Shehu Sani, former Senator for Kaduna Central hs slammed Nigerian politicians.
According to him, Nigerian politicians spend more time planning for next election than the governance of the country.
The former lawmaker made the observation on Sunday in an interview with Arise News.
“Our constitution caters to a four-year term in office. And the way we divide these four years is that governance only happens in one year. The second year is talking about the election. The third year is conducting the election. And the last year will be handing over after election. So we waste almost more than 70 percent of a four-year tenure discussing about the next election.
“Virtually, a sane country, a stable country, a country that does its work, should dedicate almost three and a half years of the lifespan of its democratic process in its development. The national discourse is not about technology. It’s not about infrastructure. It’s not about the economy. It’s not about the future. It’s not about how we can be Indonesia, Malaysia, or Japan. It is about handover. It’s about elections. It’s about coalition. It’s about endorsement. This is where we have found ourselves today.
“What will I expect after the 2023 elections? Everyone wants a tool for governance to now know the issues we are going to address. Address our security challenges, educational challenges, health challenges, infrastructural challenges, and rebuild and reconfigure our country for the future. But that’s not the case. After the first year in power, the next is talking about 2027. And the next year, the year after that, we’ll be preparing about 2027. And then the last year will be about conducting election for 2027. So virtually, we don’t have any space for governance.
“I think it’s very important that, as a country, that we put in the interests of this country first before our own personal interests. And the only way to go about it is that politicians must see themselves as Nigerians first before they think about their political party, their political affiliation, or wherever they come from. A nation of 230 million people, we don’t have much time left to spend so much time in politics. All this struggle, all this craze, all this desperation for political power, it’s been helpful to this country. And I think it is time for us to, each time election comes to an end, it’s time for us to concentrate on governance,” he said.
