The dynamics of lobbying

Also published in Daily Trust 

As the rescheduled election season approaches and despite the irreversibly deepening unpopularity of President Goodluck Jonathon, he does not seem to relent on his covert yet exposed frantic political manoeuvres to tamper with the transparency of the election hence undermine its credibility.

He and his campaign handlers continue to lobby for political endorsement from various influential individuals in the country, which, by the way, is not uncommon in Nigerian politics, besides, the main opposition candidate, Muhammad Buhari and indeed all candidates for various political positions do it also. 

Obviously the elites being lobbied who are mostly traditional rulers, religious clerics, statesmen and other respected personalities who are also not supposed to be involved in partisan politics by virtue of their positions are rightly or wrongly perceived to be influential enough to inspire particular segments of the electorate to vote for particular candidates.

Politicians vying for various political positions at different levels of government pay ‘courtesy visits’ to them ostensibly to seek their ‘blessings’ while such visits are in reality political lobbying to seek and gain political favour from them to boost their chances of winning the elections. 

In any case, whether such lobbied elites are still that influential to actually influence the electorate or not, having lost a great deal of their weight over the decades, they make huge fortunes from the seasonal generosity of their visiting politicians during every election season.

Over the past few months, there have been credible reports of financial inducements involving billions of Naira being extravagantly doled out to pastors, bishops, imams, emirs, obas, ezes, and chiefs etc. This is even though they claim to maintain absolute political neutrality and promote social cohesion; those with largely living conscience among them are nowadays caught on the horns of a multidimensional but largely self-inflicted dilemma.

On one hand, they find the temptations, which are mostly financial, too tempting to resist, while on the other they find most of their visiting politicians seeking their endorsement, too unqualified to be supported. 

However, for those with dead conscience among them, the fortunes they make are all that matter in the issue, and are therefore prepared to go to any extent in this regard to make as much as money as possible. 

Anyway, though traditional rulers, in particular, do still command enormous public respect, they don’t enjoy influence strong enough to inspire their communities in favour of particular candidates during elections, anymore. People have grown too sophisticated for traditional rulers to easily manipulate them politically.

Besides, many people believe that, traditional institutions have always abused their influence to encourage nepotism and impunity in favour of the highest bidder or whoever can afford their lobbying services and intercessions, or who is simply ‘lucky enough’ to have any connection with them that is strong enough to enable him to enjoy their goodwill. 

This explains the limited and indeed decreasing capacity of traditional institutions to influence the political choices of their respective communities, as it also explains the apparently low confidence of the politicians and the lobbyists alike in the ability of traditional rulers to actually influence the electorate’s political inclination in their respective communities.

Though politicians still lobby traditional rulers anyway, it is largely because it is an established practice in political campaign in the country. They nowadays give priority to lobbying religious leaders with massive popularity, which they can easily use or manipulate to serve the political interests of any politician seeking their endorsement. 

It is in this context that the increasingly desperate President Jonathan whose re-elections chances continue to suffer irreversible decline focuses on and has indeed managed to tempt many Christian religious leaders in particular who have betrayed their own conscience hence practically turned into mere apologists too prejudiced to see beyond the President’s re-election ambition simply because he is a Christian and despite his enormous failure and obvious incompetence and cluelessness to arrest the persistent deterioration of all elements of statehood in the country, let alone reverse its largely leadership-inflicted misfortunes.

The extremely  irresponsible  utterances of some relatively few but obviously influential elements among the Christian clergy in the country give more credence to the already credible allegations that they are indeed hugely induced by President Jonathan to influence their Christian followers to vote for him. 

After all, Pastor Kallamu Musa Dikwa, leader of the Voice of Northern Christian Movement, has insisted that the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) did indeed receive a seven billion naira from President Goodluck Jonathan. This is despite huge pressure from within the Christian clergy and even intimidation by the Department of State Services (DSS) intended to pressurize him to retract the accusation he had made.

While the political impacts of such lobbied elites can’t be downplayed in Nigeria’s political context, the phenomenal wind of change currently blowing all over the country and which increasingly looks irresistible would definitely frustrate any plot being plotted against it, provided that  patriotic Nigerians continue to sustain its growing momentum.