Edo 2024: Speaking of Meritocracy - what do you look out for?


By Elempe Dele


The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, will today, 24th of April, lift the previously imposed ban on campaigns. What it means easily is that political parties, supporters and their candidates can officially go about campaigning to the electorates.

When we talk about meritocracy, I often get the question; who gets to decide who wins? How do we decide who wins?

For some events, it is easy and straightforward: In a 100 metres race, the winner is always who runs fastest. In javelin throw, the winner is always the person who made the furthest throw, and in a chess game, the winner is the champion.

Now, let go to more complex endeavours where some form of objective results can be recognized:

To determine the best lawyer, we must look at the amount of cases won or the value of cases won, or even the difficulty level of the cases won like the Late OJ Simpson Case in the 90s in America that blazened the screens of our televisions, and made newspaper headlines around the world.

To determine the best accountant, we would want to see how effective he is about the books and the amount he is able to save for the organization or the client, among others.

To determine the best enterpreneur, we must look at his Return on Investment, sales, revenue, market share, growth, etc.

To determine the best engineering team, we must look at the size and difficulty of the projects it is handling, the time to complete projects, longevity of the built structures etc.

What all these above have in common is that there are some sort of metrics used to measure them.

What are the metrics you would want us to look at in picking the next governor of Edo State among the three major contestants?

Dr Asue Ighodalo, Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata and Senator Monday Osiagbovo Akpata.