Here is the reason I plead that the concept of emi lo kan should rule in the current election season. Emi lo kan, from interpretations I heard so far, means “it is my turn.” The person who popularized it, Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, says it is his turn to rule Nigeria. He spoke from the heart on that fateful day in Abeokuta. He was in anguish, thinking about what he had invested in making others king and how it was all going to waste. He could not believe that the promise to reciprocate by making him king was failing right before his eyes. And so, like the brave soldier that he is, he voiced out his frustrations in the most impassioned speech of his political career.
Was he wrong to have used a phrase that suggested entitlement to leadership of Nigeria? Not necessarily. He did not imply that he had the right to rule. He was only saying that it was his turn to try, and that his partners should support his aspiration, as he did theirs yesterday. For his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), emi lo kan was a cry for justice, fairness, equity and respect for agreements. Now that he has secured the ticket, I also believe that he should take the concept further to the electioneering because this is what our democracy needs at this time. If he declares emi lo kan to the Nigerian electorate, we the voters will be better for it, as I shall explain after this little detour.
After careful consideration of voting patterns in Nigeria, I have come to identify four types of citizens who vote at our elections. They are our people, their people, the minorities and the nonaligned in the three groups. Our people and their people represent the ethnic majorities, specifically, Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. Let us explain it this way. Because I am Igbo, my people are, therefore, Ndigbo, while their people are Yoruba and Fulani. My people, for the Yoruba, are children of Oduduwa, while their people are Igbo and Fulani. Same goes for the Fulani person. Our people have specific collocations in the East, North and West.
Unlike our people and their people, minorities are everywhere in the North, in the East and in the West. They watch in silent bemusement as our people and their people struggle for power and possessions. Over time, they did develop survival approaches to thrive in a country where our people and their people perpetually lock horns in aggressive contests for power. The wise among them survive through street wisdom that comes from having to struggle four times harder to get to the table where our people and their people constantly push to tilt the balance on the power scale.
The trouble with Nigerian politics is this constant struggle for power between our people and their people. The search for leadership becomes not a contest of the capable but a prize for the more populous and the most politically savvy among the parochial groups. Yes, politics is a struggle by groups for access to the resources of the commonwealth. It should not be a winner-takes-all battle that empowers a person with mandate to rule on behalf of a parochial group. The only group that counts should be the party that sponsored this person to power. Otherwise, it is the people – all peoples in the commonwealth – that he should look up to in discharging this mandate. This is because he holds the assets and power of the people in trust for the people, not our people or their people, however defined.
This is where the concept of emi lo kan becomes apposite. We should restrain any person who considers running for office without this conviction. We restrain them with our votes. The public office seeker must be convinced in their mind that they have what it takes to try before declaring emi lo kan. And having made this declaration, they are under obligation to display what they have to offer when given the mandate. The most important things that they can deliver are often the intangibles – giving the nation hope, bringing back a sense of unity and oneness (read patriotism), using words that soothe and reassure, and uniting the people around a common goal and mission. In the Igbo and Yoruba cultural setting, emi lo kan represents a virtue in the hands of the accomplished.
In the beginning, Igbo enwe eze (Igbos have no monarchs) signposted the republican character of a people. One earns respect and honour from one’s toil – exploits in battle, strength in farm work, or skill in hunting the big game. The general term for the man without blemish in his character is nwa-amadi. The people respect the true amadi for their wisdom, empathy, kindness, and a sense of community. Nwa-amadi is the Igbo version of the Yoruba Omoluabi, an accomplished person of integrity and honour. Both Nwa amadi and Omoluabi believe in hard work, respect for the rights of others, and have a keen sense of community. It is only a nwa-amadi or an omoluabi that will have the courage to declare emi lo kan when things are wrong. Because he has earned the right to try, as our people will testify. When emi lo kan steps outside a comfort zone, the game changes from testify to verify when processing the credentials for the claim.
The three presidential front-runners have done well within the levels of their capacity. When Atiku Abubakar was interviewed the last time that he ran for President, he chose to talk about his contribution to his home state of Adamawa. His economic influence over his native state is incomparable. Peter Obi changed the face of governance in Anambra, indicating that it is possible to bring altruism and fear of God in dealing with affairs of the commonwealth. Bola Tinubu has shown a capacity for choosing capable lieutenants who managed to keep Lagos on an even keel since he left office. Thus, all three earned the stripes to be promoted to the next rank of President.
Therefore, we must allow each of them to contest with the conviction that it is their turn. This will give them the opportunity to show why it should be their turn. Emi lo kan is a personal declaration that someone is ready, willing and capable of dealing with the problem that Nigeria is unsuccessfully grappling with under the current leadership. We daresay this is also the reason why the APC candidate is running on his accomplishments in Lagos, rather than what his party has made of Nigeria since 2015.
There are two things to note about their primaries’ victories.
Those victories, as will be the case at the main election battle, were not influenced solely by what our people did for them at party conventions. They were rather influenced by our delegates, their delegates, minority delegates, and votes from the nonaligned. Therefore, no ethnic or religious group candidate can ever win elections in Nigeria on the strength of the group’s numbers alone. If this were possible, Gen. Buhari would have finished his second term as President in 2015 rather than begin the first. Each of the candidates battled to create a non-parochial coalition that showed the face of Nigeria.
It, therefore, becomes a problem when any group, for whatever reason, appropriates and promotes a self-declared candidate as property of a parochial group. You will know when things go wrong when emi lo kan becomes distressingly conflated with awa lo kan and unabashedly served to the nation by intellectuals from their provincial enclaves. You will also recognize the battle cry in the distant, setting echoes of Yoruba ronu, or the rising reverberations of nke bu nke anyi. Let the emi lo kan warrior rise and fall on their perceived personal capacities to enable Nigeria survive the nepotism and incompetence holding her hostage.