Four months ago when we were on our marks for the 2023 elections, this column highlighted three areas for close monitoring: INEC preparedness, hate speech and issues-driven campaign.
Seventeen days before the presidential elections we are unlikely to get more than what we have largely had on policy issues: broad promises and aspirations that read like prayers. There have been no debates where the three leading presidential candidates confront one another’s policies and track record on the same platform.
The town hall meetings have been few and sporadically attended, with most candidates preferring to engage with the media and/or through videos, leaving us with little opportunity to interrogate candidates in real time. Despite the belief of 89 percent of Nigerians that the country is headed in the wrong direction, we did not take advantage of the seemingly interminable campaign season to interrogate candidates on how they will repair the economic, social and political damage and rebuild for the future.
With gubernatorial elections still 34 days away, arguably there is time, at the state level, to bring candidates together in the way that Lagos did (Sanwoolu) but governors are too busy with lawsuits, lobbying the president about the naira redesign and trying to ‘deliver their states’, labouring under the impression that Nigeria in 2023 is Nigeria in 2007, forgetting BVAS and a more determined electorate.
Instead of hearing candidates on policy and issues, our ears are filled with hot words and hate speech that as usual speak to our carefully cultivated suspicions about each other. There are those who speak about domination of one part of the country over others when in fact we are all dominated and oppressed except for the one percent in influential government positions and those whose wealth largely insulates them from the dysfunction of the ‘open concentration camp’ that Nigeria is (a Seun Kuti description).
Then there are the put downs and insults that accompany some presidential campaign rallies – this one, that one, boy, my turn – as if to say, ‘I don’t have anything meaningful to say as I stand in front of you, cognizant (one hopes) of the hardship that I and my party have inflicted on you, so let me attempt to distract you’.
Toxic campaign rhetoric is not new to Nigeria, but with social cohesion more frayed than usual, and the three leading candidates mirroring the ethnic representation of the 1965 elections that preceded the 1966 coup, one would expect politicians in office to take care not to exacerbate the problem. Yet we have the governor of Kaduna sneering at Christians in the north in his analysis of Peter Obi’s chances saying ‘how many are they?’ For him, and unfortunately many others, religion is a useful way to campaign, to make people abused by decades of oppression and neglect believe that even if they have nothing, sharing the same religion with the president/governor somehow makes them superior.
In a way, the long campaign period is a blessing for those looking outside campaign fever, for clues about the character of candidates – because the more candidates talk, they reveal themselves. We know the bullies and the scared, the ones brimming with entitlement, the ones who are gracious and good natured, who ignore attempts to insult and the ones who are empathetic and this knowledge is important. If we learned anything from eight years of Buhari, it is how important a person’s character and nature is to leading. Power makes you more of who you are, Michelle Obama says, and while we are good at excusing what we know when primordial nerves are charged, by their words and friends we know them.
Read also: INEC boosts confidence of electorate with BVAS test in Edo
INEC’s chairman exudes a confidence that is convincing but could it be the calm before the storm. INEC capture is always a risk – from partisan appointments at the national and state level, to compromised staff within and YIAGA Africa’s conservative risk evaluation indicates how prevalent INEC capture is. The current fuel, power and naira scarcity will also have detrimental impact on INEC’s logistic operations. Despite the generous sounding 2023 budget of N355 billion, it is unlikely to have anticipated fuel, when you can find it, selling at N700 per litre in some places. It is not improbable that managing logistics with the lack of naira to mobilise will result in more, not less reliance on politicians and transporters with attendant compromise to fair play in the distribution of election material.
INEC has always struggled with logistics and relied on the military, transporters and politicians – all not ‘uninterested’ in a way that inspires confidence. Late and non-delivery of election material, mix-ups in coded documentation, and critical material like results sheets not arriving at all, are not all happenstance or incompetence, sometimes it is deliberate; to ensure opposition strongholds do not get to vote or vote late. Then people’s thwarted efforts to vote can be casually mocked as voter apathy when those with structures make it hard to vote.
At least one expectation for the 2023 elections is that it is a tight race with an expected higher than average voter turnout, where every vote counts. Terrible logistics will compromise the integrity of the elections and the season of divisive rhetoric will influence reactions to election results. A lot is riding on these elections: better governance, decades old ambitions, upsetting the status quo and there is anxiety and fear about whether the elections will hold and how disruptive and destructive they will be when they hold.
This is the time for civil society and donor partners to engage closely with INEC to ensure projections and plans are still valid and to prepare contingency plans. It is time, for what it is worth, for the Abubakar-led National Peace Committee, to expand, bringing together influential traditional and religious figures across all ethnic and religious divides to present a united face to Nigerians. In cautioning against the use of religion and ethnicity, they can provide a vision of hope and promise to millions suffering from government neglect and remind duty bearers about their responsibilities.
Ayisha Osori, author of Love Does Not Win Elections, writes in for BusinessDay.
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