Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
By Kene Obiezu, a contributor to USAfricaonline.com
With the Nigerian 2023 elections breathing down our necks, lifelong ambitions to govern Nigeria are springing to the fore as are some of the ambitions conceived only in the bowel of politics of these days. In any case, whether ambitions have been nursed for decades or only recently conceived, the extortionate cost of political party forms for interested persons has done little to dissuade many from Nigeria’s political landscape awash as it were with millions of dubious and allegedly stolen funds.
Where some persons have been reluctant to join the fray out of their personal convictions or the constriction of the offices they currently occupy, their enthusiastic supporters have been more than willing to pool the necessary funds and drag them into the race. This certainly appears the case for Mr. Godwin Emefiele, current Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Many months of swirling speculations were swiftly followed by his poster at highly-visible and strategic sections of Abuja and on the social media.
With the gates open for interested aspirants to move to the first stage of battle where the candidates of respective political parties will be determined through primary elections, it appears Mr. Emefiele has finally made his way into the ring. He has some proxy groups. Three groups which included the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria recently came together, contributed the sum of one hundred million naira and purchased the requisite forms for Mr. Emefiele the Central Bank Governor to contest for the presidency in 2019. The move has predictably whipped up a storm in the polity with many Nigerians struggling to see how he would manage to remain on his feet between the pull of partisan politics and the push of the fiscal policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
While Mr. Emefiele initially distanced himself from the 2023 elections,he has since rushed to court to contend with some sections of extant Nigerian laws and rules.
How much can be said for those who occupy public offices in Nigeria and for their ability to concentrate on their jobs through the storms of distraction that rock Nigeria from time to time, and there is usually a lot of it.
There has also been some confirmation from the All Progressives Congress that the Central Bank Governor has been a card-carrying member of the party since February 2021.
With these eye-popping revelations, the questions and with them the doubts, mount. In a country where many hunt with the hound and run with the hare, what is Mr. Emefiele`s game plan? If indeed he is determined to contest the 2023 general elections, as he appears to be, why has he not resigned to avoid the conflict of interest that is the scourge of public office in Nigeria?
Given the financial recklessness of the average Nigerian politician and inordinate sums of money that elections gulp in Nigeria,what protection does the Central Bank of Nigeria have in place to prevent dipping hands into public funds and making creative donations for projects which may ultimately go to finance a political ambition?
It also appears there are among Nigerians those whose merchandise is mischief. Because these people act only in their interest and nothing else, they contribute to the bad governance ravaging the country. They are as culpable as those who actually sit in the corridors of power and do nothing.
These people band together like business of ferrets and call themselves support groups. They contribute money to purchase the forms, do nothing to balk at the extortionate cost of the forms, thereby failing to highlight the inimical role money plays in the politics of the country.
Just before the 2015 general elections, similar support groups sprung upall over the country like noxious weeds. And while they had the most uncharitable words for the Mr. Goodluck Jonathan and his administration, they coddled Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, a retired army General, who was more than happy to play the victim on his way to Aso Rock Villa (the Presidency of Nigeria) in 2015.
Today, seven years later, the shocking poor performance by his APC-led administration has not stunned them into silence! These are the people who unleash the gale of distraction on Nigeria. They are those who distract a few of the well–meaning public officers in Nigeria. They have done nothing significant to hold those pulling down the country to account. Rather, their sycophants and boot-lickers continue to hail many public officers, sadly, for plundering Nigeria and complicating the many problems which plague the country. They are birds of identical plumage with those they support.
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