By 
With about one month to the commencement of political campaign for the 2023 elections, it is already evident that supporters of the various presidential candidates are in the mood to tear opponents of their principals down through the media in a manner that are not issue-based.
It is already glaring from the media posturing of supporters of the three leading presidential candidates namely Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP), Bola Ahmed Tinubu of All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that the electioneering would go beyond the manifestoes of the candidates to include character assassination.
While those who do not want the Tinubu candidacy would want to write everything under the sun to describe him with unprintable words, those against Atiku would remind us of his days as Vice President of Nigeria when he presided over the corrupt privatization and commercialization of public companies. Not even Obi is spared by supporters of Tinubu and Atiku who do not hesitate to label him a tribal bigot and liar with statistics.
In all of this, not much is discussed about what the candidates are poised to offer and how best they can deliver on electoral promises.
This aberration obviously prompted the call a forth night ago by Tinubu on Obi urging him to call his supporters to order. Obi who has always called for issue-based electioneering, could not hesitate before aligning with the APC candidate to advocate same.
One common feature in the emerging scenario is that some of the supporters on all sides are non-tolerant as they are quick to resort to
abusive and provocative words that can easily stoke violence once comments that are not palatable for their principals are used in any of their social media publications.
The irony of their overzealousness remains the fact that even their principals being the politicians that they are, are secretly laughing at the folly of their supporters who never knew that in politics there is no permanent enemy but permanent interest.
Nigerian politicians would always make mockery of their supporters as the more the supporters break heads against their principals’ rivals, the closer and merrier the principals become at their own level. Evidence abounds everywhere to show the spirit of camaraderie that exists among the presidential contenders as they fraternize with one another in social engagements.
They do not see themselves as enemies by any standards in spite of the ferociousness with which their media and other supporters try to run them out of the presidential race, even when the campaigns have not officially commenced.
As watchers of the emerging scenario, securityreporters.com does not hesitate to call to order all presidential candidates’ media supporters to play by the rules by not engaging on non-issue based campaign that are hinged on character assassination of their principals.
Media supporters of the presidential candidates should be cautious to know that election is not a do or die affair as to provoke character assassination, ethnic or religious denigeration and so on.
Comments