In the current campaign season, there have been a lot of emphases on issue-based campaigns from especially various stakeholders. One of the reasons this columnist presumes why the calls have been resonant is that, in a fragile polity such as ours, a descent into bedlam, hate speeches, indecent language can easily fray the fabric of nationhood. Another reason issue-based campaigns have been mainstreamed is that we are soft on ideological divisions which would have provided us policy anchors on which respective parties can stand and base their campaigns on. In the absence of ideological polarities offering contrasting perspectives on governance, it is easy for campaign rhetoric to drift into personal abuse, slander and overcharged verbal contestations. So, issue-based campaigns are considered remedies for the kind of horrible use of language that can, in popular parlance, ‘heat up the polity’ and even endanger political stability.
There is another side of the coin, however, that has been little considered, namely that nearly every commentator has an idea on what the issues ought to be and there is hardly any general agreement on what issues are priority, or should occupy the front burner. It is not just that. An issue-based campaign, healthy as it is, can also be contentious; an example being one public intellectual who argued that the number one issue in the ongoing campaigns is the restructuring of the nation state, and taking steps towards what is regarded as proper federalism. Many people will concur to that suggestion but the issue will also bring to the fore, heated debates in some quarters, including discussion on who will do the restructuring in the face of a National Assembly that is constitutionally charged with what can be described, in a sense, as a constitutional review exercise. Moreover, an issue-based campaign does not excuse the polity from its share of acrimony and personal abuse unless specific steps are taken to avoid it. An example from our electoral history is when, in the campaigns leading to the inauguration of the Second Republic, a leading contestant, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said he would rather implement free education at all levels, his flagship project, than fritter money on foreign travels or on the projected movement of the federal capital to Abuja. This was a sound campaign proposition but it alienated, to an extent, those who considered the movement to Abuja as a higher priority and goal than free education at all levels. The point being made is that issue-based campaigns can be inherently conflictual by spawning divisions among contestants, with each one pulling the opposed ends of the stick. Ordinarily, issues, in spite of the polarisation among them, are pretty easy to identify.
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