Recently, British Prime Minister David Cameron completed a trip to the United States. Aside all the talk of getting the oil giant BP to clean up the oil mess in the gulf of Mexico and expressing displeasure at the release of the Lockerbie bomber which was what got all the news attention, there was something else about the trip which we really should be interested in. Mr. Cameron travelled to the US in a commercial flight, flying business class. Perhaps I should repeat this for emphasis, Business class not first class. Commercial flight not Prime ministerial Jet.

This has nothing to do with Mr. Cameron not having taste or being too modest a person and preferring to advertise his humility to the whole world, or perhaps for some political gains. Well may be it was really for political gains. Political gains of a different kind. Not the kind that is aimed at securing more selfish illicit favours like we are used to here. But the kind that has to do with keeping your words to the people and of fulfilling the dictates of your Party manifesto on which you rode to power.

Cameron and his Conservative party have not hidden their plans to cut costs and had let Britons know long before now that it was time to tighten up their belts. The people who were tired of years of Labour party’s more of the same policies, an expensive senseless war in Iraq and a global melt down that hit real bad, elected them to power. Well may be not alone, along side the Liberal Democrats. But the agenda was set all the same and a series of policies and conscious steps have since been taken, leaving no body in doubt that these guys mean business.

Subjecting himself to such low key travel, one which some Local Government Chairmen in Nigeria would consider an insult was the Prime Ministers way of leading by example. A very Good example I must say.

Mr. Cameron’s act provides a lesson in fulfilling electoral promises and operating by the ideologies of political parties, both of which are characteristics lacking among Nigerian politicians. Indeed the parties essentially do not have distinct ideologies. It would be an interesting pass time placing a copy of the manifestos of the major political parties side by side and playing a game of spot the difference.

Perhaps even more striking is the observation that while other otherwise more prosperous countries of the world are busy cutting down on costs and expenditure, saving more to provide a better life of their people, we in Nigeria are busy struggling to take the first position in the world chart of big spenders.

The National assembly has only just approved 17billion for the 50^th Anniversary celebration according to NEXT newspaper. Only last week, the same National Assembly stated that they spent a whooping 5bn in the review of the Constitution. This is a review that produced less than minor amendments, most of which were simply a change in semantics and a reconstruction of sentences.

Yet in this same country, long suffering workers are forced to accept a paltry increase in pay. Pensioners carry placards to get their pensions. The banks are refusing to lend and businesses are dying. Unemployment is skyrocketing and the level of misery in the land is unimaginable.

It is high time we got our economic priorities right and defined our standards. In many ways, this goes back to the issue of party Manifestos which should be the basis on which candidates are elected to office and against which they would be assessed while in office and thereafter.