WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com
As a developing nation and an evolving democracy with peculiar challenges, the just concluded general elections will continue to supply Nigeria and Nigerians with learning points and insights into the next election cycle and beyond. Rather than spending this time, and as usual, all year round dwelling on irrelevances; fueling inferior non-profiting rhetoric, emotionalism and divisive propaganda bothering on politics, ethnic jingoism, religious parochialism and selfish non-patriotic ideologies built on personal, sectional and vested interests, this should be about time we let go of the unnecessariness, and focus on the creation of the new and possible Nigeria, for all.
It is about time we rewrite the realities of our existence as a nation and a people. We cannot afford, when it is within our reach to stop our nation from remaining a nation dwelling in poverty in the midst of abundance, to continue engaging in these yearslong non-profiting gyrations. An election was lost and won; that is the nature of the game. Winners and losers alike emerge and life continues until the next election cycle as established in the nation’s Constitution. While it is normal for contestants to go to court in the attempts to change announced outcomes of an election, it is wrong and not ever in the interest of the nation for any candidate or their supporters to constitute a nuisance in perpetuity to societal orderliness in a way that makes it impossible for the government and the public to focus on tasks that are sacrosanct to the growth and development we desire and deserve.
Are we going to correct the many anomalies in our body polity by doing what we are doing now? The acute and multi-dimensional poverty engulfing our population; would it disappear with the emotional outburst we are parading in the name of the irrational and uncontrollable Obidient mob we propagate? When are we going to have the time to address the rots in our national education and health sectors, for instance, if we are as encumbered with trivialities as we are now? When we are supposed to be gathering round the table to organise our strength to revolutionise, or at least, reform our moribund energy sector, bringing back to life the national steel power, making the countless abounding natural resources count for the country; and rewrite the name of Nigeria in the lofty position she deserves in the committee of developed nations; we are more than ever interested in projecting a phantom “stolen election” rhetoric to the extent of rendering the country near ungovernable by the lies we spread.
The President-Elect comes with a load of trailing antecedents of leadership, empowerment and sustainable development; Nigerians are hopeful that a reenactment of the Lagos state developmental strategy would do magic for the country; but how would that happen in a system that is polluted with antagonism from all sides? The virulent Obidients have sworn to uphold the lies they are being fed. And the media is hell bent on profiting by propagating the divisive lies of stolen elections and enjoying the patronages that come with it. Religious and ethnic groups are well energised to play politics at the detriment of national cohesion and growth; and a full house is totally divided against itself.
Yet, we have a number of staple challenges. We have insecurity being perpetrated by Nigerians against Nigeria that is engulfing us from all corners of the country. Not done dealing with Boko Haram, the killer herders and the daredevil kidnappers, IPOB and its ESN and affiliates are fast becoming an even greater menace around the Southern corridor of the nation. Our current realities are such that make real development an impossible task; or how do we coordinate development in the midst of gross instability?
We have an uphill task going forward from here if we want to change the narrative for Nigeria. As difficult as it may appear, it is sacrosanct to get all warring factions in the country to sheath their swords and sit for a common unanimous compromise that favours the desires of the federation. I don’t know the exact way that could be done, but it is mandatory if we must move away from the rot that characterises our contemporary union.
Our nation has become a shadow of itself; a mockery of what it could be that it never was given the chance yet to realise its eminent potentials by its own citizens. It is now called a rich nation of poor people; a graveyard of potentials abused and untapped. And from this rot, we must rise as a people done with poverty; as a people set to reclaim their prosperity and grow above limitations.
I have come to the reality now that more needs to be said about the 2023 elections until all of our people, especially, the misinformed and ignorant, wilful or not, who believe and are still lining up behind the ‘stolen mandate’ are jolted back to their senses and reality of a won and loss election. I would suggest, if by any means possible, that we all temporarily jettison our inclinations to religious and regional biases and their resultant expectations from the elections. I would also ask that we temporarily allow objectivity and fact-based conclusions that are eminently appropriate in the questioning of the elections and the outcomes across the country. Was it possible that the Labour Party and its candidate, Peter Obi won the election as some would have us believe? Was there a possibility that the APC candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and now the President-Elect did not win the election? These and many others are pertinent questions that could lay to rest all issues arising from the elections and overthrow intentional propaganda being spread to discredit the elections if we give it a thoughtful and rational consideration.
