One bothering question lies within what we claim to suffer from in this generation – economic recession. Are we possessed with economy recession or mental recession? You see decay in governance; you see maggots in the affairs of the nation. You are not able to perform some incorruptible rite because your co-thinkers have been infected with different thoughts.
In the past years, as students, we have heard that if you want to entice electorates and make vote for you, no matter how ugly you are, just throw your manifesto open and make it as big as possible, even if it’s not feasible. Let them know why some simple things would not work and let them understand your stand point of view. As poor as many are, mentally, they don’t find out about what is lacking, they don’t find out what is working. What most of them do is to approach people who have served in the executive capacities in the past and collect their manifestos, edit, and come to defend their deceit.
At Glascow Caledonian University, Hugh McLachlan made it explicit that political parties publish manifestos and make promises, but it is the parliament which passes legislation, not political parties. It is the governments that govern, not political parties – meaning that the government is a group of specifically elected individuals from a political party, not the broader party itself. The promises of political parties, Hugh said, are empty because they do not have the ability or the authority to pass the legislation or to promote the policies they promise. These are the roles of parliament and government. Politicians or anyone creating a manifesto or promises have already created a rod in his own spine. They create moral obligation as they move on and such obligation does not obliterate or override their prior and remaining moral obligation to act in the best interests of their constituents and the country as a whole.
Paul Marshall wrote on his blog that “to use a well-worn cliché, even more well-worn than the suit Michael Foot used to sport, you can trust a politician about as far as you can throw them”. At times, it is not the fault of politicians but the electorate. What they want their mind to eat up does not create an atmosphere of reality for some politicians. In a scenario that is different from the above, as a single individual contesting without a party of people, we have also not learnt the truth in the verbosity we create. Also, there are some institutions that won’t even work on the table of political lies – once you lied at your manifesto, it will show up after some weeks of your governance, haunt you down and everything begins to crumble. An institution built on host of lies, can only survive with more lies, but it won’t be effective to the public, but will only stand as liars mount the platform.
Electorates need to be educated on their power of choice and strength of avoiding bamboozle from sweet mouths or some Adolf minded people who swing through stories of the past to justify the present. Continuity in a real sense must be maintained and through, one would be able to know if a particular contestant really knows his reasons for coming, what major issue he wants to address and what he feels was lacking in the present administration that delayed them from achieving a stand. If a contestant comes in the power of changing activities that are working completely, with his own majestic agenda, no matter how excellent they are, he would rather make it work halfway but he would have killed the last working processes.
The first way to deal with corruption is to avoid politicians with ambiguity in their speech. Another way is to weigh the level of ambiguity with the somewhat fidgety manifesto that seems humble but is just like a wolf in sheep clothing. One of the new styles of the Nigerian political parties is the use of people who appear incorruptible just to maintain power. This was through the voice of the masses, when they agreed never to allow corrupt politicians in government. The corrupt ones become the godfathers and they push the innocent ones to the line, but they are in control. They create political lies, project achievement that are not even in diaspora, create propaganda that can send one to the hade. If these sets of humans can be thrown behind bar, corruption would only be limited a decimal not in tense percentage.
Recently, Okonjo Ewe-ala, said “Institutions matter in both developed and developing countries to fight corruption, and the minute a society turns attention away from safeguarding its institutions and values, it is shooting itself in the foot. So, what I found is that in my country, we had weak, very weak institutions to non-existent institutions”. She later added that “while institutions might not solve all the problems, they reduce the likelihood of corruption. An independent judiciary and strong civil societies are other ways to fight corruption”.
