A civil society group, under the auspices of the Centre for Transparency Advocacy (CTA) has said it is high time political aspirants start signing undertaking on what they intend to deliver to the electorates, once they clinch power.
Executive Director of the group, Faith Nwadishi made the observation on Thursday, against the backdrop of the campaign season approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC for the 2023 general elections.
She said the era when politicians make mouth-watering promises and fail to deliver after each electoral cycle should prompt more reforms in the electoral processes, such that citizens can also sue them in court as a means of benchmarking them against their promises.
While commenting on the 2023 electioneering campaigns and expectations from Nigerians, the CTA Boss said, rather than politicians promising what they cannot deliver, the electorates and direct beneficiaries of government policies should be the ones setting agenda for the political class, to hold them accountable if they fail to meet their words.
She said on issues of insecurity, for instance, the political parties and their candidates should tell Nigerians in realistic terms how they intend to end insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and other criminalities. Citizens are eager to know the solutions that political parties are proffering to the lingering security challenges.
On the energy crisis, CTA said political parties should consider and in fact include discussions on fuel subsidy and domestic consumption of fuel in their campaigns.
According to her, political parties and their candidates should tell Nigerians how they will cushion the effect of high energy costs, whether fuel subsidies will stay or go and how they will provide renewable energy options since that is where the world is going now.
Reacting to the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) she said political parties and their candidates should make it a point to tell Nigerians how they will mitigate the protracted strikes in the education system and other rots bedevilling the Nigerian education sector from the Primary, post-primary and tertiary levels.
She alleged that foreign educational institutions are cashing out on the rot of our system, encouraging Nigerian youths to seek alternative education in foreign lands. What is the way out?
On fiscal responsibility and taming corruption, she said political parties and candidates need to tell Nigerians in their campaigns how they will strengthen the fiscal policies to encourage growth and productivity, amidst dwindling resources arising from oil theft, non-remittances of revenue to the government-by-government agencies.
According to her, the dwindling fiscal outlook has put the country in a financial quandary. The economic future of Nigeria is linked to fiscal responsibility. The fiscal choices we make today have implications for the future.
“CTA is expecting that campaigns and manifestoes would be tailored but not limited to the under-listed agenda. Issue-based campaign is essential for safe electioneering. In turn, this will create the atmosphere for the successful deployment and conduct of all electoral activities.
“As we move into the campaign period, we expect that the political atmosphere will be charged. It is imperative, therefore, that political parties make their campaigns issue based and convince Nigerians to vote for their candidates based on sound proposals of alternative solutions to the issues that are of utmost concern to Nigerians.
“Campaigns should be devoid of hate speech; abusive, intemperate, or slanderous language; insinuations or innuendoes likely to provoke violent reactions; physical attacks on supporters of one party by another or destruction of campaign materials.
“In addition, security authorities should guarantee adequate protection for the populace during this time and election period. All other stakeholders should be responsible for ensuring that elections are credible, free, and fair, “the CTA Executive Director noted at an interactive session with media practitioners in Abuja.
Group tasks politicians to campaign on solutions to energy, security, educational crisis
0 Comment to "Group tasks politicians to campaign on solutions to energy, security, educational crisis"
Post a Comment