From a realistic point of view, it was expected that the opposition parties would be well prepared; having their homework done years and months to the elections to unseat the ruling party. The ruling party, as expected, was operating from a certain position of advantages; yet, the APC campaign council especially the Directorate of Election Planing and Monitoring led by Mr. Fashola was up and doing and the President-elect exerted so much in the preparation for the election, and unbelievably much more than any other presidential candidate or contesting party. It is on record that despite the propagated lies and rhetoric of a sick and demented candidate, the APC candidate was the only presidential candidate that campaigned in the entire 36 states of the country and FCT, not mentioning the overbooked schedules within and outside the country. Every state, every corner, all the people, across religions, tribes and unique affiliations were reached by the APC campaign. That is the hallmark of a party and candidate ready to win an election, and you cannot take the outcome away from them.
The preparation for the election is not done online, but on the field. It is done in states, local government areas and remote places of the country. Our electoral delineation provides us with about 196,000 polling units across the country. While other parties were busy gaining social media support, the APC campaign council under the directorate led by Raji Fashola, SAN was busy getting the party agents and vote conversers ready for the elections. Polling agents were trained; brought in consonant with the new Electoral Act and effectively prepared and detailed for the Election Day assignments. Which other political party did that? The Labour Party was more interested in building up media sentiments, and sponsoring unrealistic polls to create false hopes and hopefully energise their support base to greater turnout. It didn’t work as planned. The party could not present polling agents in sizable number of polling stations across the country. How can a party unprepared to the point of not getting party agents ready for a national election be considered ready and capable of winning the same election? From where will the party access real time results from polling units to coordinate its results computation and follow-ups? And as it has been repeatedly said over and over by discerning minds, a negligible violence in some polling units across the country cannot invalidate the outcome of the entire elections as some naive and parochial partisans would want to believe unreasonably.
Every right thinking person would know before the election that the number was in favour of the ruling APC. Politics remains a game of numbers and the player with the number wins the election. APC has that; regardless of all online and media lies, the party remains strong with its voting base. Almost every APC voter in 2019 remains APC voter in 2023 and contrary to the same lies that Nigerians were rejecting the party, many across the country who benefited from the gross performances of the APC-led government silently lined up for the party candidate during the elections.
The same cannot be said about the opposition parties and all the major contestants; they were one and together until a few weeks and days to the PDP primaries. Suddenly the already struggling PDP produced three presidential candidates from its camp but under three different parties. They went all ahead to divide the voting base of PDP; Obi took away the entire South-east and the full chunk of the Igbo votes across the country from PDP. And made a spoil of the party again in the Christian dominated parts of Kaduna and other North-central states. Kwankwoso took it all, perhaps, spitefully from its former party, PDP in Kano state. PDP took what was left that Obi could not afford because of the religious and regional games he played in the North-east. How on earth would it be possible for APC to be defeated in such an arrangement? Why would APC come strong second in many states it lost if not because PDP was a house divided against itself.
It was obvious the election could not have had any other outcome than the victory of the APC candidate. And now, it is high time we all accepted the facts of the presidential result and move on with the task of developing the country.
For the ruling APC and the President-Elect, the task is enormous. The President-Elect needs all hands on deck to revamp the country. It is a fact that there is too much anger in the country; the people need reassurance that comes from real performance to begin to develop trust again in the leadership and governance directions. This is not the time to allow sycophants and self-serving politicians and individuals around the corridors of power.
APC and the President-Elect in his usual manner and in line with his famous antecedence, must consider nothing short of capacity in the selection of his co-drivers in his coming administration. The campaign council paraded a number of unreliable elements who must not be allowed to walk their ways into government functionaries, particularly the critical ones, in the coming administration. Sycophants, who were more interested in protecting themselves and the accolades they amass from being around the principal and never what they can contribute to the plights of the nation. Elements who were busy organising self-serving and self-promoting rallies and programs that point to their apparently narrow commitment to the person of the principal, and not the nation and its diversities. It would not be a function of being around the principal all times, but rather, that of contributions and plausible national effective contribution and capacities. These men and women must and have to be put at arm length in the interest of performance and efficiency of the incoming government.
It is obvious that men of the caliber of the current Minister of Works, Mr. Raji Fashola, cannot be allowed to stay off the radar. Not only has he been a credible element of the Buhari Administration for the last eight years, he has performed remarkably well and his unparalleled contributions to the party success at the presidential poll cannot go without appreciation. In whatever capacity, Mr. Fashola must be a critical element in the incoming government.
Mr. Fashola is not tired; he has got so much more to offer Nigeria. We cannot let him go yet. It is not yet time to rest. There is so much to be done and his likes are the sure and trusted hands to employ. You don’t buy experience and competence in stores or by the roadside.
There is a lot to be done; and we hope we will just get it right beginning with the next political dispensation.
