The voting patterns in Nigeria’s elections over time clearly depict the reality of regional coalitions in politics in a manner that could well be described as regional conflicts. Looking at the results maps over the last 6 presidential election cycles with the exception of 2007 for which there seems to be no record, the reality suggests regional voting patterns. In 1999, with the exception of the South West region that voted in block for Olu Falae, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, swept across the divide. But subsequent elections from 2003 to the most recent in 2019, more or less display and cast the regional and ideological divisions of the country in very clear relief.
Going back to the first and second republic, we observe this same reality: The North – South divide was pre-eminently evident and manifested in every national issue from elections to incentives. While acknowledging the essential reality of block voting patterns over time in Nigeria, we attempt to interrogate the data for other features. We observe that the data on voting patterns also truly masks several other social and economic correlates.
The 2019 elections in which President Buhari is re-elected manifest the usual traits of regional and sectarian coalition. The venomous tribal sentiments that instigated the Civil War of 1967 to 1970 rose to a feverish pitch even more than in 2015, and the embers are still smoldering. There is no doubting the propensity for these ethnic antagonisms and the ongoing warnings of impending pogroms to materialize into full blown civil disturbances. Most notorious ethnic cleansing and genocidal wars, whether of the Jews prior to Hitler or Biafra or Rwanda or Yugoslavia almost all started with sectarian animosities projected in vitriolic speeches and writings in the media. In these times it appears the social media has given a renewed boost to these dangerous rants.
However, as we argued in an earlier piece, these outbursts are mere subterfuges for a social psyche hijacked by what we term the “witch-killing” syndrome — the scape-goating mechanism to externalize our anxieties to others and vilify them just so to exclude, marginalize, isolate and at the same time blame them for what is essentially a material struggle to control dwindling and scarce resources. You may call this the instrumentalization of scape-goating for political economic gains.
This becomes evident when we take a different look at the voting patterns in the 2019 presidential elections in Nigeria. Our analysis does show that beyond the stylized depiction of regional conflicts, some other forces appear to be at play in the voting patterns exhibited across different regions in Nigeria. In spite of the 91 political parties and 73 presidential candidates in the 2019 elections, it turned out to be essentially a two-horse race between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The two parties accounted for almost 91% of the votes, while the remaining 71 parties mopped up less than 5%. Perhaps, it is about time we reviewed the wisdom in registering so many parties that contribute nothing other than increase the cost of elections. Several people wondered at the length of the ballot papers in the election which stretched very long to accommodate every party’s logo – both known and unknown. Going by the outcome in the past two decades of elections, the rational approach would be to restrict political parties to no more than a few dozen. Otherwise, political parties should be made to bear the cost of printing ballot papers instead of financing such waste from the public purse.
The election registered the lowest turnout since return to civilian rule in 1999 of 35.6% compared to 44% in 2015; 54% in 2011; 58% in 2007; and almost 70% in 2003. It is clear from this that voter participation has been on a downward spiral since the onset of the third republic in 1999. A lot of reasons have been adduced for this – from unprecedented cancelation of the presidential election few hours to its commencement, to the upside down sequence of voting where presidential election which should ideally be the last is scheduled first, to the militarization of elections and large scale violence that culminated to wanton killings, physical assaults and destruction of property in many places. Such voter apathy could also be interpreted to mean a loss of confidence by the general electorate on both the electoral process and the government in general. Many Nigerians feel that elections are no more than cyclical rituals that have little or nothing to do with governance. Most have seen their standard of living dwindle rather than improve over the past 2 decades of elections and government transitioning. For example, the electricity situation has remained stagnant in Nigeria from 1999 to 2019 – barely moving from the average of 4,000 MW per day. Poverty situation has actually worsened as per capita disposable income has shrunk below pre-1999 levels. It can therefore be inferred that Nigerians exhibited their total discontentment with the system and its electioneering process.
Bongo Adi
Dr Adi is a Senior Economics faculty at the Lagos Business School
