***Nigerians Demand For A more Dignified Discourse
***Personality Attacks As Weapons

By: Politics Editor

Ahead of the official flag off of campaigns for the 2923 elections, Nigerians have expressed desires for a more dignified discourse, away from the rancorous exchanges.

Cross section of Nigerians who spoke to National TRAIL expressed desires for a shift from media outings to real a be d direct engagements, where candidates could be assessed directly by the electorates.

Whether direct engagements will be possible or not, and whether Nigerians will still have to judge based on media outings, certain issues will shape and reshape the campaigns: some new, and others old and already envisaged.

Character, competence and service may be the defining attributes expected of leaders, which should be anchored on specific agenda or programmes.

Besides their programmes or manifestos, the pedigrees of people in contest for positions are often cited as their selling points, while their foibles are used as minuses for them.

For the Presidential contest in particular, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar tagged his manifesto as a covenant, Peter Obi calls his own blue print, Bola Ahmed Tinubu comprised his own as an agenda and many others use other coinage , but no matter the semantics, they are all the compendiums of promises, plans and strategies.
In the build up to the full fledged campaigns, key players in Nigeria’s leading political parties promise to anchor their campaigns on issues, as reflected in their manifestos, which may not be totally divorced from the personality profiles of their candidates.
Much as this is the case, key players and anchors of the campaigns, seem to be attacking personalities, especially Presidential standard bearers and their running mates, while ignoring the substances of their campaign documents.
Our correspondents who have been monitoring the political discourse report that, ahead of the formal launch of their campaigns, parties have resorted to recycling issues that have either been debated or rested, even as they make desparaging remarks about each other.
Some pick holes in the credentials and characters of the flag bearers, as others dig into perceived past misdeeds, none of which have been tested by the strength of the kaw.
They often try to demarket each other, using events outside their planned stratgies of delivering the dividends if democracy.
For example, while the controversy over the origin, academic records, health and sources of wealth of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, standard bearer of the APC, have refused to go away, the performances of Atiku Abubakar: his alleged roles in bringing about the economic woes of this country have continued to hang over him, like the sword of domacles.
Pater Obi: standard bearer of the Labour Party, LP has been battling to stave off ethno-religious stigma, as well as clear doubts about his academic and work credentials, while Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, has been subsumed in a battle trying to come out clean of accusations of being a surrogate and as a regional and ethnic champion, amongst sundry corrupt allegations, when he served as Governor and as Minister of Defence.
The bickerings over the Muslim/Muslim ticket of the APC has assumed a life of its own as a narrative sustained on the front burner of debates portraying it as an anathema.
In it, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima are being portrayed first as mere agents of Islamization, much more than as Nigerians with the right to seek political offices.
While some allege that Kashim Shettima was complicit in the inglorious abduction of the Chibok school girls, some eight years back, the party’s standard bearer, is being often described as a renegade Muslim and “placeholder”, besides promoting his health condition into a national debate.
Every time Senator Tinubu appears in the public, the opposition make Nigerians to look out for signs of frailty in a dying man, who may not withstand the rigours of the forth coming campaigns nor demanding exigencies of the office of President.
The alleged exclusion from its campaign council of key stakeholders, including the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha with the perceived feelings that because they are Christians could deepen the issues of religious agenda against the APC. In the same vein, the reported disquiet over the exclusion of it’s Governor’s in the formation of the campaign council, and the attendant dissociations from the party by key stakeholders could be used against it.
Even more serious is the performance of the Buhari administration, in the face of lofty promises made during the campaigns that first brought her into office, coupled with the mere presence of President Buhari on the campaign Council list as Chairman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, is already being exploited by the opposition.
In addition to these issues, which may form the opposition’s criticisms of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, there is an emergent narrative, that the Presidential Standard bearer had some questions to answer over his alleged involvement with drug related trials in the United States, and that he has a split personality: operating under different identities.
On the other hand, Nigerians are often made to see in Atiku Abubakar, an habitual absentee leader, who junkets between the country and his perceived overseas abode.
They paint the picture of a thoroughly corrupt individual, who aided the squandering of the country’s commonwealth, as the supervisor of the privatization programme and part of the National Economic team.
Often times they peep into Atiku’s private relationships and try to moralize his behaviors in his attitude towards the opposite sex.
Opposition elements have been commenting on the former Vice President’s seeming inconsistency as member of a particular political party: moving from the PDP into ACN, back to PDP into the APC and now back into the PDP. To some this is a pointer to his lack if specific ideological leaning and commitment to a specific cause.
Already the APC has accused Atiku of poaching from its manifesto to form his covenant document, while the friction between him and some principal stakeholders if the PDP: led by Nyeson Wike has provided a strong tool if criticism and attempted demarketing as a non- team player.
Like Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku was alleged to have been wanted in the United States to answer to some charges. Although that may have been tested with his frequent visits to the U S, since the allegations emerged, some opposition elements have dug up what they called fresh facts about Atiku’s alleged financial infractions in the US.
While seemingly agreeing with Peter Obi of the Labour Party as an incorruptible leader, who was already an established businessman before he became Governor, people opposed to his emergence accused Obi of being a tribal jingoists and religious irredentist: with a lot of sympathy to the outlawed group, IPOB.
While alleging that he shows a lot if sympathy to the Biafran cause, a more ve that easily discomforts Northerners in particular, Peter Obis frequent visits to Churches and Christian clerics further deepen the distrust that he may have potentials religious bias against Muslims.
Several comments from core northerners have stirred up religious solidarity to Obi, with the potentials of Polaris g the polity along religious lines.
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Presidential standard bearer of the NNPP has been driving the ethno-religious narrative against Obi, not minding his own classification as a worst tribal and religious extremists.
Kwankwaso, who took the political space by the storm when he jumped ship from the PDP to the APC, later back to the PDP only to resign and join the NNPP as it’s leader and Presidential standard bearer, is being seen as a surrogate
Although with a lot if followership in Kano and Jigawa, he does not have the National appeal that will ensure his victory, which many see as the reason he double speaks.
His surrogate profiling started with the eulogies he poured in the standard bearer of the APC, Bola Tinubu and later that if the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, even as a candidate himself.
He has since been said to be trying to forge an alliance with either Tinubu it Atiku, which may give him a stake in the next Government.
Since his refusal to align with Peter Obi as the running mate, Kwankwaso is regarded by the South as pushing the Northern agenda, if perpetuating leadership in the North.