It is thick in the air. We can all feel it. The election season is once again upon us, the time for brown-nosing and eerie cajoling. We have seen it all, and we will see it again. We have come once again into the period where the average innocent-looking and smooth-talking “candidate” will begin to fawn over his prey. This is also the period where the average ignorant student falls heads over heels for a particular candidate and becomes deaf to every song of logic and reasoning.
Strangely enough, this scene, as stated earlier, is extremely familiar. It is connate with the popular Nollywood trope in which the boy chases after the girl and does everything he can in order to cajole her, even if it means buying random gifts, showing up to her house randomly and escorting her everywhere. Only this time, the boy is the ambitious student politician, and the girl is, well, the girl is the average electorate in UI.
In democratic contexts all over the world, governance is about the people. It is not just for the sake of having a good rhyme that Abraham Lincoln called democracy a government of the people, for the people and by the people. It is an expression that equally represents how prominent the citizens are in how their government is run. The citizens choose their leaders, are privy to how the decisions are made and also get to reject whichever administration or administrative decision they detest.
Election periods are one of those periods where political participation is especially popular, even in apathetic contexts. They are the periods when the politicians remember that the people actually matter. And so, they come bearing promises of a beautiful land yonder and beg their constituents to bestow on them the responsibility of steering their community, state or country towards this glorious utopia. As a matter of fact, we don't even have to use phantasmal instances; Nigeria's political history and current affairs bear strong witness to this fact. But we digress.
The fact remains that the prospective political candidate gets the random vote of the electorate based on the quality and attractiveness of his plans to the people. He wins them over with what he intends to do, his plan of action—a manifesto. As the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it, it is a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer. It indicates what the candidate intends to do and what the electorate should expect from him/her.
Unfortunately, this is real life; their beautifully unrealistic plans don't pan out. So after failing to do what they promised, they sigh, wring their hands and claim they did their best. The UISU example is there for all to see. During elections, these student politicians invest so much effort in sharing their manifestos to convince everyone that they are legit. While there is the problem of “Man proposes, God disposes,” this is also a problem of “Man proposes, God is amused.”
The problem starts with their weak and vaguely written manifestos. There are instances where some plans presented during press nights and manifesto nights bear evidence of being hastily scribbled as a way of satisfying custom rather than actual convictions in these plans to bring real development to our union.
There are other instances in which the plans are clearly AI-written. Manifestos in UI have been entered into the AI checker and returned with a match above 70%. And this begs the question: if the candidates are too lazy to sit down to draft out a comprehensive plan for the offices they are contesting for, how will they perform well in that office? If indeed leadership demands in-depth and critical thinking, is the future of our student union safe?
But the nightmare is not over. While some clearly do not put effort into writing their manifestos, others put great effort into overselling themselves and their plans. Most times, it is as though these candidates think of what would sell well among UI students and then proceed to include those in their manifestos. Instead of thinking of the appropriate solutions to the problems around, they find a way to build their brand around solving these problems.
So rather than actually solving issues, they make a show of seeming to solve those issues. These are the manifestoes that are not grounded in reality. Moreover, the part of due diligence in plan execution cannot be overstated. It is one thing to promise; it is another thing to walk the talk. Even in instances where the plans are clearly feasible, the laziness on the part of these student politicians is what ends up killing these beautiful ideas.
Let's say a candidate plans to distribute 100 oranges to his constituents; that candidate could eventually end up distributing just 12, claiming that oranges are out of season. A candidate who ran for financial secretary will all of a sudden become too busy to perform his constitutionally mandated duties due to “academic workload” or “unforeseen circumstances”. This is a conundrum that further speaks to the lack of foresight on the part of most of these student leaders. They fail to plan and anticipate, and as the saying goes, he who fails to plan, plans to fail.But then, we must not forget the populace who have enabled this trend.
In the context of Nigeria as a whole, it is very obvious. In UI specifically, it is even more obvious. Due to factors like partisanship (in our case, fellowship membership or hall of residence allegiances), sentiment, fear or just pure laziness, as a society, we have completely foregone the important factors for our own development. We do not even demand better from our representatives; we ask meekly. Instead of carefully scrutinising their plans, most of us vote based on our own personal beliefs and the kind of “vibe” that the candidate has. There are some who even vote for whoever is more good-looking.
Had it been the system of democracy we are practising, which provides specific clauses for political officeholders to lose their seats if they don't hit certain targets in their plans at a predetermined time, things would have been much different. But what we have is just there. The SRC and the various legislative councils we have on campus do not do much in getting excos to deliver their promises. Alas, even the UISRC has become an organ that the UI'SU excos can choose to obey or ignore at whim.
And having realised the kind of people that elected them into office and the kind of people meant to keep them in check, these student executives grow impetuous. They feel relaxed and do as they please. In the end, this has birthed a system, a structure that allows the bare minimum, a system in which mediocrity thrives.
Be that as it may, we all have to recognise the need for real vision in leadership. We need to start quizzing the people seeking political offices on their plans, ensuring that they are kept on their toes even after elections. After all, a candidate can only deliver in line with what he actually promised. This is the only way real progress can come.
