Basil Okoh
“Empowerment”. Whoever introduced that word to Nigeria’s political lexicon must have a wry sense of humor. Money and materials given out by politicians in fulfilment of empowerment promises and commitments, end up impoverishing the very people they are meant to help, keeping them perpetually in servitude and depending on the same people for other empowerment programmes.
APC has no ideas to campaign with, no accomplishments, no dreams for a brighter future, no virtues and no prospects of hope for the future, so they are left with throwing money at voters in the name of empowerment. The monies thrown at voters become libations to ward off the coming karmic revenge. It is imperative that APC must be told that any political party that does not envision hope for the future has no reason to seek the patronage of the people.
A better hope for the future is the compelling force for endearment of the people to political ideas and organizations. Briberies of money to buy votes are banal as money caters only for the basic needs of today’s existence. Visions of hope for the future are what commits the people to leaders and their ideas. In religion, politics and social commitments, ideas rule. APC does not enlist in the trade in ideas or hope for the future, so it must fizzle over time and die.
There’s nothing more devastating to a group than the loss of ideas to confront the future. APC has eaten up its yesterday and tomorrow in a crazed period of wanton indulgence. It has left nothing for the future, not wealth, not vision, not even self-belief. It is now left gyrating in drunken motion, in the name of political campaigns, unable to articulate its position on any values for the future. In the absence of any worthy ideas to hold on to, it throws money as confetti at voters, like groups of delinquent drunkards on a group prowl.
Empowerment should mean the creation of values in Peoples lives. When the Action Group and later the UPN made its four cardinal programmes and made education free, they were creating lasting values that still function nearly fifty years after to shape the life of a generation of people. Free education and health services still compel political thought and discourse in the Nigerian society today and into the future. What ideas is APC promoting that can impact on people’s lives and compel discussions ten years from today? APC has reduced Nigerian politics to the antics of a hungry and thoughtless bull which just want to feed and gorge itself without a thought for tomorrow.
It is encouraging that the senatorial candidate of the NDC has committed to dissociating himself and the NDC from the insult to the voting public. “Empowerment as is practiced in Nigeria is an abuse and denigration of the public mind”, he said. Instead, Victor Ochei has promised mass enlightenment on the deleterious effects of this abuse on the public. To build hope and participation in public projects, he has committed to enlist the full participation of communities in the identification, planning and implementation of projects in communities, for his own empowerment projects.
APC is flaunting the theft and waste of public funds in the face of Ika South voters to win allegiance. In ward 4 and 6 and also wards 10, 11 and 12 in Ika South, Delta state, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, leading the charge, were brazenly throwing money at voters to overturn daunting political challenges to APC. A few weeks before that, thousands of APC members in their various pressure groups were defecting to NDC. The response from APC was to throw envelopes of N50,000 at the remaining voters who joined their gatherings in the wards. It was N50,000 to all comers except that on these occasions, APC people were careful to steal from their victims as large deaths of currency notes out of every N50,000 wrap was removed before handover to the recipients. So even as they pretended to be gifting the people, they were at the same time stealing from them. It was a public show of shame, with supervising policemen lobbing government firearms to guard the enactment of a charade.
Vote buying is not new in Nigeria but this was a public display enacted a clear three months before voting day. And then no matter how hard they tried, the money could not get to a most voters in the communities, even for the ones identified as party men and women. So APC is now forced to make enemies of their own members who could not have their share of the largesse. And then the monies in the envelopes were never complete. In some, as much as N20,000 were removed and then the local party leaders who nominated the beneficiaries also took their agreed sums. Most of the beneficiaries were people from other states like Kogi. So the recipients and non beneficiaries joined strength to rain curses and abuses on the payers as they left, instead of expressions of gratitude.
NDC and other political parties are united in their messaging to the people:
“Take the money and vote for a party that will serve your needs with a strong commitment to your future. The money is part of the loot stolen from you. Take the money and in three months time, vote for the party that wouldn’t steal from you”.
Throwing N50,000 at people is crass. With no commitments to your future, it is hopeless indulgence, eating your future today. It shows there are no thinking men in APC and so have no plans for the future. There are no people of class in APC. So forget the fancy titles and funky degrees they flaunt about, there are no people of class in APC.
The highly propagandized distribution of N50,000 to less than 100 households is what a senatorial candidate went to do in wards 4, 6, 10, 11 and 12 in Ika South. It was to distribute a sum far less than N5 million naira, not from his own campaign funds but from the Ika South Local government Treasury, not his own charity donation but from the same government he has binged and free-loaded on for over three decades. Heck, Ika South does not owe Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa a living.
@basilokoh
