Reflections on the 2015 elections – Dr. Jideofor Adibe

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, Election 2015, Elections, Jideofor Adibe, PhD, NNP Columnists Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

By Dr. Jideofor Adibe | London, UK | April 21, 2015 – Given the tensions that overheated the polity during the campaigns, we are all relieved it is now all over. Thankfully the predicted Armageddon failed to happen, proving once again that perching on the precipice is the country’s comfort zone. The winners are revelling; the losers are gnashing their teeth. For both sides victory and defeat are probably yet to fully sink in.

Now that that the worst has at least been averted, what lessons can we learn from the elections- the presidential and national assembly elections held on 28 March and the Governorship and House of Assembly elections held on April 11?

Heroes and villains

When the history of the 2015 general elections is written, the question of who are the heroes and villains will inevitably be posed. Public office holders seem to have their defining moments in office – an event for which they will forever be remembered. Whatever may be Jonathan’s performance in office – and his performance is exaggerated by his partisans and grossly underappreciated by his opponents – his singular act of conceding defeat marked him out as the number one hero of the 2015 elections. Should he be made a hero for doing what is routine and expected in mature democracies? My opinion is that he should, not just because his action is not that common in Africa and totally unexpected but also because it probably saved our democracy and prevented the shedding of innocent blood. Remarkably he conceded despite the glaring irregularities in the elections (I strongly suspect that both the APC and PDP rigged the elections in their strongholds while playing the ostrich and accusing the other of rigging). Had Jonathan not conceded, the unfortunate behaviour of Elder Godsday Orubebe, former Minister of Niger Delta, who attempted to disrupt the proceedings of the 2015 presidential election on allegations that Professor Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman was biased, would have been ceased upon by PDP hardliners to challenge the legitimacy of the entire elections.

In my opinion, President Jonathan’s decision to concede fed into the general perception that throughout his regime he did not interfere in the works of INEC. In our type of society INEC is as independent as the actions and the body language of the president would permit it. Additionally, freedom of speech was generally respected under his regime – with no known incidents of politically motivated assassinations and gangsterism as we witnessed in Anambra State when Chris Ngige was the Governor. In this respect, President Jonathan’s most enduring legacy, in my opinion, is in expanding the frontiers of our democratic space.

Another hero of the 2015 elections is Professor Jega. Though INEC under Jega improved from what it was under his predecessor Professor Maurice Iwu, I still believe the electoral body under him performed sub-optimally – given the time it has to prepare and the resources it commands. Jonathan’s decision to concede however meant a legitimation of the elections, making Jega – the only man so far to conduct two consecutive Presidential, National Assembly, Governorship and State House of Assembly elections in Nigeria- an instant hero.

In addition to the above (no one ever did Jega’s job without his reputation being ruined in the process), Professor Jega brought another uncommon quality to the job – display of rare calmness and emotional intelligence even in the face of the most spurious allegations of bias. Given the character of Nigerian politics, accusations of bias and other wild allegations should be expected as part of the hazards of the job. Unlike his predecessors however Jega handled these hazards of the job uncommonly well, with the hallmark of his display of self-control being the way he handled the Orubebe incident. Professor Jega’s comportment throughout his tenure created a public persona of someone who is focused on doing his job professionally and did not want to be distracted. And his declaration that he would not like his tenure to be extended and would not accept an extension if offered, only reinforced this persona.

Another unlikely hero of the elections is the President elect, retired General Muhammadu Buhari. Since his re-branding Buhari appeared to have reined in his propensity to gaffe and actually appears to be enjoying his new-found role as a statesman. Unlike the old Buhari who spoke in blunt terms (as if addressing only his cult followers), the President elect has eschewed triumphalism in words and deeds, even when he went to campaign for the Governorship candidates of his party. By avoiding the triumphalist winner mentality, Buhari helped to set the tone for other winners, making it easier for some losers to concede defeat.

Other heroes of the 2015 elections include losers who graciously conceded defeat and of course millions of Nigerian voters who patiently waited for hours to perform their civic obligations.

The villains of the 2015 elections include the thugs used to disrupt the elections in several parts of the country and the politicians, who, like the Bourbons in France, behaved as if they had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. Another set of villains were the politicians without principle who began decamping from their parties in droves and without without shame into the APC – just because the latter won the presidential election. The sub-text of their action is that they either stand for nothing or have something to hide or are driven by the politics of the goat following the man with the palm fronds. I believe this will be the next frontier in our political development.

Dynamics at Play

What factors drove the elections? I believe that the outcome of the presidential elections showed that ethnicity, regionalism and religion are very active drivers of our politics. It is for instance very obvious that regionalism and religion played roles in the voting outcomes in all parts of the country – in different degrees. However the result also shows that ethnicity, regionalism and religion, while important, will on their own, be insufficient to determine the outcome of elections. They need to interact with other disposing variables. For instance would any other Northern Muslim have been able to sustain the support Buhari did on his supporters in the North since 2003? Why were the Yoruba not as excited about the Buhari/Bakare ticket in 2011 as they are with the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket? Why did the Igbos give Jonathan unprecedented level of support even though he is non-Igbo?

I believe trying to answer the above questions will give us a clue of the variables that interact with our primordial identities to influence electoral outcomes in the country. One of the positive lessons is that the various regional, ethnic and religious factions of the elites will need to cultivate friendship and alliances with others because no group, no matter how much it shouts of marginalization, can win power without going into alliance with others. This understanding can be the spark we need in re-igniting our stalled nation-building process.

At the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections other dynamics were at play – other than the North-South, Christian-Muslim elements. One noticeable mistake political parties often make is to assume that because a candidate has name recognition at the national level, that candidate will automatically be good in playing local politics. The truth is that skills necessary to succeed at national politics may be different from what are needed to thrive at the sub-national level. Also the defining dynamics could be different. For instance the relevant dynamics at the local level could be one’s ethnic or religious group (in multi ethnic and religious states), the Senatorial zone one comes from, the population of one’s senatorial district (or ethnic group) relative to others, the structures on the ground to drive a candidate’s campaign and the perception of the candidate in the state, including the perceptions of the candidate by the critical state actors.

A very interesting state at the Governorship election was Lagos state. The State demonstrated the tension between citizenship rights and indignity (or expectations of the ‘indigenes’ of a cosmopolitan state). While by law Nigerian citizens are free to live, own property and vote or be voted for in any part of the country, the indigenes of a particular cosmopolitan area will often see citizenship rights as intruding on their ancestral rights or their ‘ownership’ of the state. For instance while the Constitution of the country protects Nigerians through their citizenship rights, the ‘indigenes’ of a state are likely to have a dim view of changes in the demographics of their state (or town) that dilutes their ‘ownership’ of the town. This is the tension between citizenship rights and indignity, which is likely to be an issue in many urban areas in the future – given the rate of urbanization and changing demographics in several major towns across the country.

Given the above, my feeling about the widely reported threat by Oba Akiolu of Lagos against the Igbos that they should vote for his candidate Ambode of the APC or drown in the lagoon was that the Oba was miffed that two Igbo candidates won elections into the House of Representatives elections in Lagos – largely because of the changing demographics of the town. Is it possible that Ambode won because the indigenous populations of Lagos tapped into the sentiments expressed by the Oba and came to defend their ‘ownership’ of Lagos? A key lesson from the Lagos Governorship election therefore is that as our democracy matures, we have to find a way of balancing citizenship rights with fears of the ‘indigenous’ peoples amid increasing urbanization and changing demographics.wp_posts

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