Barring another last-minute orchestration, the much anticipated 2015 presidential election will hold in four days. Presidential campaigns will officially stop on Thursday, bringing this unusual campaign season to a much needed end. As we embark on the countdowns, it is important to start thinking of the serious tasks ahead on March 28 and in the critical days after. We need to reset to a post-campaign mode. We need to start thinking more as citizens than as partisans. And we need to return to the very important work that electioneering has distracted us from.
This campaign season has been the most bruising and animated in recent history. Perhaps, it couldn’t have been otherwise, given how competitive this election had been projected, and has turned out, to be. In a way, the level of interests now expressed in politics by previously uninterested constituencies is very healthy. At a time when people are tuning out of politics in other climes, this could be described as an indicator of how well our democracy is growing. But so many aspects of these campaigns are far from being healthy. In fact, they point more to democratic decline than growth.
In place of reasoned discussions of and deliberations on issues, we have, at best, been treated to vacuous sound-bites and un-interrogated promises. But it has also been worse. We have seen gratuitous attacks and puerile insults of the ‘your-mouth-is-smelling’ type. We have seen regrettable retreats to sectional hideouts and increasing polarisation and profiling. We have seen threats issued and physical attacks launched, including, and unpardonably, on our president. And we have also seen other forms of violence, including many deaths.
Most of these unhealthy practices do not have a place in a democracy that is growing, and could actually undermine the democratic project in a fractious society such as ours. Many Nigerians are going into this election with so much fear and loathing. The outside world has been hauled into the knots of anxiety, worried that the bellicose contestation for power in Nigeria could, if not well handled, accentuate our country’s fault-lines, compound our developmental and security challenges, and lead to a meltdown that could create a contagion that could put our region and other parts of the world at risk.
Never in the history of elections in this fourth republic or the three others before it have we received so much outside interests or talking to as at the moment. At the last count, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has issued three statements on Nigeria. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former president of South Africa, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, the US Secretary of State, Mr. John Kerry and the US Vice-President, Senator Joe Biden, have either visited or spoken to the two leading presidential candidates to enjoin them to eschew violence and call on their supporters to do same. Yesterday, US President Barack Obama did a direct broadcast to Nigerians, the first of such ever, urging us to vote peacefully. Some national peace committees, headed by distinguished Nigerians, are also busy at work on how to minimise possible post-election violence.
It is now a received wisdom that violence is inevitable after this election, a narrative which has been reinforced, unfortunately, by the level of pre-election violence and by the desperate and belligerent ways the campaigns have been conducted. As stated before on this page, I am not a fan of this Armageddon hypothesis. I do strongly believe that violence is preventable, not inevitable. I think this doomsday narrative is either tendentious, designed to blackmail people to vote in a particular way or intended to prepare the ground for what some bad losers plan to do. I also think that the narrative infantilises Nigerians as a people who will always resort to violence to settle an argument or a dispute. But as I also said before, even if we agree that there is a possibility of violence, the real task is not in analysis or prediction, but in preventing the prediction from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. To this extent, all the national and international interventions in ensuring that this landmark election turns out to be peaceful, free and fair should be commended.
However, a lot on how this election turns out will depend on what we do as Nigerians and the extent to which we show that we, as citizens and leaders, have really imbibed the democratic spirit. As said above, one of the positives of this election season is the intense level of engagement by Nigerians across various lines. This is laudable, as democracy needs active interests and engagement by citizens to thrive and for it to stand a chance of translating to good governance. But citizen engagement must go beyond having passion for, and expressing same about, candidates and parties. It must extend to the willingness to submit to due process on election day, to accept outcomes and, if unhappy with the results, to seek redress through established institutions. Democracy has inbuilt mechanism for addressing disputes, and violence or self-help is not one of them.
As the late Professor Claude Ake memorably stated, we cannot have democracy without having democrats. Being democrats entails reconciling ourselves to the fact that this is a game of numbers and that we cannot always have our ways, no matter the depth of our passion or conviction. Being democrats means embracing the sporting spirit that allows us to contest keenly within the rules, to know when the game is over, and to even hug the opponent and possibly swap kits after. We need to show that after 16 years of constant practice we have become real democrats and have fully internalised the culture of democracy.
But we also need to realise that the democratic culture is not exhibited only at election periods. We need to build on and sustain the present level of interests in politics, not necessarily at the partisan level but definitely at the citizen level. Whether our preferred candidate wins or not, the resultant government belongs to all of us and must be made to serve all. We need to continue to put the government on its toes, to ensure that government’s policies and decisions align with our needs and priorities, and that government continues to work for us rather than for itself.
The nexus between democracy and good governance is not automatic. The possibility of a link is not established merely by having regular and credible elections but when the ruled organise themselves and constantly demand responsive and effective performance from their rulers and constantly hold their feet to the fire. It is trite to say that the supply of good governance has been abysmal in our clime. But we also need to remember that no one will supply what is not actively demanded. We therefore need to parlay the passion of the moment (sans its bad temper) into a strong and effective demand for transparent, accountable, competent and equitable governance.
As there is space for active citizenship beyond March 28, there is even a bigger space for leadership from the two leading candidates, especially when the result does not favour them. Sure, the readiness of citizens to play by the rules on election day and after the results are announced will go a long way in preventing the overly predicted doomsday. But much more will depend on how whoever loses swiftly rises to the occasion. In this wise, there is almost equal burden on both General Muhammadu Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan. It will be nice for whoever loses to concede victory and congratulate the announced winner. But they don’t have to concede if they don’t think they have lost fairly. If unsatisfied with the results, they should calm their supporters and announce they will seek redress in the courts. Seeking redress is part of the democratic process. Inciting followers or looking the other way while they go berserk is not.
If he doesn’t emerge the winner, Buhari will bear the burden of demonstrating that he is really the converted democrat that he claims to be. He will also bear a huge responsibility for ensuring the country doesn’t go up in flames by proactively reaching out to his cultic followers who have been typecast as given to violence. Submitting himself to the democratic process for four times without success could be frustrating, especially having come this close. But democrats accept democratic outcomes or seek redress through democratic means. A defeated Buhari should draw comfort and strength from the fact that he eventually achieved a cross-over appeal in this election cycle and that he became the arrowhead of a movement that shook an incumbent to his core. He has put in a good shift and time has been good to him. If he loses, he should bow out with his chin held high.
If he loses, Jonathan will make history as the first incumbent to be defeated in Nigeria. But he won’t be the first and the last in the world. As the greatest beneficiary of democracy in Nigeria (he has been in government in one elective capacity or the other since 1999), he has a responsibility to sustain democracy in the country. He needs to proactively rein in his supporters in the Niger Delta who have vowed not to accept anything other than his victory. He needs to resist the temptation to use state apparatus to dig in and he needs to repel the hawks who will encourage him to pull down the whole house. As the president of Nigeria, he has both the constitutional and moral obligations to keep Nigeria together. A defeated Jonathan should draw comfort from the fact that both God and Nigeria have been extremely good to him and that, given his humble beginnings, he has given a good account of himself. If he loses, he should exit like a statesman. History will be kind to him.
After the election is won and lost and when the dust is settled, we all (citizens and leaders) need to return to the serious task of healing and fixing our country. There is so much and urgent work to be done. But consumed by electioneering, we have taken our eyes off, or even compounded, this important task. This heavy-lifting work that will not be done by simply chanting ‘change’ or ‘continuity’. That is the poetry of campaigns. The real work will be done in laborious and inelegant prose.
THISDAY
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