In few days time, Nigerians may be trooping to various designated polling units located in various electoral wards throughout the federation to cast their votes for their most preferred candidates contesting electoral offices beginning with the presidential and national assembly elections in February.
Since all politics is local as it is 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 has been badly hit by the multi-dimensional effects of Covid-19 and the Ukrainian conflict. Economies have already been rendered parlous by the twin combination of corruption and inefficiency have further devastated by rising energy bills and critical shortages of foodstuffs.
Stagflation—–evaporating purchasing capacity and galloping inflation—-the like of which has not been seen has become the order of the day. Richly endowed African nations which ought to have stepped forward to reap the bounties and windfalls of the Ukrainian shutdown by filling the gap have become helpless victims of the unfortunate and uncalled for war.
Nigeria has seen its capacity to earn substantial revenues from petroleum products dramatically reduced by massive theft of the black gold from source and the multiple, siege on the state by local and external insurgency which has made even subsistence farming a brave proposition. But for the legendary luck of the nation, apocalyptic famine would have set in.
The Nigerian circumstances are however unique and exceptional in the sense that it is 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 is the rising insecurity in parts of the country which has raised the possibility of cancellation or the postponement of elections in those parts of the country. At this point, some of us have to commend the deployed efforts of Rt. Hon. Ahmed Idris Wase CON (Deputy Speaker House of Representatives) for standing firm against those bandits that hitherto had field days in his federal constituency of Wase in Plateau State. Honestly, if not for his efforts, the entire federal constituency could have been overrun by the heavily armed bandits. Today, the federal constituency is saved from the ravaging and marauding bandits. Elections can safely hold without fear.
Second is the absence of elite consensus on the conduct of the elections or even their desirability.
Successful elections are anchored on substantial elite consensus which boosts the legitimacy of the outcome and their general acceptability. The elite consensus on which the Fourth Republic is anchored has been carelessly mismanaged. Never have the Nigerian political elite been more polarized and badly divided than today.
The third drawback flows from the second. Not even during the First Republic have elections been marked by the degree of rancor and divisive rhetoric. Fake news which threatens the security of the nation to its foundation, character assassination and the peddling of dangerous and unbelievable rumors, that can lead to ethnic and religious conflagration and the deployment of fake statistics to score cheap political points have been the vague these days all for extortion and exploitation.
Finally, there is the ongoing acute scarcity of petroleum products combined with what can now be described as the debacle of currency change. All of this have, rendered tempers very brittle, leading to the possibility of a social explosion at a very critical conjuncture for the nation. Leading candidates in the forthcoming elections have already shouted foul.
Consequently and a few weeks to the elections, an eerie chill has descended on the political arena. This is irrespective of the excitability and volatile nature of many of the political combatants. There are many who believe that this time around, we are pushing 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. 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 adding no value.
The assassination of politics and the art of give and take, of compromise, 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 state as we know it in Nigeria.
The Nigerian political class does not seem to have the capacity 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 whom Rimi had suspected of flirting with the Shagari led federal government.
The query was met with widespread protests in the volatile city of Kano and environs which saw Kano descending into wild orgy of arson and assassination during which Dr. Bala Muhammed an indigene of Bauchi and Rimi’s ideological master strategist as 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.
But the real query was coming for the much admired Emir, 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 late Oni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade Olubuse II, were later restricted to their respective palaces for six months by the federal authorities for ‘unauthorized’ communion with Israel.
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 the Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was tactically swept away from the scene by a frustrated, ambitious rival faction within the military led by Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
Based on a reading of the political barometer of the nation, elections will start to hold from this month of February, despite the shambolic arrangement and preparations. Those who are currently huffing and puffing about, threatening that they will prevent elections from holding in their ethnic strongholds ought to know 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 will arise if the elections fall short of general acceptability or is adjudged as falling short of substantial compliance with the electoral provisions. A lot will depend 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 were to happen, politics itself will be added to the casuality list and no one deserves a trust to preside over the electoral body. In fact, Prof. Yakubu should opt out or be chased out for glaring failure. No inconclusive election should be in the offing. We want a credible election without cutting the usual corners!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
