Aso Rock, anxious politicians and aspiring women

The declaration to contest for the most prestigious office of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, by the incumbent President, Ebele Goodluck Jonathan has sparked off a series of bitter bickering between the Controlling PDP and the opposition APC party. The so-called peaceful campaigns are actually staged acts dedicated to discrediting members of opposition party, politicians and their campaigners.
Every day on Nigeria’s several Television stations; adverts, notices and extractions have superseded the news of the day. Especially by 8 and 9 PM every night, Nigerians are entertained with one silly advertorial or the other while the main news of the day takes a back seat. These advertorials either denounce or announce a politician, an opponent or an incumbent governor, minister, senator or chairman. Statements like “unlike so, so and so I didn’t use a friend’s plane to buy ammunition for Nigeria…” or “…he was from a dysfunctional family that’s why his behavior is indecisive…” are rife on our TV stations and radio stations. The one I love the most is those advertorials by APC, condemning the President and insulting him in such a way that you wouldn’t in anyway want to vote for Jonathan come 2015.  For instance, “…when the Chibok girls were being carried away, he (Jonathan) was busy dancing in Kano while we were busy doing rallies in order to #Bring back our girls’#…”
Other advertorials do not only castigate the opponent, they try to permanently blacken both the reputation of the contestant and his family name. These and other instances are the shameful means we use to garner support from the masses. These shameful wrangling used as campaign acts may not be too far from the psychological conception of the poor to want to hear everything bad, painful and evil happening to the high and mighty. With their undefined destinies, the masses do not have anything to lose if they are co-opted into a plot to desecrate the image of one who has never listen to their cries for help. And so the nastier the bickering is, the better and faster it would be to remove greedy politicians from their elected posts.
Women are not left behind in the act of destroying the reputation of political contestants of opposing parties. With the stereotypical view of women as rumour mongers and gossipers; what better candidate is needed for the job of blacklisting political aspirants of opposing parties than a bickering woman? The caustic tongues of women do not fail, if it is set on condemning the character of a presumed enemy, neither does it also fails in bringing a great man to his knees.
But in this political dispensation, it is not only the men that are aspiring to be in Aso rock, more women are now more than ever willing to be senators, governors and head of nations if they are availed more opportunities at political offices. The percentile quota that has been instituted for women is hardly filled, yet the same women who are clamouring for women empowerment are the women who are employed to reduce “a man to dust” if he is targeted as an arch enemy of an aspiring politician. Women are ignorantly cajoled from occupying available seats at Aso rock to becoming dangerous street parakeets; yapping, cackling and tweeting one obscenity or the other at a male candidate for a meager token that is not enough to pay for their brilliance and capabilities.
It is such a wonder to  see women in Nigeria, despite insurgency in the North, violent riots and murders in the West and Kidnapping and broad day light killing of prominent Nigerians in the East, participating in bitter politics aimed at obliterating arched enemies of a political aspirant. These women do not think of the after effect of their “bad mouthing” instead, their thoughts are on the naira notes that would be given to them after their evil deeds are done. Can we blame them? I guess not. Poverty has eaten so deep into the country that women are the worst hit. They would do anything to get Naira notes which are just enough to get them fake trinkets, cheap wrappers and corrugated shoes. Their thoughts are not for a peaceful electoral exercise but for what they can get before all the hullaballoo dies down. What most women are however not taking into cognizance is the facts that these nasty statements said against a political candidate can bounce back on them when and if they eventually decide to contest.
I know of a woman who has practically used half of her life time to castigate one political candidate or the other. From the time of Alhaji Shagari through the botched political dispensation during Ibrahim Babangida’s administration to Jonathan’s turbulent administration, this woman has sang deploring songs against the incumbents in their time and now she is seeking for a seat at the House of Assembly where she has once ridiculed many a great men. All her dirty secretes are now for all to savour as her opponents pay her back in her own coin. The woman in question is going round pleading with her adversaries to stop putting her dirty secretes on the spotlight but the dice has already been played and no one would forgive her for all the years of bitter slandering of political aspirants.
It is such a sad thing to practically be put in a grave you have dug for others and what is even sadder is that the people who are slandering this woman are her immediate relatives. So what do we tell women who are aspiring for Aso rock? Oh the heck! The percentage quota given to women must be occupied but where are the women? How many women do we have who are qualified to meet up with the 35% quota allocated for women representation? And if there are available how do we get the men to implement this quota when they are the ones who have hijacked the political arena pushing women to the background?