Nigeria Content Online

Ahead of the
National Assembly congresses of the People’s Democratic Party that is
rescheduled to hold today, some incumbent senators are deploying
desperate last-minute tactics to lobby both delegates and the public.
The senators, who have been lobbying delegates after a legislative
attempt to give them the right of first refusal failed at the national
assembly, have embarked on desperate means of sending across their
messages.

As a last-minute
measure to convince delegates, some of the lawmakers have employed
unusual new media to reach them. While some have taken their last
campaign messages to popular social media networks like Facebook and
Twitter, some are sending unsolicited bulk Short Message Services (SMS)
to random telephone numbers hoping to catch a delegate.

Like most of his
colleagues facing serious re-election challenges, Nimi Bariye Amange, a
serving Bayelsa state senator, in an unsolicited bulk SMS sent to
random telephone numbers, directly solicited for delegate votes. Most
messages were written in the new but informal social media language.

“Dear delegates to
d Bayelsa East Senatorial primary elections,” Mr. Amange wrote. “Ur
vote to Amange will enhance ur brother/sister, daughter/son’s,
educational pursuit. In 3yrs he has paid WAEC/JAMB/NECO for 800
candidates and he will do more.”

Like Mr. Amange,
most senators and other senatorial aspirants base their public campaign
on either the capital projects they executed or attracted to their
communities and promising to do more rather than the effects or
efficiency of the laws they sponsored or supported or intend to sponsor
or support if (re)-elected.

Umoh Edet, a
political analyst with a special interest in the national assembly,
says the elements of these campaign messages are wrong and have the
potentials of misleading ignorant constituents on the core function of
lawmakers. He argues that lawmakers have no business initiating,
executing or promising capital projects except on philanthropic grounds.

“The core function
of the lawmaker is to make laws, not building roads or bore holes,” he
said. “That is the work of the executive arm of government. The
lawmakers are supposed to change the lives of their constituents
through the laws they make.”

The senators,
alongside their House of Representatives colleagues, late last year,
dropped the right of first refusal idea after they were caught in a web
criticism for attempting to insert in the electoral act, a clause which
would have made it mandatory for political parties to put the ambitions
of a serving lawmaker before rookies.

Subsequently, most of the lawmakers are facing strong opposition
from fellow party members who either feel they did not perform very
well as lawmakers or perhaps ogling the perceived fat pay the lawmakers
earn.