By Bisi Lawrence
We have been put through a harrowing period of political moves and countermoves featuring the defection of hordes of members of one party to another; fiery and undignified statements from several directions; political declaration of peaceful campaigns upon every lip amidst fearsome encounters whilst the security officers repeat what sums up to be little more than mere riot acts.

All of this against a declining economy and distressing level of unemployment. Our educational structures are in a state of disrepair while our health delivery standards are hardly up to scratch.

The citizens are mostly confused. Declarations of progress are pronounced and promoted glibly on the strength statistics. And we are offered no test of certainty, or even reliability. And, as you know, “there are lies, damnable lies, and statistics”.As we are, we can only accept what is real, since there is so little in sight to rely on. Let us take it from the state of our economy.

When Dr.NgoziOkonjo-Iweala was being interviewed on her return as the Minister of Finance, one clear statement she made about the budget at that time was how deplorable it was that we were planning to spend more on recurrent commitments than on our capital projects. She was visibly disgusted at such an evidence of such a lop-sided thinking in a developing economy.

The promise transmitted in that reaction was that that manner of poor prioritization would quickly be turned around when she was in charge.Well, she has been in charge now for how long? Not just for the direction of our finance, but for the co-ordination of all our assets; and what has happened to our recurrent expenditure in relation to its position vis-à-vis our capital expenditure?

Turn to any of our ministries—any at all. Agriculture makes me laugh. The outstanding achievement is touted to be Cassava Bread. We can now bake bread with cassava flour. I wish I could say, “Amen” to that.

But I personally “don’t give a damn”, if you know what I mean; I still would rather eat bread as it has always been baked. There are other legitimate uses for cassava, like Gari, for instance, and a variety of elubo without any extraneous employment in competition with bread. But then, it is said that it would lower our expenditure on foreign goods since we seemed to be spending too much on foreign goods.

On the face of it, that should not worry us much since we have the best economy in Africa as deduced from our rebased GDP. But we have heard so much about how our economy has improved in the last five years, subsidy or no subsidy.

In spite of the massive theft, recorded and unknown; in spite of the fact that the naira dive-nosed in the past five weeks to an unprecedented low; and even now that the deferment of the election has led to appreciable withdrawal of foreign capital, ‘all we hear is that all is still well.

And there are statistics to support the aversion.

It would in fact, appear that government is not quite able to meet its bills. Industrial action, or threats of the same, keeps popping up in the usual, as well as in the most unusual quarters. The most disheartening news here is the number of industrial promises and agreement on which government has reneged in the past three years.

Our Colleges of Technology, which should have become degree-awarding institutions by now, are being frustrated into a coma.But our pride in creating 12 brand universities, new universities is irrepressible.Now, even the elements of our police force have expressed their leanings towardsa showdown over withheld emoluments. Now will all still be well when elections are being conducted with a sparse measure of security?

All is not well, let‘s face it, and the delay in the holding of the elections will not improve the situation. We have to admit that much. Institutions are being weakened or allowed to break down.

Too many aspects of our lives are being mutilated. And so, in the best traditions of an orderly democratic dispensation, a group of the citizens are calling for change in opposition to the powers that be. The entire populace is thereby involved in a contest for the establishment of their desire, one way or the other.

That is what election seeks to resolve – the desire, the will, of the people expressed freely without duress.
However, we have, to put it mildly;we have not conducted ourselves properly. Take the case of withdrawing one’s membership from one party to another for instance.

The process used to be a welcome expression of a change of mind and an indication of honourable intent. Not any more. It is no longer a simple matter of crossing the carpet an atrocious exercise of criss-crossing it. A good example is Femi Fani-Kayode, who has demeaned his reputation by being a spokesman for the two main parties at different times at which he shamelessly vilified the party he was not currently serving. The case of Ayo Fayose is even worse.

He publicised what was just short of a death-wish for the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress in a callous manner that no political opposition ethics can contain. As for the loud-mouthed prince, a medical practitioner who has abandoned the decent polish of his upbringing to become a lackey in the corridors of political power, he was even recently booed of stage at a press conference for his unwelcome remarks about the presidential candidate of an opposition party.

This campaign was said to have started with the signing of a peace accord by all the principal actors. The accord is indeed now in pieces. One of the signatories, having been hounded at all fronts at home and even abroad, was reported to threaten to withdraw from the agreement. But what would that solve? What has the accord served to establish any peace?

The responsibility for ensuring peace in the community belongs to the police. They have proceeded to organize the signing of a pledge to keep the peace by top politicians from state to state. It was done almost against the backdrop of the series of mayhem in going on in several parts of the country. And what have the Police done about it?

What have they done about the policeman, one of their own, who was cut down recently in Port Harcourt? It was in that horrible riot that the highly professional journalist, Charles Arukaa of the Channels Television suffered head and neck wounds by one of hooligans. And, of course, investigations are on-going.