Malam Alkasim Bala, a political commentator and analyst, has expressed concerns over the forthcoming primaries and 2023 general elections.
Bala, who is also a lecturer at Mass Communication Department, Federal Polytechnic Damaturu expressed his opinion in an interview with our correspondent on Thursday in Damaturu.
Regarding the forthcoming coming primaries and 2023 general elections Bala said he expected nothing different from what is used to be.
“Honestly I do not expect anything different because the same political players are the ones to play the game again.
“Therefore we expect the same tactics – violating the election rules, using money buy their ways and so on.
“For instance, there will be no leveled playing ground for everyone to aspire for any position because certain people will sit down and adopt a so called consensus candidate.”, he said.
With regard to the capacity of the aspirants, Bala said, some of them might have the capacity while others might not, saying “You cannot give a blanket judgement to all of them.”
He added that in Nigeria political space, majority of the active players, especially at the grassroot are people that were jobless, sometimes uneducated.
“So most of them take politics as business, they do not do anything. They move from one politician’s house to another.
“These are the people from within, that manipulate the process. They do not care about candidate’s capacity. They only care about the size of his pocket.
“So long you give them what they want, they will endorse you and push you. So incompetent people dominate the system.”, he opinioned.
Bala said most of the people with fresh ideas, that can bring change to the system do not have the money or political connection to participate.
“Therefore, as long as elections are not based on merit, as long as we don not stop electing people based on money, we will not get it right.”, he said.
Bala said his major concern about the Nigerian politics was most politicians were power drunk, who according to him could go to any length to satisfy their ambitions.
“And we have a weak system that can not checkmate their excesses. These are some of the major challenges in Nigeria and major problem against our democracy.”, he lamented.
