In Nigeria today, only politicians believe in elections. Citizens have since moved on. They have been beaten several times, and they have learnt their lesson. The question is, why waste resources and precious time to organise an election that has a predetermined outcome? Nigerians are wiser now.
A few days ago, the people of the Southeast geopolitical zone sat in their homes for two consecutive days without moving an inch. Although the state governments in the zone threatened fire and brimstone, the streets were empty. The greeting seems to be passing the elbow in that zone.
“Like many other things in Nigeria, elections may have lost their value. Citizens are becoming increasingly weary of going to the polls, simply because they believe their votes would not and do not count.”
Of what need are elections in Nigeria?
Elections are losing their value in Nigeria. They are becoming moribund and anachronistic. The question is, why do we still pretend that elections are held in this country? Even those who organise the exercise know too well that nothing serious is happening.
All over the world, elections are a serious business, and politicians do everything to outwit their opponents. As Americans prepare for their presidential election in a few days’ time, the main candidates are employing all propaganda to psyche down one another. But elections will hold, and credible results will be declared to the satisfaction of the majority of voters.
But Nigerian elections have ceased to excite the citizens. Results are hardly credible, and the impunity of those who perpetrate the heist is irritatingly annoying. These have combined to push many people away from the polling booths on election day.
Like many other things in Nigeria, elections may have lost their value. Citizens are becoming increasingly weary of going to the polls, simply because they believe their votes would not and do not count.
Those who have adopted this position are being justified by the shambolic elections that are being organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Statistics since 1999, when the country returned to civil rule, show that subsequent elections have witnessed lower voter turnout than the ones preceding them.
Read also: Elections and drivers of the nation
Let me conduct you through the abysmal trajectory since 1999. It was 52.3 percent in 1999; 69 percent in 2003; 57.5 percent in 2007; 53.7 percent in 2011; 43.7 percent in 2015; 34.8 percent in 2019, and 28.63 percent in 2023.
The consistent decline was in spite of the touted adoption of technology in the electoral process.
Increasing voter registration has failed to translate into more voters turning out.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner with fewer than 9 million votes. With 36.61 percent of the votes cast, the President is presiding over a country of over 220 million people.
The situation is not better in sub-national elections, as the high level of electoral malfeasance has discouraged many Nigerians from exercising their franchise.
In the last off-cycle gubernatorial election in Edo State, the turnout was pathetic. Voter turnout has been on the downward trend.
For instance, the turnout of the 2016 poll in Edo that brought Godwin Obaseki to power was 32.7 percent, as 622,029 votes were cast out of 1,900,223 registered voters. In 2020, 24.9 percent, or approximately 25 percent, was recorded, in which 550, 242 people voted out of 2,210534 total registered voters. In the last election, only 22 percent was recorded.
It does not seem that things will improve in the near future despite the gale of condemnation that trails the activities of election handlers and the rhetoric emanating from political practitioners.
The desperation of politicians is making elections in the country look laughable. Ahead of the Ondo State gubernatorial election, some chieftains of the ruling party are already claiming victory when the exercise has not been conducted.
They have also given the Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuma Soludo, a notice that he should not waste his time and resources to seek re-election.
The way things seem at the moment, the ruling party may have perfected plans to win wherever and whenever elections are held going forward. For the party’s apparatus, it does not matter whether elections are free, fair, or credible; what appears to matter is the end justifying the means.
Many Nigerians are saying that there is no need for the government at all levels to waste time and resources organising shambolic elections, but that they should anoint their choices and crown them without disturbing the citizens.
Read also: Enugu Govt again, threatens to sanction schools, banks, businesses obeying sit-at-home order
The sit-at-home conundrum in South East
The other day, gunmen invaded a community in Anambra State and massacred many innocent indigenous people. Killings have continued to happen in all the states of the Southeast geopolitical zone without the perpetrators being brought to book. Over the years, the absence of people-focused governance has alienated the people of the zone from the government. The people careless about government as they try to eke out their own living through their individual efforts. There is also no presence of the Federal Government in the entire zone, which has also made it difficult for the people to listen to any instruction from government quarters. The people’s argument has always been that a recalcitrant father who has shirked his responsibility is not deserving of any respect. The people seem to have moved on in spite of the government.
The people have seen their relatives and neighbours massacred for daring to step out on the orders of the government, yet the same government could neither protect them nor secure justice for them.
Any recourse to coercion and threat to make the people shun the draconian sit-at-home order would not achieve the desired aim.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State recently saw that threats can achieve nothing without purposeful governance. He had threatened to seal markets and shops in parts of the state if the traders and owners of shops continued to observe the sit-at-home. He was shell-shocked that the people ignored him.
The refusal to obey him was not born out of a decision to disrespect him but purely out of the fear of possible attack by hoodlums. As it is said in local parlance, “Who wan die?”
It is rather unfortunate that the Federal Government is treating the sit-at-home issue as an “Igbo thing,” “after all, it is their own economy they are destroying.” This narrow perception of the situation in the South East is the reason the country has refused to move forward several years after the civil war.
The economy of Nigeria would wear a new look if the vast opportunities in the Southeast region were harnessed. For crying out loud, is it only the Igbos who reside in that region that do business in Igboland? The answer is no. People visit the zone from various parts of the country and even outside Nigeria for business transactions. The Federal Government is simply shooting itself in the foot by playing the ostrich in the sit-at-home issue.
What the governors and leaders of the South East need to do is see how the Nnamdi Kanu issue could be resolved politically.
It is believed that the resolution of the Kanu-FG imbroglio would go a long way in resolving the sit-at-home problem.
Speaking with BusinessDay, a prominent Igbo son in the field of advertising said: “The sit-at-home thing is a sheer waste of our time. We are just shooting ourselves in the foot. I also think that the governors should have used persuasion and not coercion, persuading the people in order to win them over. What is the guarantee that if they come out, they will not be attacked or even killed? These are the issues. The people are not convinced that they will be protected. That is why it is failing. You cannot force the people to come out and die.
“It is not as if people fear the IPOB more than the state governments, but the fear of the unknown has enveloped them.”
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