And
the elections were postponed. Ghosts of the predicted came alive. The
usual culprits were willing tools; elements in the military, political
leaders who abused the commonwealth and traditional apologists who
profit from abusive public authority. What was more ridiculous than the
lack of grace of bringing a people to ridicule in the eyes of the world
that will wonder how those Nigerians cannot organise something as
routine as an election, was the way people went about justifying the
shift in date.
I watched Sunrise Daily on Channels
Television the Monday after and found Lagos Peoples Democratic Party
Chairman, Tunde Shelle, struggling to stretch imagination in response to
questions relating to the postponement. He summed up the loss of a
sense of shame in Nigeria when he was asked what he would do if as
Commander-in-Chief, his officials in charge of security came to him
barely hours before elections and told him they could not guarantee
security during elections. Shelle concentrated on lampooning the
Independent National Electoral Commission, suggesting that for love of
voters and ensuring no one was denied the opportunity to vote he would
move the elections for six months and even much longer, if necessary.
A
number of fears I had, which I had tweeted the night before, were
crystallising in concrete from Shelle’s answers. The first was that
INEC, far from being independent, had been pushed into postponing
elections it had indicated it was ready for. Second, it was clearly part
of the goal of the PDP leadership he was part of, to upset INEC
Chairman, Attahiru Jega, enough to make him, as an honourable man,
choose to throw in the towel. His resignation would be manna from heaven
for them to declare Force Majeure and cancel the elections, primarily
because they are far from believing in democracy but simply see the
democratic process as a useful vehicle to acquire power and use the
state for their other intentions. Three, that they have enough contempt
for the people that their protests against shift of date
notwithstanding, an election in which the signals pointed to an
electorate so fed up with the extant order was targeted to be thwarted.
The indications were they would vote anything but the current order so
whatever would avert a looming will of the people, even if it damaged
our institutions and burdened several generations with the consequence
of failed electoral institutions, seemed fair game to fracture.
Four;
and very importantly, six weeks is only a first go, and that the prize
was high enough to either topple the democracy of this moment rather
than lose power after 16 years of the feast of the locust, or keep power
at any cost.
I have tried hard to have an open mind about what
may be the justification for the aborting of the pledged election dates
but find most of those offered hard to think of as logical and often as
quite spurious.
They say the main issue is security. Poor
Professor Jega not being a security man throws his hands up in the air.
But how logical is it that threats you have not contained in more than
five years can suddenly become amendable in six weeks because you need
to have elections. If that is likely, then those who have not dealt with
it for so many years must face consequences for dereliction of duty.
There
are those who also ask the question; how come previous elections took
place in the Niger Delta states when an insurgency was located there;
and how come the political parties have been able to campaign in some of
those states in question in the North-East.
When held down on
the security score, they turn to the challenge of the Permanent Voter
Card distribution. I am amazed these people have the kind of conscience
they lacked in previous elections. If the President had asked for advice
from me six months ago, I could have told him how to be a hero. Avoid
contesting these elections. But we know from Machiavelli that those who
profit from an old order will do anything to prevent a new order from
coming about. So, those who parasite on the Nigerian state around him,
goaded him on to the point of fouling up his place in history. Decency,
because it was said privately, prevents me from mentioning something he
said to me, in the presence of one other person six years ago which made
me certain he would not fall into this trap. But we are back to 1993
and 1997. Back then our conscience led us to the founding of the
Concerned Professionals and a long-drawn struggle for democracy. I did
not know it would happen again in my lifetime. But man proposes, not
sure now who disposes, but this does not look like God.
It is
amazing that this plausible, but not thought too incredible to play
track, has become reality, throwing up amazing dilemmas. Clearly, they
want to abort this democracy. So, why, someone asked, should someone
like me who talks about the error of 1999 and the error of how the wrong
people entered the political process because many true leaders did not
take the departure of the Army seriously, not celebrating an opportunity
to end it. Having entered the system, at a time of high oil rent, with
little accounting, and pillaged the commonwealth, they used that to
erect barriers of entry in which money, and not capacity or sense of
service, determined the path of politics, an objectionable system
emerged, I have indeed argued. So, why would I not be thankful, that no
matter the motives of those who are trying to sabotage this flawed
civilian regime, an opportunity to begin again may be the result of
their effort.
The question is how far back do we go each time in
this recursive evolution? I have worked so hard to move Nigeria close
to where Ghana reached some years ago, where confidence is established
with the system as incumbents are replaced by opposition, and back, in
election cycles. To always start afresh when allowing the will of the
people to adjust, past errors, is possible. For all one cares, electing
anyone but an incumbent, as happened when I lived in the United States
in 1980, anyone but Carter (ABC) can lead to something less attractive,
but it allows the rejected to clean up their act and possibly return in
the next round, the better leaders. For the Americans, depending on your
prism, the 1980 election of President Ronald Reagan resulted in the
renewal of the American spirit.
But what can we learn from this
thing that is repeating itself, one more time, in my lifetime. Why is
the desire for power so consuming and make people lose sight of the
damage they do to their country when these unsavory power grab games are
played.
You wonder do these people see the Al Gores who walk
away from election outcomes they could have contested, when they
diminish their country after so many years in power. The incumbent
vice-president with a majority of the popular vote and a questionable
Florida count that affected the electoral college, walked quietly.
I
believe a number of things are important to save us all this global
humiliation. First, we must make power so much less attractive that only
people of capacity, chasing a place in history, should be attracted to
the arena. This should mean stripping public office of the excesses of
public resources, the trappings of prestige, and the extent of
discretion available to public office holders. It must also mean
building up civil society to be strong in holding power accountable.
To
make civil society a tool for institution building in reducing the
motivation for desperation to hold onto power, it should have training
on how to test the truth of claims by incumbents. Were such available to
the despicable lies about accomplishments of incumbents during the
ongoing campaigns would be put through a truth-o-meter which can lead to
more care in claims. Watching the campaign adverts, one would think
Nigeria was one Eldorado in which all were cheering for more of what we
have, something quite different from what the Legatum Report suggests is
one of the most miserable places to be born on earth and in which I
have been getting less than four hours of public power a day for quite a
while. But the media and the civil society continue to disappoint. As I
write, I am receiving calls on what the civil society is being
compromised with in Wadata House headquarters of the PDP.
I just have trouble understanding how we seem to be able to live with this world of justifying the lie.
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