AHEAD of the  April 2011, general elections, political parties  last week, preoccupied themselves with elections and selections of candidates to represent them in the various positions that will be statutorily available for refilling under the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.

For the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan emerged from a keenly contested primaries, to clinch the ticket. The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) is fielding General Muhammadu Buhari while the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has settled for Malam Nuhu Ribadu. The Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP), nominated Prof. Pat Okedinachi Utomi as its flag bearer while the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, has decided on Ibrahim Shekarau.

This is the time to get serious. The process leading to the election and selection has been dominated by mundane issues such as ethnic power balancing, distractive litigations, and divisive ploy to mix politics with religious sentiments, especially by political actors that lacked the noble vision of pax Nigeriana.

As we go into the election proper, we demand that all those that have emerged from the various party primaries should submit themselves to public auditing by giving us their economic blue print to enable Nigerians and indeed the world to assess them.

We have in the past 12 years seen the National Economic and Empowerment Development Strategies (NEEDs) which came in the second term of General Olusegun Obasanjo. The Seven point agenda of late President Umar Musa Yar Adua hardly got off the floor. The objectives of both NEEDs and the Seven Point Agenda were to reduce poverty and drive development.

But the country has failed woefully to deal with basic development issues such as provision of infrastructure, electricity, food, security, education, employment and other life sustainers that are taken for granted in some African and developing countries.

We are in an integrated global economic structure where a country like Nigeria cannot claim to be insulated from the economic woes of other major economies of the world. The global economy has been going through slow recovery after the recession of 2009. It follows that the presidential candidates must provide us with their economic plans to deal with Macro, Meso and Micro economic matters. Nigeria relies solely on its export of oil and gas for 90% of its foreign revenue.

The global price of the commodity has continued to rise to the advantage of the country, ironically the more revenue it has made from oil, the more wasteful and profligate its leaders have become. The country’s external reserve which came close to $50billion in 2007 was mindlessly depleted to about $2billion by December 2010, the revenue earned in excess of the budget benchmark of $60 per barrel was drawn down by politicians and the citizens did not see the impact of the use of the funds in any meaningful development effort.

The country has not witnessed any growth or development as it lags behind in the United Nations Human Development Index and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The incidence of poverty and underdevelopment has become a major threat to national security.

It is therefore clear that those who aspire to lead the country must present us their economic agenda. There are basic issues affecting domestic and global economies that must be addressed if Nigeria is to remain relevant in the comity of nations. It is sheer political naivety for those who aspire to lead Nigeria to still dwell on presumptions on how to solve the nation’s intractable problems namely roads, electricity, water, jobs, health, education in a 21st century Nigeria. This is the time to get serious.