How many political aspirants bought nomination forms themselves?

To start with, ours is shockingly more expensive and also more lucrative. Nigerian democrats are not just the highest paid in the world, some of them are not quite sure of their exact remuneration as it comes from different sources, including oversight extortions. Again, it is only in Nigeria that politicians are “reluctant” to hold […]

To start with, ours is shockingly more expensive and also more lucrative. Nigerian democrats are not just the highest paid in the world, some of them are not quite sure of their exact remuneration as it comes from different sources, including oversight extortions. Again, it is only in Nigeria that politicians are “reluctant” to hold office; they often purport to have been cajoled, begged, persuaded and sometimes coerced to accept to contest elections. Also, it is only in Nigeria that the poor and unemployed youths allegedly buy nomination forms for stupendously wealthy politicians. It is thus not uncharitable to credit these dimensions of democracy to Nigeria. But first we need to determine how many old school aspirants bought their own nomination forms for the 2015 general elections.
It is not easy to trace the origin of the trend whereby our people earnestly yearn to have a particular person to be our national leader. For the 1979 presidential elections, our first executive president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari was allegedly drafted to the race much against his wish. Almost 2 decades later, came the famous 2million–man-march in which some transformers tried to cajole General Sani Abacha to transit from military head of state to a civilian president. Indeed, all the 5 political parties established by Abacha resolved one after the other in 1998 that he shall become the presidential candidate of each of them.
Now, almost 2 decades after Abacha, some activists better known as the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) have worked assiduously for the better part of this year to get many people to demand that President Goodluck Jonathan should serve one more term. Their pressure was so intense that it added a new schedule of duty to the workload of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation; to travel across the nation to receive millions of signatures of TAN converts. But why are Nigerians always ‘yearning’ for reluctant candidates instead of those who are willing and ready to do a job?
To attribute the trend to the innumerable attractions of the Presidency appears simplistic considering that the practice of begging persons who spend a long time consulting stakeholders on whether or not to seek elective office has moved down the line to other levels. In Akwa Ibom, for instance, Governor Godswill Akpabio had no business using his personal funds to buy his nomination form. Instead it was bought for him by some youths in the state. Speaking while receiving the form from the youths, Governor Akpabio reportedly said “I have been under pressure by the people of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District to represent them as a senator in 2015. I want to say that I have accepted the call to serve my people”.  Earlier, another set of youths under the aegis of Benue Youth in Diaspora Association (BYDA) pledged to provide money to purchase the senatorial nomination form for the Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam. Their Secretary General, Mr. Terkaa Jam, confirmed to the media that the decision was taken at the end of a consultative meeting of the group in Abuja.
Interestingly, those persuading the aspirants do not appear to have either the same motivation or a similar reasoning across the board. Last week, youth leaders from Ado Local Government Area of Benue State besieged Senator David Mark’s home to put pressure on him to contest the Benue South Senatorial seat because he was best positioned in their own opinion to do the Idoma people proud on the basis of familiarity with the terrain.  His Deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu did not have such a smooth sail in his state-Enugu. While one group the Enugu Professional Forum was allegedly putting pressure on Governor Sullivan Chime to contest the same senatorial seat, a counter group – Enugu Concerned Professionals Worldwide, imagined that the current Deputy Senate President would attract a better position to the state than Chime who could be sidelined as a new comer to the Senate  
The frontline posture of pressure groups over and above the real contestants is no doubt worrisome because there are many adverse implications of people dragging “unwilling” horses to the political river. First, the pressures are not appropriately rationalized. To pressurize the return of a senator only because he is from one’s village is absurd. Why should anyone pressurize any current senator to return when he and his colleagues year in year out overlooked delayed budgets that were hardly implemented? Second, a man who is cajoled to take an office must have been overwhelmingly outstanding as Babatunde Fashola has done in Lagos. Even at that, where he is being asked to return to should be similar to his last job because there is no guarantee that someone who did well as Governor would be similarly good in the legislature.
We also need to realize that someone who had to be pressurized to take an office could not have prepared for it. He would at best be a frequent absentee or a seat-warmer as we often saw in the performance of some members of the National Assembly. In earnest, the public cannot morally blame a non-performer if he was cajoled to take the position. The argument that many of those who claim to be coerced induced it themselves is not tenable because such manipulators ought not to be trusted. What Nigeria desires in her political space, is men of integrity.