Elections 2015: The Drama,the Fuel Price Reduction and Other Matters

With elections just a few weeks away,there's hardly a day leading up
to elections that one drama or the other is not being witnessed in the
polity. The APC threw the first salvo at the incumbent party at the
onset of its campaigns,when it went for its jocular leaving the latter
with little choice than to be defensive as it began its campaigns a
bit later than the former.

APC has been using the current failures of this current government to
fight corruption and insurgency as key campaign points,while promising
change at each given opportunity though we are yet to be given the
fine details about how it intends to achieve the said change. The PDP
on the other hand has resorted to
attacking APC's presidential candidate by raising issues about his
antecedents and such other issues like his educational qualifications
and state of health.

In response to fears that there might be violence before and after
elections,the incumbent president,organized a sensitization conference
against violence with a peace pact signed by the over eleven different
candidates for the presidential elections in february. This has not
stopped the bombings of party offices or
destruction of bill boards of some candidates in some parts of the
country. The lack of intolerance got to a head lately when the
governor of rivers state declined the request of PDP to have its
campaigns at the Portharcourt stadium even after the APC had used the
same stadium on two previous occasions in recent times. His excuse for
declining the request from PDP to use the stadium was that it was
still under construction;need we remind him that what is source for
the goose is also source for the gander?

On the 18th of january,2015,the minister of petroleum
resourses,Allison Maduekwe,announced a reduction in the pump price of
petrol from 97 naira to 87 naira per litre. Nigerians have started
reacting to this slight reduction as many argued that it should have
been brought further down since the price of oil has crashed in the
world market. Others feel its coming rather late in the day and
consider it a political move by the incumbent to influence or alter
political calculations in his favour.

Well,my opinion on this is that the onus is still on government to
furnish the public with the current figures it relied on in reaching
this new pump price of petrol; we would like to know the current
landing costs and other costs associated with oil importation,how much
we are still subsidizing and why the price of kerosine didn't change?
On the threat of violence after elections,I think we should be
seriously considering a coalition government irrespective of the party
that wins as the present situation where winner takes all is the
reason for the dissatisfaction that often accompanies the announcement
of election results irrespective of how free or fair the election
process must have been. This will reduce the needless
opposition that the losing party mounts on the winning party since it
would consider itself as having a stake in the process of governance.