MISPLACED PRIORITIES AND FOCUS
The art of misdirection is the subtle, deceptive art of directing an audience's attention towards one thing (ie -a magical effect) so it does not notice another (ie. the methods or mechanics of a trick)
In Apollo Robbin's study of human behaviour, he noticed that people often don't notice what is right in front of them. They are blinded to the things they see all the time, because they are so used to it that they don't notice it anymore.
This does not necessarily imply that whatever preoccupation of interest that has monopolised their attention is not of any essence, but it rather suggests that such a thing might not be as much of a priority as it is otherwise assumed to be.
For instance, an average person trapped in a burning house, might give in to panic by screaming and crying out for help, while totally missing what should have been the obvious priority of conserving oxygen, doing everything to avoid inhaling the poisonous smoke, engaging safety measures to safeguard his/herself and find the nearest possible exit.
In the same manner, most of us as Nigerian citizens hold firmly to a misplaced focus when it comes to the subject of governance.
We've been perpertually roped in by the allure and distraction of executive power at the center - the presidency, whose influence we perceive to be overwhelmingly present in our everyday life. In time, we have developed an obssesive fascination with that highly esteemed office and magnified position, so much that we fail to see the finite set of elective executive offices that have far more direct impact on our lives, our governors and LG Chairmen. Even worse is how we fail to prioritize the elective legislative offices that we actually have constitutional powers to influence and moderate. We rather obsess over the executive that are constitutionally immune to us and only directly answerable to the legislature. If at all we will influence the executive, it would be indirectly through the direct influence of our legislators. Should it not be so obvious therefore where our primary focus should be, both in terms of the most relevant arm of government we should hold tight, and the closest tier of government that we should engage the most?
It is therefore time we stop fumbling around an idea we can't control and start facing things that are more directly facing us. While the presidency remains a critical office whose importance can not be overemphasized in a country, Nigerian citizens must realize that they have no direct control over the executive beyond voting in the president on Election Day. It is the Legislature that wields the exclusive power of oversight over the executive.
The good news however is, we the electorate in turn, equally wield an exclusive power of oversight over the legislature, and this of course means that we can indirectly control the executive through the legislature.
Therefore it becomes very clear that we owe it to ourselves to pay as much, if not more attention to legislative elections and operations, than we do the presidential elections.
So, instead of stressing over and focusing fully on the possibility of a dictatorial executive who we cannot directly control in the long run after the general elections, let us spread our focus and worry more about the senator, the House of Representatives member, the House of Assembly member and the Councilor who we are constitutionally empowered to influence directly, and who in turn can directly impeach the potential dictator (at any executive level) should the need arise.
On the other hand, should a democratic president who represents the good agenda of the people, be faced with opposition from the legislature, we have the power to clear such legislative hindrance out of the way of progress. Either way, we rise to defend our democracy against selfish interests from executive or legislative corners. All we need to do now is get our priorities right and make our position clear. Whoever represents our agenda, has our votes and backing with no fear of intimidation.
Power truly resides in our numbers.
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