By Isaac Asabor
If there are marvels in Nigeria’s politics that have since the last few weeks increasingly been making headlines on the news media landscape, they are unarguably the baggage of skeletons that were literarily found in various cupboards of some politicians who have individually and publicly indicated their interests to contest in the forthcoming 2023 general elections. The marvels are kaleidoscopically emerging like the rerun of an old Nollywood movie in which the actors remain the same, and so does the plot which twists and turns to an unsurprising end.
Against the backdrop of the foregoing view, it is not an exaggeration to say that the various skeletons that were emblematically found in the cupboards owned by various political hopefuls, and which were reported in the media cut across age falsification, questionable source of wealth, pending cases with crime fighters, and some dubious claims, or rather incongruities found in their Curriculum Vitae (CV) were unprecedented in Nigeria’s political history, and that they have to a large extent been heating the polity. This is as the discoveries, which are mouth gaping, are fast shaping the political landscape. The issues of age falsification and false claims about educational and professional qualifications have familiar echoes of the past.
Given the title of this piece, “Need for politicians to expose the skeletons in their cupboards before a Journalist does”, it is expedient to say that it is unarguably problematic for a politician to expose himself or herself before his or her traducers, hence it is advisable that people should always be circumspect about how they throw out information to the public, particular on virtual space in this internet age.
The propriety of the foregoing view cannot be farfetched when analyzed from the perspective of the fact that the ubiquity of technology and social networking web sites like Facebook that allows and compels young people to document themselves drinking, wearing little clothing or putting themselves in otherwise compromised positions, among other smidgeons of showoff on virtual space will unarguably serve as damaging tools for their traducers to fight them in future whenever some of them decide to jump into the murky waters of politics. After all, there is an admonition that says “The Internet never forgets, so be careful of what you put on it”.
There is no denying the fact that a generation of politicians would someday find themselves confronted with digital evidence of their more immodest and imprudent moments. Not few people reading this piece would ask, “Who says I will become a politician?” In as much as many would always say they are averse to politics, they always forget Aristotle’s saying that “Man is by nature a political animal”. This is perhaps one of Aristotle’s most famous sayings, which is motivated by his claim that “every man, by nature, has an impulse toward a partnership with others.” In a similar vein, those in politics today never knew their traducers would expose them this quickly.
Politics today is rife with examples of candidates having to explain how they were so rich, why they look older than their age, and even to explain why group photographs with their classmates or joint photographs with their friends were not taken throughout the period spent in secondary or tertiary institution. To aptly put it, the water that surrounds politics is truly murky as the sages have unanimously posited.
Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to advice those that carelessly paved the way for traducers and opponents to be interrogating their pasts and the propriety of their candidatures to respond through press conferences and by hiring professional Public Relations practitioners to do that for them. Era of relying on political urchins and appointment seekers to respond to the public on matters that relate to scandals has gone, and not doing the needful can rob any scandalized aspirant his or her victory at the poll.
The expediency of an aspiring politicians to figuratively wash his or her dirty hands before embarking on political campaign cannot be dismissed as frivolous given the battered image of the politician in the eyes of the public. The way the politician is perceived is no doubt worrisome that not few people resist the callings to become one. Those that are not in politics see politicians as good deal worse, morally worse, than the rest of us (it is the wisdom of the rest of us). Without either endorsing it or pretending to disbelieve it, it is expedient everyone keep his or her house in order before becoming a partisan politician.
Given the scandalous milieu wherein partisan politics thrives, the fact cannot be denied that it is good for the youths of today who aspire to become politicians in the future to have it at the back of their minds that the dilemma of dirty hands is a central feature of political life, and that it arises not merely as an occasional crisis in the calling of a politician or that unlucky politician but systematically and frequently.
In fact, politics may look like show business to some people, particularly the youths, but that does not justify a situation where some politicians in Nigeria have turned themselves to stand-up comedians. One of them is even notorious of doing funny video skits and posting them on social media platforms. That alone, in advanced democracies, is enough to deny him of victory at the poll whenever he decides to contest again.
To a serious-minded politician, the truth is, you do not have to engage in any kind of wild or outlandish behavior to become the talk of the town and that of the social media platforms. People are already prepared to think the worst of you, so any minor indiscretion is likely to turn you into a laughingstock. That is why you have to be careful. Without any iota of exaggeration, there are a lot of land mines and social pitfalls you have to avoid.
At this juncture, it is expedient to say that the chaotic state of political affairs, particularly on social media communities, in the last few days is a good reminder that skeletons in the closet have a nasty habit of popping their heads out of the door.
The situation, no doubt is worrisome. It is bothersome because cupboard skeletons are a dimension of crisis preparation that is frequently overlooked in the mistaken judgment that what happened long ago will never be uncovered. As presidential aspirants that have explanations to give their opponents and the rest of Nigerians, it is expedient that those whose skeletons have escaped from their cupboards and ran into various gossip mills, should not in any way be arrogant and offended when the issues become objects of damaging campaign strategies to the benefits of their opponents, conversely to their own detriments as long as they refused to literarily tame such wild skeletons by telling the world the true stories as to why they have too many skeletons in their cupboards.
