Politicians are people with great responsibility, and the more popular a politician is, the greater the responsibility. People choose certain politicians because they introduced good and innovative ideas, which earned them the public’s trust. Before Nigerian politics became trivialized by the notion of politicians with structure or no structure, it was political ideas that attracted people’s votes. With the build-up to the 11th November 2023 Kogi elections, political watchers in Kogi could not help but notice the bright ideas of the Action Alliance (AA) candidate, Otunba Olayinka Braimoh, which he called STAT (Solid Mineral, Tourism, Agriculture and Trade) Agenda.
The brilliance in the idea is not in the acronym, but the articulation and presentation of the step-by-step process of execution, what political scientists call the how of it. The ideas are so believable and practicable that some of us have started following the AA candidate’s media rounds on Channels TV, TVC, AIT, Kogi radio stations among others. I was therefore more than curious to see that a certain so called candidate with all the “structure” appeared on the same Channels TV, Politics Today with Seun Okinbaloye, and used the entire allotted time to rehash almost word for word the AA candidate’s STAT agenda.
While many political figures have in the past accused their ideological opponents of plagiarism just to increase their chances of winning, the “political plagiarism” witnessed in the mentioned interview is more apparent and should be used to rally Kogi electorates to support the originator and only possible executor of the ideas – the AA guber candidate. Although I am getting old and have no skin in the game, but the younger generations must learn to make rational choices as regards who becomes their governor. After all, this is what modernisation theory is all about, which states that underdeveloped societies are forced to remain underdeveloped mostly because they cannot make rational political choices regarding who will rule them.
The 2023 presidential election has introduced the viability of an under-dog politician, Kogi should take it a step further and vote for the candidate that can change the fortunes of Kogi, a state with enormous potential yet muddling in unmerited poverty.
Interestingly, I would not have normally thought the AA candidate had significant chances of winning the so-called bigger parties, but with the observed heist of his manifesto, I am forced to re-appraise his chances. The re-appraisal is simply based on the simple fact that for a supposed popular politician to lift verbatim Olayinka Braimoh’s manifesto, then desperate times occasioned by the increasing popularity of the AA candidate, may have called for such desperate measures.
When misappropriation of political ideas happens, the guilty politicians are supposed to pay a high price for their mistakes. If not, Kogi State electorates will possibly face another four or eight years of a motion-less government. The great Bob Marley sang who the cap fits let him wear it. If Kogi State misses this chance to vote the increasingly popular AA candidate, Olayinka Braimoh, the originator of the coveted idea, then even late Marley may be forced to reincarnate to release a sequel to the song.
Mr Michael Johnson writes from
Aiyetoro Gbede
