Campaign promises

Every four years, Nigeria’s enters another election season when politicians visit places they’ll never set foot in again to whisper sweet nothings into voters’ ears.

For the 2023 elections, nothing has changed. Politicians are again making promises they’ll probably forget or find difficult to fulfil if they get what they want.

Let’s take a look at some of them so far.

Fuel will become ₦100 per litre

On January 25, 2023, during a live appearance on Channels Television, Dan Nwanyanwu, presidential candidate of the Zenith Labour Party, promised to revitalise our refineries in 3-4 months.

Source: blueprint.ng

Also, he would build modern refineries in all six geo-political zones. Thus, by the end of his first six months, fuel would be sold for ₦100 per litre, saving us from the problem of independent marketers.

One thing the current administration has taught us is if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably never going to happen.

Relocation to the Sambisa forest

Everyone wants a leader who’d lead them fearlessly into battle. Hamza Al-Mustapha, presidential candidate of the Action Alliance (AA), plans to be just that.

Source: Vanguard

During an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa, he said that if elected president, he’d end our insecurity and terrorism crisis within six months. But that’s not all; he plans to spend his weekends and holidays in the Sambisa forest, where notorious extremist groups like ISWAP and Boko Haram are often camped.

Creation of 30 million jobs

One of the things Adebayo Adewale, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has on his agenda is the creation of 30 million jobs.

Source: Vanguard

He plans to achieve this using cryptocurrency. It sounds promising, but Nigerians have seen this film before, and we didn’t like the ending.

In 2015, President Buhari promised to create 3 million jobs annually, but gave us a 33% unemployment rate instead.

No more generators or foreign education

Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dumebi Kachikwu, has castles in the air, too.

Source: Leadership.ng

While explaining his manifesto, he said if elected, he’d draft a Nigerian Patriot Bill that’d ban public officers from giving their children foreign education.

He also plans to restrict their access to private and foreign hospitals, generators and boreholes for as long as the ordinary people can’t afford these amenities.

In theory, most of these campaign promises sound like good plans and a step towards making our lives easier. However, why do we hear nothing from these politicians after elections, and their campaign promises end up looking like lies?

No punishment for failed promises

Sadly, there is no provision in the law that holds politicians accountable for their campaign promises. As such, fulfilling it or not is entirely up to their hardly reliable goodwill.

Lack of funding

While some elected officials have plans to fulfil what was promised, they soon realise Nigeria –and by extension, states– are only rich on paper. For instance, a report last year showed that Abia state hadn’t paid some of its workers for 22 months. In such situations, the elected government would have to solve the existing problems before fulfilling his campaign promises.

Need for restructuring

Early December 2022, President Buhari, while addressing members of the Senior Executive Course (SEC), accused state governors of being responsible for the poverty level as they were looting local government allocations. According to the president, the local government chairmen would pocket half of what was allocated and thus fail to embark on necessary projects.

An evil we’ve been dealing with for a long time is corruption, and it, unfortunately, begins at the grassroots level. If we’re to experience any real change, the entire system would need to be cleaned and restructured.

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Tolu Omotesho

January 31, 2023

Citizen

Campaign promises, elections, failed promises, Politicians, voting
President Buhari went into Aso Rock Villa in 2015 with a promise to change everything bad about the country. Nigerians, at this point, were tired of the rising level of insecurity, corruption and the dwindling state of the economy. Also, the combination of an ex-military general with a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) seemed like the perfect answer to tackle all our problems.

However, it’s been seven and a half years, and the headaches we suffered before have become migraines under the current administration.

With only six months left for Buhari to leave Aso Rock Villa, many Nigerians are starting to wonder if they got what they ordered.

Unemployment

Unemployment was one of Nigeria’s biggest problems in 2015, and Buhari promised to tackle it by creating three million jobs every year. When he became president, the unemployment rate was 8.19%, but has now climbed to a record 33% under him. No wonder insecurity is getting worse and the people who can afford to japa are running out of the country.

Insecurity

This is one of the significant issues that hit the nail in the coffin of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) government. With the deadly attacks on public places becoming more frequent, Nigerians wanted nothing more than to kiss Jonathan goodbye. Buhari capitalised on this and promised to crush the preparators completely. But it’s been seven and a half years and the situation isn’t any better.

Instead, we’ve seen kidnappings become rampant, roads even more unsafe, and terrorists are forgiven and rewarded with gifts.

Economy

In Jonathan’s era, one dollar was equivalent to ₦196, and many of us, including Buhari, cried about the country’s economic state. Buhari promised to return the naira to its glory days, and Nigerians believed him. Unfortunately, the naira has been going in the opposite direction of its glory days and lost even more value under Buhari.

The president’s administration has also left millions of Nigerians poorer. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), over 133 million Nigerians currently live in poverty which is a sharp contrast to seven years ago when Nigeria was described as the largest and fastest growing economy in Africa. We were sold dreams of a revitalised economy, but the only thing we’ve gotten is debt and high inflation rates.

Corruption

President Buhari is the kind of man whose reputation precedes him, and for those of us who weren’t born in the military era, we heard many tales of his fight against corruption. But have you seen the level of corruption by public officials under his administration?

One would expect these officials would at least face severe penalties when caught but, more often than not, their crimes are swept under the rug and forgotten. So maybe Buhari’s hate for corruption was nothing but an old wives’ tale?

Medical tourism

Before he won, Buhari promised to upgrade the health sector to stop Nigerian leaders from taking wasteful medical trips abroad. However, since he came into power, he’s become a tourist, flying overseas to treat cases such as ear infections despite having over 200 Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialists in Nigeria.

Clearly, despite his promises, President Buhari found it challenging to fulfil many campaign promises. Perhaps, he got there and realised the job was harder than he thought it would be, or maybe he just wasn’t the guy for the job.

Tolu Omotesho

December 6, 2022

Citizen

Buhari, Campaign, Campaign 2019, Campaign promises, Nigerians