Not all Nigerians subscribe to threats or frightened by the federal might deployed against opposition parties by the presidency. Those in the majority against the ongoing threats are equally preparing a counter at the most ideal time if the democracy is planned to remain.
Refreshing a memory, it was on February 25, 2023 Nigerians trooped to polling units to cast their votes for their most preferred candidates for elective offices, commencing with the presidential and national assembly elections.
Since all politics is local as said, it is only appropriate to study closely the impact of the global crisis of the state we have been tracking on Africa’s most populous state, Nigeria. Like most African nations, Nigeria was badly hit by the multi-dimensional effects of Covid-19 and the Ukrainian conflict.
Economies were rendered parlous by the twin combination of corruption and inefficiency that was further devastated by rising energy bills and critical shortages of food.
Stagflation- evaporating purchasing capacity and galloping inflation- the like of which had never been experienced, became the order of the day courtesy of clueless leadership by the ruling party, APC. Richly endowed African nations, which ought to have stepped forward to reap the bounties and windfalls of the Ukrainian shutdown by filling the gap, became helpless victims of the unfortunate war.
Nigeria saw its capacity to earn substantial revenues from petroleum products, but that was dramatically reduced by massive illegal bunkering of the black gold, cases of malfeasance in NNPCL, and monumental theft of accrued revenue, and the multiple sieges on the state by local and external insurgency, which made even subsistence farming a brave proposition. But if not for the legendary luck of the nation, apocalyptic famine could have set in.
The Nigerian circumstances were however unique and exceptional in the sense that it was holding its most consequential elections since the military reluctantly vacated the political scene to the barracks in the most precarious and desperate of circumstances. Four significant drawbacks can be isolated.
First was the rising insecurity in almost all parts of the country, which had earlier raised the possibility of cancellation or the postponement of the 2015 elections in some parts of the country most hit.
At this point, some of us commended the deployed efforts of security agencies for standing firm against bandits, kidnappers for ransom, armed excluding pen robbers and other criminal elements.
Honestly, if not for the deployed efforts, the entire federation could have been overrun by the heavily armed bandits.
Today, after the 2015 drama tagged election, Nigeria started to gradually transform to a failed state courtesy of activities of clueless leadership, ravaging marauding bandits, kidnappers for ransom and activities of kleptomaniacs in public service.
Imagine a public servant, one criminally-minded Ahmed Farouk, supposedly a staff of NNPCL subsidiary on a monthly salary had the wealth to sponsor his children to choice private schools in Switzerland, and shamelessly claiming innocence of stealing. And the criminal still has the guts to walk on our streets as a proud pen bandit without fear. Imagine, an Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, siphoning over N109billion from public treasury without an iota of reasoning.
The mentally deranged beast is shamelessly claiming innocence.
Secondly was the absence of elite consensus on the conduct of the elections in 2023 or even their desirability. Successful elections are anchored on a substantial elite consensus, which boosts the legitimacy of the outcome and its general acceptability.
The elite consensus on which the Fourth Republic is anchored has been carelessly mismanaged. Never has the Nigerian political elite been more polarized and badly divided than today courtesy of inexperience of party management by the ruling party APC that subscribes to the hokum of winner takes all syndrome.
The third drawback flows from the second. Not even during the First Republic were elections marked by the degree of rancor and divisive rhetoric. Fake news which is still threatening the security of the nation to its foundation, character assassination and the peddling of dangerous and unbelievable rumors, that could lead to ethnic and religious conflagration and the deployment of fake statistics to score cheap political points are the vague these days all for extortion and exploitation.
Finally, there is the ongoing unattended case of abject poverty combined with what can now be described as the debacle of the removal of fuel subsidy.
All of these have rendered tempers very brittle, leading to the possibility of a social explosion at a very critical conjuncture for the nation. Leading candidates past elections shouted foul from the start but ignored by those in authority. Consequently and a few weeks to the 2023 elections, an eerie chill descended on the political arena.
This was irrespective of the excitability and volatile nature of many of the political combatants.
There are many who believe that this time around, we may push our luck too far.
There is nothing so fundamental and ideologically irreconcilable about the positions of the leading actors which ought to warrant the level and degree of personal hostility and mutual intolerance exhibited so far.
Not minding the vituperations from support dogs, political scavengers and street clowns that eke a living from, overheating the polity for unnecessary recognition that adds no value.
The assassination of opposition parties and the art of give and take, of compromise, defection, consensus and conciliation portend grave danger to the polity and is the greatest threat to the continued survival of the Fourth Republic and the postcolonial Nigeria.
The Nigerian political class, particularly the Tinubu brand of governance seems not to have the capacity and composure to learn from history. In the second republic, after the federally engineered unconstitutional impeachment of Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, PRP governor of Kaduna State, Abubakar Rimi, the sole surviving PRP governor in Kano State, having ditched Malam Aminu Kano his benefactor and ideological patron, felt sufficiently embattled to issue a query to the revered Emir of Kano, Dr Ado Bayero (now late) whom Rimi suspected of flirting with the Shagari NPN led federal government.
The query was met with widespread protests in the volatile city of Kano and environs, which saw Kano descending into a wild orgy of arson and assassination, during which Dr. Bala Muhammed, an indigene of Bauchi State and Rimi’s ideological master strategist, political adviser, was burnt to ashes in his bath. The protests signposted the beginning of the end for Abubakar Rimi’s political suzerainty over Kano State.
But the real query was coming for the much respected monarch, and from the emergent military rulers of Nigeria that were waiting in the wings to profit from the political chaos. The Emir and his bosom friend, the Oni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade Olubuse II (now late), were later restricted to their respective palaces for six months by the federal authorities for ‘unauthorized’ communion with State of Israel by the Gen. Buhari military government.
This was not the end of the matter. There was a bitterly ironic twist to unfolding history. After Rimi, humbled and humiliated by political adversity, he was later sentenced to humongous years in jail for corrupt practices, he alluded to a superior judgment hovering in the air.
Not long afterwards, the military regime of Gen. Buhari was tactically swept away from the scene by a frustrated, ambitious rival faction within the military led by Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, a.k.a the Evil Genius.
Based on a reading of the political barometer of the nation, elections started to hold in February 2023 despite the shambolic arrangement and preparations by the Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC.
Those who were huffing and puffing about, threatening that they could prevent elections from holding in their ethnic strongholds reneged for the consequences of such political folly.
The Nigerian Leviathan does not care a hoot about self disenfranchised entitles and enclaves. If the balance of power remains as it is, the illusion of order must proceed willy-nilly.
The real problem could have risen if the elections fell short of general acceptability or adjudged as short of substantial compliance with the electoral provisions.
A lot depended on an electronically sound and technology savvy. INEC as the umpire, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu as chairman and his colleagues ought to have invested in the latest spy ware.
The possibility of an electronic violation of the fundamental integrity of the elections by rogue elements within and in collaboration with outside hooligans remains very rife.
If that could happen, then politics itself is added to the casual list, and no one deserves the trust to preside over the electoral body. In fact, Prof. Yakubu should have, before the expiration of his tenure, opted out or chased out for glaring failure to conduct a credible election.
In 2027, Nigerians will have zero tolerance for anything called inconclusive election that may be in the offing again. We want a credible election without cutting the usual corners! For the democracy to stay, there must be a free, fair, and transparent management of the elections.
We are foreseeing danger signals of massive rigging through INEC and confirmation by the judiciary. That shall be resisted with the last drop of our blood.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed! May the Creator of the Universe, the Omnipresent and Omniscient, save Nigeria from the present hands of Despots, kakistocrats, and Kleptomaniacs! Ameen!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues.
