It’s Irresponsible to Talk About 2023 Election in 2021, Former NTA Boss Tells Nigeria Politicians

A former Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Tonnie Iredia has described politicians in the country who engage in electioneering ahead of the 2023 presidential and governorship elections in 2021 as irresponsible.

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Iredia, a Professor of Mass Communication featured as a guest on ARISE News breakfast program, The Morning Show and observed that constant electioneering after each election in Nigeria ensures that the country remains a developing nation and far from development.

“Unfortunately, politics is fast becoming a distraction to national development, whereas the purpose of politics really is to develop society, to form a government that will produce good programmes, execute such programmes and improve the living standards of people,” Prof. Iredia told ARISE News.

“But in the last few years, we have found politicisation as the main issue in Nigeria. Nobody is thinking about other things, everything in Nigeria is about politics. Nigeria has become a nation of elections every day, electioneering has become the hallmark of our business in Nigeria.

“And I think it’s time to put a halt to this and draw attention to what’s really going wrong. We can’t be talking about politics and elections of 2023 at the very beginning of 2021, because in a democracy the rule of law presupposes that every action will be according to the hierarchy of plans.

“There is electioneering followed by elections, followed by governance. So when we do electioneering and we do election, the next thing for Nigeria is electioneering again, so when is the time for governance, when is the time for development?” he queried.

He added further that “as a developing nation if we continue to politicise, we’ll just be developing. We’ll hardly ever become developed.”

The former NTA boss expressed worry that while several researchers around the world are seeking ways to put an end to Covid-19 by producing vaccines, Nigeria is extremely busy with the politics of 2023.

“In other parts of the world today, people are interested in vaccination, they are interested in research vaccines, making sure that everybody can customise, everybody can look at his environmental advantages in developing vaccines for the covid.

“But we are talking about politics, we are talking about who will be president in 2023, we are talking about who will be governor and all of that, and I think it is not fair, I think many politicians who are doing this are showing signs of irresponsibility and I don’t think they are fair to the nation.

“If we elect people to represent us, we expect them after the elections to settle down to the properness of governance and development, that is not happening.”

By Abel Ejikeme

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