2027: Campaigns are here, but…

Another election year is upon us and the polity is already boiling over. Vulgar words. Profanities and expletives are jumping out of their buccal dungeons where they had been hibernating like terrified rabbits out of the warren. If it’s not 74-year-old Senator Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi ordering his All Progressives Congress (APC) supporters to kill any Accord Party and Governor Ademola Adeleke’s loyalists in Osun state, it is Senator Adams Oshiomhole dancing skelewu and cursing supporters of Peter Obi, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate.

Let’s not forget the recent rancid rant of Islamic cleric, Sheikh Muhammad Sani Yahaya Jingir, who rallied his rabid mob to use the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC to reclaim power as a proof of Muslim dominance in the country. Hey, how do I forget the old garrison of digital zealots and their recent recruits swarming all over social media calling out President Bola Tinubu, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, the top three contenders, with masochistic passion.

Can somebody wake up and smell the coffee? Why is there silence from hitherto vocal men? There is entropy in the polity, there is stasis in the economy and all you get is muted grunt from otherwise garrulous folks. It does appear that those who should know have relapsed into amnesia mode; they can’t remember anything, anymore. And they pretend not to notice the tell-tale signs of anguish that adorn the faces of Nigerians.

At this time when pain pangs at the very nexus of the people; when electricity supply has bowed to the demons of darkness (over 200 million people feasting on a mere 5,000MW of electricity); when prices of goods and services have taken flight to the skies like unmanned rocket on a voyage to Mars; when hope has dissolved to despair; there is an overriding need to interrogate the cost of elections in Nigeria. This period also presents an even greater opportunity to critique and deconstruct the concept and construct of governance.

Why are elections very expensive and violent in Nigeria? Osun State governorship election was held last weekend. But have you bothered to count the cost of that off-cycle election? The police had to deploy 15,000 cops, 30 commissioners and a Deputy Inspector General of Police. The military showed up. Other para-military agencies camped in Osun. Then, there were dozens of top APC politicians including governors and ministers who poured into Osun for that election. You count the cost. Some of the politicians came in chartered flights, some in private jets. They came in motorcades with their retinue of aides. Just for one election. My worry is not about who won or lost. My fear is about the cost and consequences of elections in our dear country. By the way, kudos to the people of Osun who demonstrated people power in the face of vicious federal might and intimidation. And how can we record 34 violent cases and 18 deaths before and during the election? Just one state governorship election? Nigeria has turned election to war. And Osun was a good test run for the general elections of 2027. So much energy and passion is devoted to elections but zero passion for good governance.

Yet, Nigeria is passing through a storm, an economic storm that is fast building up social discontent. The people need to hear a voice; they need to be reassured that the ship of state is not adrift to nowhere; that out of their despair shall arise oases of hope. But nobody is talking. Hope is in abeyance.

Josiah Charles Stamp, an English economist and erstwhile president of the Bank of England in the 20’s once warned that “it is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” Tinubu, the 36 governors, the legislature and the judiciary, as it now appears, seem to be dodging their responsibilities. I doubt if they would be able to dodge the consequences of shirking their responsibilities to the people. The devotion to organise and rig election far outweigh the passion to offer good governance.

Without any iota of doubt, since the return of democracy in 1999, the political elite of all parties have been profligate, reckless and radically rascally with public funds. The nation truly needed a breath of fresh air from the military era miasma; but this democratic air is not fresh. Has never been fresh since 1999. The political class is yet to prove that it is any better than the military governments it accused of lacking integrity and accountability. It is the same motion without movement; the same symptoms of episodic, ill-prepared governments brimming with irrational minds doing desperate things like inebriated men. Nothing really has changed; in reality it is getting worse. Everywhere you go, you hear some Nigerians, especially the elderly, speak of a glorious distant past. How they enjoyed government scholarships, ate almost full chicken on campuses with discounted or free meal tickets. You hear that electricity was more stable in those days than it is now; that insecurity and its many adjunct evils like kidnapping, highway robbery and such like were only imaginary.

And here we are. Another election year. Another opportunity to right our wrongs. A moment for the populace to show that power truly belongs to the people. But, first, the politicians must show good cause. As the campaigns begin, politicians must do well not to foul up an already putrid polity. Let the campaign messages be issue-based, not name-calling and incitement. The key issues of corruption, food security, insecurity, stasis in sports, lethargic economy with high cost of goods and services, poor electricity supply among others deserve to be in every conversation. These are the challenges politicians must address not hounding and shooting opponents and rivals. Enough of the primitive, bloody politics that has defined Nigeria making election observers to call Nigerian elections as crime scenes.

This is an appeal to the politicians. Let’s have a bloodless free and fair election in 2027. Enough of the culture of bloodbath just because of the election.