As we usher out the yuletide season we, find ourself back into another season. This time it’s the season of politics. From now till may we will be inundated with campaign rhetorics, political debates, fights and skirmishes, accusations and counter accusations, legal battles, rigging, voter and electoral frauds etc. Yes, that’s the season we find ourself in and it’s a reality we must learn to contend with. However, it may not be at the 2003 and 2007 levels if the recent wave of political attacks is anything to go by.
Presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar, on January 3rd, accused the Goodluck Jonathan Government of presenting a budget he called “budget of consumption for consumption”. Alluding that the government has simply presented a budget that contains a huge deficit, mostly made up of recurrent expenditure considered not capable of delivering on the Vision 20:20:20 of the PDP led government. The GEJ government through it’s Finance Minister responded strongly by saying ” this letter is a desperate attempt to mislead the electorate and Nigerian public through deliberate misinterpretation of the facts”. With that I can proudly say YES, this is an election about policy differences.
For years, in fact since the 1993 annulled election, we have not seen a proper election campaign hinged on policies differences, approach and ideology all geared towards leading Nigeria out of the doldrums. So rather than make so much noise about the politics of power rotation, ethnicity and back biting, Atiku has dumped all of that by attacking GEJ’s policies. For that he should be commended and let’s hope others follow suit.
The party has begun, and we should all be ready to be a part of it, for our sake, sake of our children and children’s children. On my next web log I am going to attempt to find out who is on point. For now, let’s party.
