January 12, (THEWILL) – Ahead of the February 25 and March 11 elections in Nigeria, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has said there is nothing like the right candidate in an election.
Kukah spoke on Wednesday while fielding questions on Channels Television’s programme, ‘Politics Today’.
Noting that without engagements, politicians will always take the people for granted, Kukah said, “When it comes to choice, let’s be modest in our political expectations because sometimes people say ‘vote for the right candidate’, there is nothing like the right candidate in elections.
“The right candidate may be a projection of your emotions afterwards. What are we faced with? If you live in Sokoto in 2015 when Buhari was elected president, about 9 or 10 people killed themselves out of excitement.
“Somebody came from Lagos to Abuja in excitement. That young man came to my office to tell me that he was the trekker and said nobody has looked at (compensated) him. I said oga I no trek with you na, which one is my own.
“So, political outcomes, even though you have the fairest and most credible elections, is always no correlation between that and performance.”
Kukah also charged Nigerians to decide on a candidate to vote for in the forthcoming elections, considering the abundance of problems facing the country.
“Why would anybody be undecided about hunger? Why would anybody be undecided about insecurity? Why would anybody be undecided over the fact that they don’t seem to know where the next meal is going to come from?
“Why would anybody be undecided over the fact that there are no jobs? Why would anybody be undecided about that? So, there needs to be a vigorous battle to overcome cynicism,” he said.
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