Posters and Posers

“If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.” Ken Livingstone

The reactions to the deluge of posters in Abuja hinting, in effect, that President Jonathan intends to remain President beyond 2015 were varied and amusing. The presidency itself pulled out all stops to denounce the intention and the act of plastering the face of the President in glossy, expensive posters in a bid to warn away ambitious opposition from daring to dream of Nigeria without Jonathan as President in 2015. All that energy was wasted. The legion of the presidential spokesmen who distanced him from the posters failed to recognize that the ploy is a time-tested Nigerian political tradition, and while you meekly do say that the face in the poster is not the inspiration for it, you also say it is the right of every citizen to express a political preference. If some people, you also say, want Jonathan to contest again in 2015, it is their right to say so in an open democratic manner, with or without his consent. The goal, of course, is that the point would have been made. Nigerians now know that the 2015 project is real, and there are likely to be other strategies to keep the message alive.

No one believes that thousands of posters plastered in Abuja in the middle of the night were the handiwork of detractors or people who want to force the hands of the President. Just think: if those posters had the face of President Jonathan above captions such as “2015: Never Again, Jonathan”; or “Go Home in 2015”; or “Please Go Now, Jonathan”; or any of such slogans, would presidential spokesmen, police, SSS or any of the army of security personnel or the thousands of young people from the south-south who have now made Abuja first homes and paint it red until the wee hours of the morning have left them there, and claimed that they had no knowledge of who pasted them? At the most minimal level, it must taken at least 100 people armed with posters, glue, smearing equipment, lights and some elaborate intelligence over strategic posting positions, working over a period of at least 4 or five hours to paste all those posters. The printers would have required at least 36 hours and elaborate logistics to print and distribute. If the posters carried patently subversive messages, such as “Support Boko Haram”, or “End the Nigerian Nightmare”; or even less offensive slogans like “Replace Jonathan with Dokubo”, would they still have been printed and pasted without any detection or resistance?

There are in fact serious issues to consider in the poster saga. The security angle is the most serious. It is perfectly understandable if President Jonathan’s people disown the people behind the campaign. But it would be reassuring to hear from the security agencies that they were aware of the printing, movement and pasting of all those posters in the middle of the night. They should also say if they know who was behind them, since they apparently broke no laws, except perhaps defacing public property. Nigerians need to hear this because feigning ignorance, or claiming not to know anything about the posters would alarm a nation already on edge. People who had all the time to move posters and pasting material to many parts of Abuja and work unchallenged could also have been involved in more harmful exercises in very sensitive areas. So it is important to hear the view of the police and other security agencies. Even if it is to assure citizens that they knew when the posters were being posted, and who was behind them. Whatever other information they give to the President in confidence should not be of public concern.

The amusing angle to the poster saga is the indignation of opposition parties over the episode. Everyone is running around shouting as if this post-your-poster-and-disclaim-it strategy is new in Nigerian politics. Everyone knows that President Jonathan is a very likely candidate in the 2015 elections. Politicians have put out posters to warn off oppositions with ‘No Vacancy’ since President Obasanjo’s campaign managers made it popular. Politicians have routinely printed and published posters of opponents as aspirants to political offices to pitch them against occupants many times in the past. Vice President Namadi Sambo’s posters were plastered all over Kaduna some time last year, announcing his candidature for the Presidency. He duly denounced it as the handiwork of detractors. Posters are put out to test the waters, to pollute waters, to cause confusion. They are put out by friends and enemies, and sometimes they are pasted and torn down within a few hours by the same interests to make political points.  

It is perfectly legal and legitimate to warn off opposition. The language of ‘No Vacancy’ used to offend Nigerians, because it suggested that even popular elections will not replace occupants. This has changed since the standard ethics of Nigerian politics came crashing down many notches. If President Jonathan’s supporters cannot find less abused phrases to say he is in the race, the most serious accusation that can be labeled against them is laziness.

And there is plenty of evidence of laziness all around the political terrain. Opposition is getting all worked up over posters, when it should be involved in a life-or-death discussions over alliances and mergers. It even has time to comment on the President’s New Year message to the nation, a document that should be saved by historians as evidence over how low competence in governance levels can descend in Nigeria. The demand that people who printed and pasted all those posters should be arrested and prosecuted is almost laughable. They are detractors, we are told, people who want to divert Mr President’s attention and energy from making 2013 a truly transformative year. If the hundreds of suspects who were involved in spectacular bombings have been arrested, according to the President, but have not been prosecuted, does the opposition seriously expect arrest and prosecution of people who pasted posters campaigning for President Jonathan? After all, everyone who had anything to say, tells us that they are unknown. Pretty much like the JASLIWAJ (a.k.a. Boko Haram) who are faceless, even though many of their major operatives are now in custody.

The hoopla over the campaign posters of President Jonathan remind us of the sorry state of Nigerian politics. Here you have a President with neither time nor trust, battling massive problems which mount by the day, and desperately hoping for a miracle that things will automatically turn round. He cannot say he will run again in 2015 because he does not have enough ammunition to fight that battle. He cannot say he will not run because he will be permanently crippled by people who see their future without him. So he or his people fly kites, and even these are shot at by an opposition which cannot work at a more serious level to challenge him now, and in 2015.

If, to be charitable to President Jonathan, he truly does not know, or approve of the people who put out those posters, he needs to pay closer attention to his immediate political circle. The recent criticisms of this circle by a (former?) insider, Asari Dokubo should tell him that he has many problems close to home. He may do well to heed the warning that you keep your friends close, and you enemies closer. If he had no hand in the posters, his close enemies may be at play.

If the posters were kites testing the waters over the President’s popularity or ambitions towards 2015, one will only hope that there are people around the President competent enough to give him a fair feedback. If this feedback is anything other than an irritated, hostile reaction, they must be deluding him. President Jonathan needs to work a lot harder to earn the confidence of Nigerians. The opposition needs to work even harder to ensure that those posters are not signals that whatever they or the electoral process do, President Jonathan will be in the Villa after May 29, 2015.