By Chido Onumah
These are perturbing
times. On the eve of what promises to be Nigeria’s fiercest election, one that
has set the country on edge, it is important that we sound alarm bells.
Even though we have seen
it all before – whether we are talking about the 1964/65 elections (postponed for several weeks due to disagreements
over the voters’ list) that precipitated the first military
coup in January 1966 and the civil war the year after or the June 12, 1993
debacle and the Interim National Government (ING) contraption that followed – Nigeria
today is in uncharted waters. We haven’t had an election this close with war
raging in a part of the country.
The angst that
followed the postponement, by the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), of the presidential election scheduled for this weekend is therefore
understandable.
The speech by Prof. Attahiru Jega, Chairman of INEC, announcing
the postponement has been debated widely by Nigerians. Clearly, there are many
questions begging for answers.
But if we focus on Jega, his pronouncements and
the “politics” surrounding the postponement, we miss the forest for the trees.
And here, I am not addressing the party faithfuls who can’t see the big picture
even if it is as large as the 400-metre monolith called Aso Rock.
Even though I have
strong reservations about elections holding on the new dates announced by INEC,
I am inclined to give Prof. Jega and INEC the benefit of the doubt. I sincerely
hope all eligible Nigerians get the opportunity to collect their Permanent
Voters’ Card (PVC) and that the war on terror would have been won appreciably
in the next six weeks to justify the postponement.
So, while we continue
to prepare for the elections, patriots and active civil society – or what is
left of it – should necessarily begin to interrogate why every election (and
census, I must add) in Nigeria is a referendum on the continued existence of
the country and why elections have literally become wars that the military
would have to “supervise”.
It is for this reason
that we must do a deep and sincere reflection on the current situation. If we
do, we will, undoubtedly, arrive at the conclusion that more than anything
else, we need a genuine national conversation about whether this country is sustainable
the way it exists today.
President Jonathan was
elected president in 2011 in a bloody election (postponed from January to
April) that witnessed the death of hundreds of Nigerians, including patriotic
youth who were serving their fatherland. He became president by default the
year before following the death of his principal, Umaru Yar’Adua, who came to
power in 2007 in one of the most farcical elections the country has witnessed.
President Yar’Adua,
alongside then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, was anointed by his
predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, who was handpicked by the military, on the eve
of their “departure” in 1999, to return the country to “civilian” rule. It was
the same Obasanjo, as an army general in 1979, who ushered in the country’s 2nd
Republic which was led by President Shehu Shagari who was overthrown in 1983 by
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari – who is currently running for president – in a coup that
saw the country go through four military regimes in 16 years, the annulment by
Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, of the June 12, 1993 election won by Moshood Abiola –
who was murdered by the military regime of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar while in
detention – and ultimately, the return of a retired general as president in
1999.
Clearly, our
democracy so-called is nothing but “Army Arrangement”, apologies to Afrobeat
maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Then again, the question is, can we really blame
our military? Looking at our history, is it out of place to say, as someone has
noted, that Nigeria was rigged to fail?
Nigeria’s rapacious
ruling class is salivating about the prospects of retaining power or coming to
power. They have a right, going by our current constitution, to do so. What the
ruling class – those in power now, those who have been in power and those who
are seeking power, whether civilian or military – don’t have the right to do is
to imperil the mass of our people.
Of course, I don’t
expect the protagonists in this tragicomedy that Nigeria has become to
appreciate much less work to mitigate the clear and present danger. How then do
we as a people break this vicious circle? It’s simple. Let genuine patriots, humanists, active
civil society, if there is still anything so-called, stop worrying about which section of
the ruling class will lose or benefit from the actions, inaction, greed and
idiocy of Nigeria’s power blocs or what, for example, the current postponement
has done or would do to our image in the comity of nations.
We have to forge a nation before we can compete or meet the
standards set by the “international community”. The current crisis will fester
and it is hard to predict the outcome. There is no other option but to confront
this dilemma frontally.
conumah@hotmail.com; follow me on Twitter @conumah
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