2015: Thinking aloud

“Justice without strength is helpless, strength without justice is tyrannical… Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.” Blaise Pascal, 1623 – 62

I recently posted an observation on-line, lamenting the failure of President Goodluck Jonathan to visit the Emir of Kano while he was on a recent visit to London. The Archbishop of Canterbury had visited the Emir, who is recuperating after the failed attempt on his life in broad daylight in a street in the heart of a city he had ruled as a monarch for 50 years. The Archbishop went in company of the Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr Dalhatu Sarki Tafida. He got good publicity and much goodwill, and strengthened  bridges between the Anglican Church and an important symbol of leadership in a predominantly Muslim Northern Nigeria. It was a also an additional bonus for the British government, which had not rolled out the drums to celebrate the fact that after he was left for dead by assassins in the streets of Kano, the Emir chose to go to London, rather than stay at home and recover among the people who loved him; or go to Germany the destination of choice among Nigerian elites; or go to Dubai or India or anywhere else that privileged Nigerians go to these days for health tourism.

Could it have slipped the mind of the President that the elderly Emir was within reach in London while he was meeting with the British Prime Minister? Could there have been no one, including the High Commissioner, to remind him or suggest to him that it would have earned him tremendous political capital to have visited with the Emir and commiserate with him over his experience? Is it possible that the Emir had decided he could do without the audience, and no one was there or here in Nigeria to convince him to receive the President? Could the President have visited the Emir secretly, perhaps owing to security concerns?

In any case, Nigerians only saw pictures of our President outside No 10, Downing Street, and later, pictures of the Emir with the Archbishop. But on Friday last week, the papers were full of pictures of the Governor of Kano State, Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso visiting an obviously healthy-looking and happy Emir in London. Perhaps Kwankwaso is a better politician than President Jonathan, and has a better nose for opportunities?

The reactions I got to my comments shocked me. Large numbers of mostly young people’s responses were most uncomplimentary about both the Emir and the President. Most said there was no point shedding tears for the Emir for being ignored by President Jonathan, as he and other Emirs are only reaping what they sowed in supporting him in 2011. Others said the failure to visit the Emir was perfectly characteristic of President Jonathan’s administration: it wouldn't know how to pick an apple touching the ground. It was not so much the stereotype assessment of both Emir and the President that was unnerving. It was the depth of passion and anger in the responses. Above all, it was the numbing feeling that much of the anger and frustration particularly among young people in the North, deriving in part from the 2011, elections and in part from the failure of the democratic process to make life better and safer for them since then, still subsists. Worse of all, the principal accused are the same: northern elites defined as PDP Governors and politicians, Emirs, some Muslim clerics, prominent northern elders, some clergy and INEC.

There was another side to the responses which is equally frightening. This side argues that Northerners, defined as Hausa-Fulani Muslim politicians and clerics, long used to running the country, lit a fire in 2011 to express their grievances at losing to Jonathan. That fire is now consuming them and many parts of the North, and far from making the nation ungovernable as they planned, it has now made the North regress into the dark ages, while the rest of the nation moves on. Every attack or criticism of the Jonathan administration is seen as part of this campaign by ‘northern’ oligarchs, and even the criticism that he had not visited the Emir while he was in London, or visited Kano to commiserate with its people after the attack, or visited Borno or Yobe, is dismissed as deserved treatment. The standard response from this side is that all northerners deserve the way the President treats them. If the Emir of Kano wept openly last year in the aftermath of one of the most vicious onslaught on the city, he should have been told the truth: put out the fire you and or your people lit, rather than cry over its effect.

The very deeply-entrenched sentiments which are the basic stuff on the internet say a lot about perceptions captured from wider opinions and expressed often in abusive, poor and insensitive language. If these sentiments are generated by issues or events the nation has put behind it, there will be a lot less to worry about. But they address the current state of mind of many Nigerians, and they will come into play as decisive issues as we move closer to 2015. Whichever way the planned merger is concluded, the north will be the major target and battleground for 2015. The PDP will dig deep into its bag of tricks and treats to maintain or expand its stranglehold on the North and Nigeria.

President Jonathan may decide to run again, win the legal battle against being sworn-in for the third time, and serving for more than 8 years as President, run unchallenged as is the tradition in the PDP and quite possibly square up against a candidate of the new party or other candidates from the north. All the old ghosts will have new leases of lives. The northern political elite, particularly governors of the PDP will be watched very closely by the same people who think they sold out the north. Clerics and other community leaders will be scrutinized by the population, and will come under tremendous pressure to toe partisan lines or remain neutral in vicious political contests where neutrality is fiction. Religious leaders will be watched very closely for hints and directives to followers and adherents over which party or candidates should be supported by simple folks convinced that faith is the major criterion for choosing candidates.

INEC will be placed under tremendous pressure. Those who exploited its weaknesses and limitations in 2011 will seek to do so again. Those who think they have been cheated by glossing over its weaknesses will take positions to prevent a recurrence. If the political context of the 2015 elections raise issues of faith and region to levels higher than 2011, violence and massive disputes will mar campaigns and the elections themselves. If key reforms that should improve the performance of the electoral process, such as introduction of electronic voting and the manner key election managers are appointed and returning officers selected are not implemented between now and 2014, INEC is unlikely to do better than 2011. Can the nation live with, or survive even larger disputes and their multi-dimensional repercussions?

The planned merger of political parties will highten tension and raise stakes towards 2015, if the negotiations do yield a merger, that is. The PDP will most likely go back to the drawing board, attempt to heal major rifts among its leaders and rank and file, and avoid unmitigated disaster which will follow its loss of the presidency and most of the States. Too many people have benefitted from the PDP’s dominance of the political stage since 1999 to even contemplate what life will be like without its comforting cover. Too many deals have been struck, and too many transgressions have been committed using the cover of abundant and extensive political power provided by the PDP. Many powerful people today will find life most intolerable without the PDP in control of the political soul of the nation.

Yet millions of Nigerians want a change from a system where elections merely produce governments that are successively worse than those that precede them. They want to see a decisive assault on impunity and corruption, and an end to spreading insecurity and massive and intolerable poverty. It will not be easy to uproot the PDP from the political terrain, and it will be equally difficult to imagine a future under the same party, its policies, failures and personalities. What all these say is that 2015 will challenge the nation more than any other time in its life. The period between now and then should assure Nigerians that it will represent a transition to a more secure and prosperous future, and the elections themselves will reflect popular will. What happens if the nation fails to do both is too frightening to contemplate.