2015, OR SOMETHING LIKE IT

“I discovered that being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed”
Harry S. Truman.

You would be forgiven if you think we are already in 2015, or thereabouts, and the election campaigns are in full swing. We are watching a drama unfold, which has many parts that are chilling in their effects. In a few days, President Jonathan will be celebrating his first year in office as a President sworn-in after an election he contested as a candidate. The quarrels over the comment made by General Muhammadu Buhari regarding the 2015 elections are unlikely to have died down by then. This will be unfortunate for a presidency eager to roll out the drums and reel out items of achievement in the transformation agenda. Just one year into a Presidency that was born of frightening rancour and deep damage to the polity, we are being reminded that we are still deep in the woods.

General Buhari had said that if the 2015 elections do not substantially improve on the quality of the elections of 2011, there will be much bloodshed, and everyone will be the loser. He had chosen the Hausa adage of a fight between a dog and a monkey, in which both are substantially bloodied, and it is difficult to tell a winner. The allusion to blood has drawn the heaviest salvos, not surprisingly, from an administration and a party which are grappling with serious issues of escalating violence, and are yet to recover from the bitter and destructive reactions to the outcome of the 2011 presidential elections in parts of the north. The smell of blood in General Buhari’s comment brought out all the sharks: the President’s corner reminded the nation that the General is not a democrat; is un-electable; is a prophet of doom and gloom who is unfit to lead; and that he should be held solely responsible for any violence he is predicting. The PDP rolled out the big guns it reserves for big occasions, and lambasted the General in its traditional and new language.

The General’s party and its allies rallied around him, firing back in language and with passion fit for real war. The dust is still much in the air and the meaning of “bloodied dog, bloodied monkey” is being very carefully scrutinized, and General Buhari is basking in a limelight he has not enjoyed since the aftermath of the 2011 elections. Even northern governors are being affected by this awesome quarrel, and they recently resolved, after their recent meeting in Kaduna, that they will facilitate the emergence of a northern candidate, presumably after they succeed in collapsing all partisan boundaries.

It is important to seek for deeper reasons behind this latest outbreak of squabbles over elections. The outward manifestations of the issues are not difficult to discern. The comments he made and the reactions to them have reminded the nation that General Buhari is very much a factor in Nigeria politics. They are also strong signals that the recent talks over political and electoral alliance between the CPC and ACN represent a real threat to the PDP. Then there is the evidence that the our democratic system does not distinguish periods between governance and partisan, or electoral campaign. 2015 is upon us, whether we realize it or not.

But a worrying question is one which should ask why all this heat will be generated by remarks about the linkages between elections and violence. This is certainly not the first time General Buhari will warn over the dangers of rigged elections, and it will not be his last. Nor is he the only Nigerian who believes that unless our elections successively improve the manner they reflect popular will, they will alienate more and more Nigerians, and many voters and other citizens will take up violence as a means of protesting perceived abuses of the electoral process. Who would believe that it will be all tranquility and peace if the elections of 2015 do not radically improve on 2011, and do so in a manner ordinary voters will recognize and accept?

There is a basic issue about the 2011 elections which represents a serious problem. The presidency and INEC, and a substantial percentage of Nigerian citizenry says the elections were generally good, and represent a new benchmark for credible elections in Nigeria. Another significant proportion of the citizenry says they were substantially rigged, and do not reflect the popular will. Civil society is overwhelmingly critical of the elections, although it says they were better than previous ones. The international community, which has since become a major player in our electoral process, says it was acceptable, and certainly more acceptable than prolonged strife over results.

Now, if you do not accept that the 2011 elections were substantially flawed, why should you go out of your way to fix them? Because Buhari says you must do it, or else blood will flow? And, conversely, why should the electoral process be so comprehensively condemned (and by implication, thoroughly reformed), because politicians who serially lose elections say they are rigged? What, or who will motivate a genuine review of the 2011 elections, and an informed and dispassionate improvement on its manifest weaknesses? INEC will say it has a routinized review mechanism, and will study all the elements of the 2011 elections, plug loopholes, and address weaknesses subject to financial and other support from government. Will that satisfy General Buhari and his supporters and the opposition? The administration will say what INEC and the democratic process need is constructive and genuine critique of our elections, and not wholesale condemnations by politicians who lose elections. It will say it is ready to work with INEC, civil society and the international community to improve upon the 2011 elections, which were, in any case, good. Will this satisfy Buhari and his supports and the opposition?

The most worrying dimension of these quarrels is that they expose the links between the quality of our politicians and of our electoral process. If elections are only free and fair when we win them, and winners will emerge irrespective of the quality of the elections, and then defend the elections they may have rigged as free and fair, then we will never conduct credible and acceptable elections in Nigeria. Ordinary voters who are far from the intricate but damaging manipulations of the electoral process take their cues from the reactions of politicians who win or lose elections. In situations where stakes are raised to extremely high levels by politicians and supporters, suggestions of rigged elections resonate with profound consequences. On the other hand, such is the manner politicians manipulate divisive and parochial values among Nigerian voters, that few voters will question results if they satisfy narrow political goals.

The way things stand now, if General Buhari changes his mind and decides to re-contest as a candidate in the 2015 presidential elections, either on his party’s platform or as a coalition candidate, it is very likely that President Jonathan’s yet-to-be-declared but active interest in running again win be given substance by an alliance between the south south and the south east. As if the dangerous slide we now see into parochialism is not enough, this will polarize the nation even further. To add a massive dispute over elections whose credibility is already being questioned may be too much for this nation to process.