Nigerians have continued to react to the recent slips of the tongue by the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

Tinubu made a gaffe during the first of his major rallies in Jos, Plateau State, by saying ‘God bless Nigeria. God bless P-D…’, before retracing his speech to say ‘APC’.

While having a ‘slip of the tongue is normal for any human being, this is not the first time the APC candidate will gaffe since he began campaigning to become president in 2023.

In October 2022, Tinubu hailed Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s creativity in turning the fortunes of his state, Kaduna, from a ‘rotten situation into a bad one’. His campaign team described this as ‘a mere Freudian slip’.

Prior to that, the former Lagos State governor had, while addressing members of his party, referred to them as members of ‘Action Group Party’, instead of the All Progressives Congress.

He said, ‘…and the commitment for us as members of the Action Group’.

In March 2022, Tinubu, while speaking on ways he would address the country’s high unemployment rate, said that 50 million youths would be recruited into the Nigerian army.

He later claimed that his statement was a slip of the tongue after being questioned on the feasibility of his idea.

The presidential candidate said he never meant that the federal government should employ 50 million youths into the Nigerian army, but five million of them, to boost the fight against terrorism, banditry and other security challenges.

He had also told Nigerians that their Permanent Voter Cards had ‘expired’,  a claim rebutted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Campaign promises 

While it is understandable why Nigerians are very much fixated on the continuous slips made by the presidential candidate, one must not lose sight of the important issues on ground.

With regard to the manifesto recently released by the APC campaign team, Tinubu promised that if elected, his administration would create six new regional economic development agencies which would establish sub-regional industrial hubs to exploit each zone’s competitive advantage and optimise their potential for industrial growth.

He said his administration would improve existing industries and sectors; adjust the revenue allocation prescription to give states greater flexibility to foster grassroots economic development.

Tinubu further promised to improve security by decentralising the policing of the country.

The APC presidential standard-bearer also promised an increase in the Nigeria gross domestic product (GDP) to 12 percent, as well as jobs for youths; saying his administration would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs simultaneously.

The critical issues 

As campaigns begin to heat up, Nigerians should not be distracted by these side issues and focus on demanding the ‘how’ from political candidates.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), in September 2022, announced that Nigeria now has about 20 million out-of-school children.

Also, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government have been at loggerheads on different occasions over poor funding of public universities and the lecturers’ welfare.

And recently, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that 133 million Nigerians are living in poverty, with the country’s inflation rate surging to 20.77 percent in September 2022, up from 20.52 percent recorded in the previous month.

Eye on the ball

Citizens should task candidates on their plans for addressing the challenges in education, security and the economy.

The 2023 elections would be Nigeria’s seventh consecutive national polls since the country returned to democracy in 1999, and it would coincide with 24 years of uninterrupted democracy, the longest in the country’s history.

To this end, citizens should focus on the problems they are confronted with, and know how best to tackle candidates based on these problems.

Citizens also need to find out from candidates how they intend to fulfil the promises outlined in their campaign documents by asking critical questions.

They must resist the temptation of being carried away by the common campaign fanfare as crucial voting decisions await all Nigerians in 2023.

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