The rash of endorsements floating across the country urging President Bola Tinubu to run for a yet-to-be-ordered 2027 presidential election is coming at an inauspicious time when the President is yet to complete two years of his first term. These have been interspaced with public outbursts of politicians, even in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), seeking attention and to campaign for or against the president discreetly. These are nothing but unacceptable distractions that do the average citizen no good.

It is the same way governors who have yet to register an appreciable impact on states are being serenaded by a rented crowd, who urge them to run in 2027, regardless.

Granted that politicians are always scheming for positions, elective or otherwise, the unfolding facts are disrespectful to democratic ethos and commonsense. In particular, they portray the politicians concerned as uncaring about the people and only after what they can get for themselves. Everything has its time. This is when all hands should be on deck to proffer solutions to the myriads of problems, particularly socio-economic, plaguing the country. Sadly, politicians are behaving as if everything in the country is normal, when in fact the country is reeling from threats of insecurity and a fluctuating economy.

Periodic elections enable voters to demand accountability from their representatives in government. The power to vote belongs to the people and it is not to be traded away. A time will come when those elected into office in 2023 will show evidence of work done. It will be time to reward performance and punish indolence. Many of our politicians are indolent but the time to reward them has not come.

Politicians and political parties should be mindful of how they misapply the time allotted to formulating policies and delivering dividends of democracy to the people. Calls relating to 2027 are premature and are not justified by evidence on the ground. These are the activities of jobbers who do not mean well for the polity but are out to distract the government. What the country faces now is a serious governance deficit; that is supposed to be the major concern of politicians. Therefore, elected officials should stay focused and avoid these cheap antics. They should also not engineer silly endorsements or self-serving opposition.

It is a shame that in Nigeria?s 21st-century politics, cabinet members and top party leaders have failed to elevate political discourse to levels that provoke accelerated development. Their major concern is how to ?win? elections and not on account of the quality leadership they deliver. That is crass opportunism. They seem very happy with mediocre performance and cannot articulate the needs of the majority. Their method of political messaging is by sheer demagoguery; appealing to prejudices of north/south dichotomy, and ethnic and religious biases, rather than focusing on building a resilient economy, united country and industrious citizens.

In their banters, rational thinking has taken flight. They do not use empirical data to drive home arguments about how well they have governed. Politicians shamelessly proclaim: ?No vacancy in Aso Rock till 3031?, as if that is the solution to bad governance. They are more concerned about the number of years they stay in office, instead of how quickly they take the people out of poverty.

It is an embarrassment that our politicians are yet to attain levels of critical thinking to enable them to appreciate the decline in democratic values and the high incidence of huge misery in the land. They do not task their consciences but glibly proclaim prospects of 2027 without first earning citizens? trust. Elections are a referendum on elected governments and to gain trust, political leaders must cater to the needs of citizens.

unfortunately, many politicians do not believe in free and fair elections. They manipulate the electoral system to satisfy their whims, endangering the democratic system. Politicians should take heed so that they do not compound the misery of Nigerians. It is bad enough that when they are in power, they carefully sidestep the core concerns of the electorate, in pursuit of their selfish agenda everybody. And when they fail, they turn around to concoct excuses and blame their more fortunate colleagues.

The Year 2024 was traumatic for Nigerians. Citizens grappled with pangs of hunger arising from government?s atrocious policies, even if these were necessitated by aggregate failure of government in the preceding years Cost of living shot through the roof, no thanks to inadequate government measures at cushioning the effects. All through the period, government officials indulged in a prodigal lifestyle that had no consideration for poverty in the land.

Transportation and energy costs have negatively impacted incomes, making citizens poorer and hungry. Nigerians were forced to embark on hunger protests after measures purported to cushion high costs became feeble and absent in many locations. These are what should engage the country?s politicians; how to get the country out of misery before 2027 arrives.

In 25 years under democracy, Nigeria is reported to have earned over $1 trillion in foreign exchange, much of it coming from crude oil exports. Yet there are no quality roads to show for the huge revenues. Our tertiary institutions are groping in the dark because of a lack of electricity. They cannot pay commercial rates to privatised electricity companies. The number of out-of-school children is alarming. Farmers cannot go to tender their farms, or else they are killed by land-grabbing cattle herders and bandits who often get away with only a slap on their wrists.

Nigeria has wasted more time on frivolities than on real governance. Barely two years into the present government?s tenure, the buzzword is 2027. Elected governments have barely one year to invest in quality service post-inauguration. The rest years are wasted on campaigns and long-winding, costly elections that are settled in courts, rather than in the polls. There are no jobs for thousands of school leavers. Citizens are no longer safe out there. These days, bandits knock down doors to pick victims for ransom. Yet, all we hear is 2027.Politicians should be conscious that this democracy is endangered. The only way to rescue it is for them to focus on good governance. (The Guardian Editorial)

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