Politicians are warming up to the 2015 general elections in a manner that is beginning to make the rest of the country apprehensive. The level of vile rhetoric and tempestuous disposition is generating concerns that the security situation in the country may be further exacerbated. A fracas at the annual Igbo traditional festival, Iri Ji (New Yam festival) in Mbaise, Imo State, last weekend, raised fears as to what to expect as the days of electioneering draw near.
The event, usually a thanksgiving to God for his blessings, was desecrated by politicians who hijacked and turned it into an opportunity for political brinkmanship. As the highest ranking political officeholder in Mbaise, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, a gubernatorial aspirant, was the chief host while the governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, a second term aspirant, was invited as the special guest of honour. These two personalities, in a turf war, almost ruined the joy and conviviality of that almost-sacred event.
Days earlier, the chairman of Mbaise Council of Traditional Rulers, Eze Chidume Okoro, had raised the alarm that, at the rate politicians were mobilising youths and women, the festival was going to acquire an undesirable political hue. And that was what happened. The governor was said to have stormed out of the venue because of the perceived humiliation he was subjected to and the royal fathers were compelled to apologise to him and other invited guests who witnessed the obvious embarrasement.
Even with this feeling of remorse on the part of the royal fathers at the turn of events, the blame game has not ceased between the camps of the two gladiators. While the Ihedioha camp blamed the governor for his inability to control his security aides who, it claimed, displayed raw power, Okorocha’s camp merely asked for an apology for the embarrassment caused him as chief guest of honour. He got it, but the other camp insisted that the apology was given coercively.
We are not interested in who is right or wrong in that odious show. Politicians should tone down their proclivity to be inordinately rambunctious especially when there is no need for that tendency. In one of our editorials earlier, we had warned political figures against putting the electorate on edge to the point of making them lose interest in the political and election process altogether. It is the heightened tension brought about by doomsday utterances of political figures that has created room for what many analysts describe as over-militarisation of the environment on election days.
The perception of victory as do or die is not only anachronistic but an attempt by those pre-disposed to it to perpetuate themselves and their ilk in the political system. This is so because when they talk about do or die, they don’t have their family members in mind. How many of those thugs that caused the uproar at that Iri Ji festival were from Ihedioha or Okorocha’s clan? Nigerians should get wiser.
Source:www.leadership.ng
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