By Adamu Aminu
In a season of political endorsements vying for various candidatures, the polity usually becomes tense and warms up across various political divides nationwide.
Each side is bent on clamouring support for its preferred candidate to grab a flag-bearing ticket to stand for its chosen candidature in the much-anticipated general elections in 2027.
Looking back at history, down to the first and second republic, in a season of endorsement for political candidates, experience, credibility, competency, and sound educational status were given top priority.
If we look through the prism of impassioned and neutrally-driven objectivity, the aforementioned priorities for handpicking party flag-bearers to stand for elections in those days resulted in the foundational basis for democratic settings, which charted the path for good governance.
In those days, both the subjects and the duty-bearers were all in the equilibrium standpoint that experience blended with competency were the indisputable benchmarks needed for one to be chosen and endorsed as a suitable nominee for a party candidate to stand for elections.
Anything falling short of that prerequisite would be treated with secondary concern, with no room for counter-proposition.
Presently, the hustle and bustle in the political market vying for tickets to candidacy on various governance platforms is gaining traction and swinging into high gear.
Political bigwigs are busy weaving underground machinery for their preferred nominees to be endorsed, while proxies are running from pillar to post on conventional media and various social media handles marketing their candidates, glamouring them as suitably fit to have the outright endorsement from the party.
For those conversant with the present political atmosphere of Kano state, particularly the opposition, the market of political endorsements of candidates is presently bustling, with power brokers marketing their nominees with their loudest voices.
But the questions need to be asked: what’s the benchmark for party power brokers before endorsing a nominee to hold onto candidacy? What is the politics of endorsement of nominees all about? Is it hinged on connections, big bags, freebies, experience, competency, or is it based on merits or material gains?
It has become a norm politically that some power brokers and party bigwigs advocate for a person with no prerequisites for governance but loved and admired to be supported over credible candidates, just in anticipation of continued patronage.
While credible and competent candidates with the wherewithal to carry the mantle are downplayed for reasons known only to them.
It’s commonly known that in politics, apart from permanent interest, personal survival overrides all ethics of democratic norms and values, thus choosing a credible flag-bearer is either a matter of blind political affection or transactional reciprocity.
Whereas rejection of a candidate in a party is sometimes also a matter of deep-seated grudges, hatred for no reason, or an act of payback for political vindictiveness.
But, candidly speaking, as proverbially said by Mallam Bahaushe, “Kowa yasan gaskiya, saidai ya kita da gan-gan,” which means “Everyone knows what’s truthfully apt, but deliberately overlooks it.”
Even though, in every aspect of life, not only in politics, “somebody’s hero is another’s zero,” competency and other factors of leadership deliverables surpass myopic conviction.
But it’s universally accepted that competency is a prerequisite for choosing a candidate as a foundational basis to serve humanity with good governance.
Anyway, there’s a Hausa aphorism which says, “Inda tunanin wani ya tsaya, daga nan tunanin wani ya fara,” which means “Where one’s thoughts end, is a threshold of someone’s foresight.”
That’s why my stance stands on the question, as well as the headline reflects: is the Politics of Endorsements for Merits or Material Gains?
Adamu Aminu writes from Kano.