NEXTIER, a public sector advisory firm, has called on politicians and front runners of various political parties to dwell more on issue-based campaign rather than engage in campaign of calumny.
Patrick Okigbo III, the principal partner of NEXTIER, during an interactive session at an event, ‘2015 Elections: D-day and the Morning After’, challenged politicians on the need to employ more intellectualism in their policy document rather than place premium on smear campaign.
“There is need for the politicians to bring in a bit of intellectualism in their policy. This is very important to enable the people understand what the government is bringing to the table for them and how to positively engage then,” he said.
“We are aware of the security concerns and we want to know what the government is doing, pre-elections and post-elections. If there are some ideas we could contribute to what the government is thinking of, within the remaining time for the elections, to ensure we don’t have a repeat of what we had at the 2011 polls, we would gladly want them to talk to Nigerians,” he further said.
According to him, “Unfortunately, none of the political parties is running issue-based campaign. It is hard for you to pick out what either of the front-runners stands for. Instead, they have taken us back to a very slippery part of hate mongering, pulling down their opponents, wherein their followers are building up the tendency not to accept the election which can then spill into violence.“What we are telling these political parties is begin to talk to your people. Begin to temper down the rhetoric, and understand that in this election, one person would win. Whoever that person is, we must accept the fact that whoever has won, we must accept it and move on.”
In a similar vein, the group wants the Nigeria Police to give an update to Nigerians on the level of their preparedness on the logistics to be utilised at the forth-coming polls, to confront headlong any eventuality.
The Public Sector Advisory group is raising the concerns against the backdrop that the Nigerian Police Force as a major stakeholder at the polls has not been updating Nigerians on their level of preparedness, as they noted that INEC has been updating Nigerians more than any other agency that will play a huge role at the elections.
Innocent Chukwuma, West Africa representative of Ford Foundation, who spoke at the forum, urged the police to inform the public on the stage of preparedness regarding the logistics for the elections. Chukwuma said: “INEC has been very committed with regard to updating the people on what they needed to do, and what their stands are on issues. But we don’t seem to hear from the police, does it mean all preparedness regarding logistics has been sorted out?
“Just like INEC has done, we want the police to also update us on what they are doing so that the public would also be abreast with vital information on what is expected of them, at the polling centre.”
