Leadership (Abuja)
Yusuf Isa Dutsinma
24 July 2008
analysis
Kaduna — It has become a common practice among political office holders to sponsor costly media adverts in order to bamboozle the people with their so-called achievements.
The fact is that, most of these adverts are propaganda in disguise because the claims of achievements are most often exaggerated to fool the people. It is just like a struggling bank telling you it has 20 million branches throughout Nigeria! Every state governor and local government chairman now resorts to newspaper and magazine advertorial to claim credit for achievements they never had.
The 2002 national media tour in which some state governors showcased their achievements was widely criticised because it lacked the basic standard of objectivity. How can journalists who are accommodated by state governors and given heavy cash every night, independently assess the achievements of their hosts? It is a case of the bigger the cash envelope, the more favourable the assessments.
It is, therefore, insulting to the collective intelligence of Nigerians for any governor to use advertorials to influence the judgement of those they govern. Some of these governors claim to achieve in one year, what they could not have achieved in their entire two terms. The exaggerated claims contained in these costly advertorials hardly reflect the reality on ground. Don't we have cases of projects commissioned with so much razzmatazz, but which pack up the following day? Many governors were known to have deceived former President Obasanjo with fake records of achievements. Buildings are hastily painted on the eve of a presidential visit but presented as new projects executed by the "dynamic" state governor who invited the president to celebrate his "achievements".
Some roads are sand-filled and covered with laterite and presented as new projects. In fact, in some cases, surface tanks are filled with water to fool a visiting dignitary. When a visiting president turns on the water tap, he is greeted with a gush of clean looking water, not realising that the water was stored in the tank a night before. Therefore, advertorials have lost credibility as the standard for gauging the genuine achievements of chairmen and state governors. It is indefensible using public funds to fool the people about achievements that were never actually recorded.
How long can Nigerians tolerate this culture of duplicity by their so-called leaders? Are the people not in a better position to assess their own leaders because government policies directly affect them? One is therefore, proposing a more independent system of holding our governors, mMinisters and chairmen accountable.
Independent public opinion experts should organise live television and radio programmes in which political office holders can be invited to give account of their performance. Since the questions are going to come directly from those they govern, the chances of manipulating public opinion in favour of non-performing political office holders may be substantially reduced. However, in order to make the live radio and television programmes more credible, organisers of the such programmes should not accept donations from leaders invited to feature on the programmes focusing on their stewardship. The show should be independently funded by pro-democracy organisations and embassies, where necessary.
The best way to hold politicians accountable is to let the people ask them questions on issues affecting their lives. Such programmes will expose the weaknesses and strengths of political office holders. How can you let leaders assess themselves on their own terms? Just as public debates by political aspirants in the U.S. helps the voters to evaluate the abilities of politicians, Nigerians should also be encouraged to asses their own leaders through direct and live phone-in radio and television programmes.
In fact, such programme can go a long way to expose many square pegs in round holes that occupy political offices in the country. Governors, the president, ministers and chairmen of local governments should be invited to such live radio and television programmes to defend their achievements. Nigerians know for a fact that some political office holders lack the capacity to cope with the demands of the offices they occupy. Our democracy can only grow better if the people are empowered to present questions to their leaders directly. We should therefore, take success or achievements beyond the razzmatazz of advertorials.
Yusuf Isa Dutsinma writes from Isa Kaita Road, Kaduna.
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