The Nigerian political constellation is forming up. The stars have aligned since the primaries ended and too many political astrologers are reading the horoscope and interpreting the signs already. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has scheduled campaigns to officially kick off on the 28th just a few days from now.
Officially, campaigns may not have started but indeed, they started the moment expressions of interest began. And the contents of the campaigns often leave much to be desired. Far from their political blueprints, the landscape is often saturated with divisive, provocative and incendiary stuff.
Talking about campaigns always reminds one of the epic democratic primaries between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama in the 2008 Democratic Party nominations in the United States. Both aspirants saw great potentials in the African American electorate as they went from state to state selling their candidature.
But seeing Obama gaining grounds and winning even in states where opinion polls had clearly given her the advantage, Mrs. Clinton began to lose nerve and take derogatory swipes at Obama. Her front-runner status was on shaky grounds and with hindsight, her fears were well founded. Obama not only won the party nomination, he went on to win the presidency. Post-election, both closed ranks and worked together in the interest of their country.
Primaries and campaigns in the US and Nigeria are worlds apart. So are institutional fidelity and other benchmarks. But as happened between Hilary and Obama, campaigns could get dirty and candidates could really get piggy with mud even “in the abroad”, to use a street parlance. Generally, except by numbers, there is really no point equating apples and oranges.
Nigeria’s democratic journey is once more at the critical juncture of touching the red lines from all sides. We are on the eve of the season of political marketing. And ours, like in most other indices, is the largest political market in Africa.
While still awaiting the final list from INEC, it is projected that about 96.2 million Nigerians are on the register of voters. This is nearly the size of the population of Egypt – 102,334, 404 (2020); and more than the entire population of DR Congo – 89, 561, 403 (2020) – the third and fourth largest countries in Africa respectively.
That is the size of the audience Nigeria’s political contenders and pretenders will be patronizing between September 28 to midnight of February 23rd 2023, when the campaigns will end. With an enlightened electorate and competent aspirants, campaigns should be actually very interesting – as crystal ball of the leadership selection process. But here, the reality is at the opposite end of the ideal.
There are at least two sides to every Nigerian politician. The first is the generous, meek, and friendly vote-seeking candidate. The second is the demagogue – an unapproachable incumbent who avoids, even despises his constituents. One is the office seeker hiring the largest crowds prior to elections; the other, an elected official who cannot stand the crowd and their wailings.
The two characters are diametrically opposed, even if the politician remains one and the same person. The vote seeker is the salesman, marketer, gambler, con-artist and trader rolled into one. This is about the only time our VIPs will patronize the roadside corn-seller, ride on okada, do community service and visit IDP camps in the full glare of still and motion cameras. Look for them in the same circumstances after they assume office and you would score a blank.
Campaigns automatically heal their claustrophobia! And quite amazingly too. For once in office, they hound the akara and corn-seller off the roadside, erect human barricades before appearing in public, and can hardly bear to share the public highway with anyone else other than their amour-plated vehicular ‘beasts’ and menacing security details.
On the streets, it is a lucrative season for printers, advertisers and the electronic media. It is a bumper harvest of free money for touts and thugs alike. It is about the only season they are employed. Their stock gets bullish with complimentary supply of everything necessary to unsettle a normal person – including arms, drugs and charms. And they are handy foot soldiers for all the street fights and anomalies that may have to be visited on opponents.
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It is the period when their masters sell everything other than value to discerning and uncritical members of the electorate – better still, shove anything down their throats. Nonetheless, warts and all, they add value to small businesses and lubricate the economy with slush funds, even blood money.
It is also a period of mass bribes – when political office seekers trade off everything - from seasoning cubes, noodles, kitchen salt, to cups of rice and currency notes - in exchange for votes. It is about the only time the constituents get to interact with their representatives ‘door-to-door’, ‘neighbour-to-neighbour’ and in the village square. They surely come down from their high and low horses at this time – about the only time they do so before retreating into their manors.
They can endure the inconvenience to vacate their lush abodes in the cities either as aspiring councilors, chairmen, legislators, governors or presidents in waiting. They shed the fear of the unknown and come within touching distance of ordinary folks. Once in power, their aides use trained shoulders and elbows, gun butts or live rounds to shove the masses out of the way; and sirens and escorts to corral commuters off the streets – built with taxes they don’t pay and remnants of resources they couldn’t lay hands on.
All of these will begin in the next one week. Ideally, aspirants are expected to unfurl their manifestoes and engage opponents with vibrant debates on salient national issues.
But given our peculiarities, it is time to also expect third forces like the civil society and the media to weigh in on the side of uncritical and gullible electorate.
Most citizens are only able to assess aspiring leaders at face value. But it is the civil society, alongside the media who have the capacity to navigate the maze of history, geography and socio-economic realities that bring out candidates and issues in bold relief for public scrutiny. They are able to help the electorate at making informed decisions.
With their access and networks too, they are able to survey and monitor regulatory institutions for accountability and fair play. The electoral umpire with the aid of NGOs and law enforcement shouldn’t be caught napping, as the political class are very well prepared to subvert due process and spring judicial or any other kind of ambush.
The conflict dynamics in our polity are more pronounced than ever and are forcing even neutrals into the confines of religion and identity politics. Taking the major contenders for the presidency in next year’s general elections in perspective, these issues have assumed greater significance in the political space and are not to be taken for granted. Civil society organiations like the National Peace Committee headed by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, therefore, have as much fish on the plate as there are bones to look out for.
This last phase of our political pregnancy is as euphemistically dramatic and would have made a significant comic relief were it not for its mind boggling features. It is an official period for the trading of insults and invectives, ferreting out vices and scandals, arson, brigandage, even murder and juju. Everything unsavoury will be exhumed and weaponised to run down opponents. It is a season when hatchet men are at their best, brewing distortions and changing narratives as long as there is a master who can pay.
The difference between campaign promises and their fulfilment is at the heart of the trust deficit between citizens and political leaders. And leadership ought to be centred around trust and accountability.
As the candidates mount the soap box, the question remains: what would be our response to all the political drama? Are we betting on stomach infrastructure because the moment they get into office is the last time we would see them on the street? Or are we talking Christian/Muslim generous/stingy old/young and abracadabra? What really are the issues?