisions, confusion and chaos in the parliament or in the executive – legislative relationships would always be avoided. It is only when the legislature is put in order that moral delivery could be driven into development public policies for the betterment of the masses.

A people well developed and put on development path seek no liberty for there can be no greater liberty than development governance.

-Olusesi writes from Osogbo, Osun state capital.