[b]OPINION: Why Political Office Aspirants Should Endeavour to Honour & Attend Invitations from Established Professional/Business Bodies.
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In recent times, there have been arguments about the need or otherwise, of BAT to attend conference/business Invitations from some professional bodies.

While some have said his inability to honour or personally attend such gatherings is an ominous signal, others have down played the significance & even gone further to lampoon those bodies as irrelevant.

In my humble opinion, I believe those who feel BAT does not need to honour Invitations from such organisers are doing a disservice not only to the aspirations of BAT, but also to the generality of Nigerians.

I hold this view because when aspiring for certain positions, honouring & attending some professional gatherings allows the aspirant speak as an intellectual & explain the nitty gritty of some of the policies/programmes s/he plans to implement if voted into power, especially as it concerns the specific gathering.

For instance, it might be okay to go to a political campaign rally where people from all works of life gather & say you will increase revenue generation in nigeria by 300% or that you would increase power generation to 30,000MW in 2 years & move on to other general promises... People at such gathering would clap & hail you. After all, they are your supporters which is why they are there in the first place. The specifics on how such things would be achieved matter little to them, at least at that point in time.

But a professional/business gathering, at say, ICAN or AEP, one can get into the nitty gritty of a specific area of one's proposed agenda & explain the broad details of how you intend to achieve your goal while leveraging on the expertise of the professional or business body. Here, giving general promises wont cut it. After all, it is thier field of expertise & they probably know more about its challenges.

It not only gives the gathering of professionals an idea of your plan for the sector & the possible roles they would have to play, it also serves as a platform for professionals to contribute & critic the agenda to allow adjustments if necessary or needed, to defend the agenda, give possible investors a chance to see how they can key into your plan & reach a larger audience (via broadcast) who are not supporters but can have an idea of what you have to offer...

In the specific instance of the presidential election, it cannot be expected that the presidential aspirants have intimate knowledge of every critical sector, however it is also expected that the aspirant has an agenda for every critical sector which s/he should have basic rudimentary knowledge of what needs to be done since s/he will be the one dictating what happens in that sector if successful in the elections.

This is also where people can have an idea of those who are behind the scenes helping & educating the candidate. Are they competent? Do they have a good grasp of what the sector needs? Are they telling the candidate the true position of things? Are their solutions realistic? Is there a need for them to conduct further research to help the candidate improve the knowledge gap?

Also, some of these bodies are our national (Nigerian) bodies. If the candidates cannot honour them but prefer foreign ones, how then can they ask the masses to support & patronise local services when they themselves have little regard for those same local services?

So, while it is true BAT cannot attend every Tom, dick & Harry organised conference, there are some worth attending because of the platform they have to offer.

P.S.
This is a personal opinion piece & those who wish to contribute/critic should do so with decorum & respect for diverse opinions.

Still of no use

Okay

BAT shouldn't attend any invitations for interviews, afterall he was the governor of Lagos and he was attending interviews back then.

Why should you drag Atiku to interviews, he was a whole VP, he should just be voted on self recognition

Only Mushroom party needs introduction

Why Obi and Atiku run after camera, it is camera that runs after Asiwaju

Hmmm

Lol Garri no dey du advert na wu dey empty dey mak noise pass....


if you like ask questions from now till tomorrow dey will all answer buh make dem get dere first dat solution wey dem talk no go dey available again......

Una wan kill Tilumbu abi?
Una wan set trap for the senseless one abi?
Him no go show for any show again

Nora22:
Still of no use

I pity the unlucky guy wey go marry this evening newspaper
Nothing she fit contribute for the family if not constant knacking with her wide and dilapidated toto

Yeah! U are right...

And the governors currently serving their state should ensure dey occupy their office doing nothing and if peradvendture they are willing to go further by vying for the top seat, their is no cause for alarm so far they are very good at attending functions, and they can just talk their way all through, they will be elected...
If that is the scenario, it's over then, down to the local government of every state, the message will be much welcome with great joy and na everybody go hear am...
To the people wey get brain, Enough of talkers, we need thinkers and doers...