MANIFESTO VERSUS OUTCOME

Features: By Victoria Adeusi

After elections in  Nigeria, the manifesto of candidates versus the outcome has always been like a case of what I ordered versus what I got with most of our politicians. Imagine you ordered a chocolate cake and instead got a vanilla cake; your hope and resources were wasted, right? It seems that when it comes to keeping the promises made in their manifestoes, our politicians constantly fail us.

A manifesto is described, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, as the written statement that describes the policies, goals, and opinions of a person or group. Meaning a manifesto describes your personality, your principles, and what you have in mind for the people.

In Nigeria today, it seems like the manifesto has taken on another definition. Politicians have seen it as a means to bribe their way into power, a method of deceit. They present manifestos with promises and plans they have no intention of fulfilling in a bid to sway people into supporting them. Someone once told me that all a politician needed to win an election were an excellent copywriter and a good psychologist. Of course, winning the voters' trust is essential because individuals cast their vote for who they trust. Sadly, it seems to candidates that their manifesto is just a means of gaining the people's trust rather than a plan containing how they will serve the people. Yes, it is essential to winning the people's trust, but the question is whether they fulfill the heart desires of these people after they've been voted into office.

This constant cycle has frustrated a lot of Nigerians. Many are still looking for the one who is selfless enough to step into the power and use it for the benefit of the people and not himself. They are waiting for the one who can fulfill his manifesto, one who does not just see the manifesto as a means into the office alone but also an obligation, a duty, a goal he must fulfill while in office.

This desire for change led most Nigerians, especially the youths, to be more proactive during the just concluded general elections. There is a constant thing that everyone seems to have forgotten, and that is that what determines their vote is the manifesto because what describes the person to you is the manifesto, either his history or whatsoever. Nothing can ever tell you what such person is coming to do in the position other than his manifesto, but can we still trust it because it was this same manifesto that sold our current president to us?