Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso
In the news recently, we were told former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, two former governors of Anambra and Kano states, Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso, want to work together to take power from the incumbent President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
The preposition received so much interest, and that was expected given the weight each of them carries. All of them have held very high political office. Put that factor aside they are very rich people. Being rich alone is a potent factor in a country where two thirds of the citizens are not only dislocated but very hungry. Any where one finds hunger and disease very prevalent, that society will be in big trouble putting itself in order.
After God, money is the next effective force in the world. Indeed money answers to so many things. We can see why if these sneeze the world around them catch cold. It is exactly the reason any move by them raises political temperatures. The move, by whatever criteria we look at it, is a good one. Many have queried the timing, insisting that after election it should be governance time. Those holding to this view are entirely very correct.
Early preparations is good politics. The people get to know where the parties stand on issues and more importantly those that may likely run for different offices, their backgrounds against the offices they intend to occupy. So what the characters involved are doing isn’t bad, but it would have been far better if they took time to critically examine the political landscape. It is certain the sequence of actions would have been different from what they have chosen to pursue.
Alliance is key, but having a sound electoral body and structures for credible elections are the biggest challenges. The first objective would have been to insist that the current Independent National Electoral Commission be restructured and made to run like a truly independent organization. Appointments to the body should be taken away from the President who as the case is, is a product of partisanship.
It is very difficult to keep yam and tell the goat to keep watch over the it – definitely the animal will eat it up. The rules that gave the President power to appoint key electoral officials isn’t good. It ought to be changed if credible election is to be achieved. If it remains the way it is, alliances would remain meaningless and of no effect whatsoever.
Put aside the position of the various election tribunals and the Supreme, especially as they relate to the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, the truth is that the failure of the electoral body to electronically transmit the results to the central server did a lot to cast shadows over the conduct of the poll. Now the courts refused to scold the electoral body on that score. Rather it is empowered to continue in the acts of recklessness by the position that the body has the power to chose any method suitable to it for conducting elections.
That verdict alone rubbished and made of no effect all the efforts the National Assembly made to move the electoral process from the manual era into the technological age. A revisit to this should occupy the minds of opposition politicians. The bottom line of any electoral contest should be sanctity of the citizens’ votes.
The other thing that ought to be of greater attention to the opposition should be the state of their various political parties. Atiku Abubakar’s party the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the biggest opposition is in tatters. The fear that the party may disintegrate and finally die is high. Atiku is one of the few very eminent persons still in the party. Going by that alone, he has the responsibility to pull the rest to turn things around for the party.
The same for Peter Obi’s Labour Party. The party offered great hope by the outcome of the last election but it seems the foundation is threatened and it appears the centre can no hold effectively. No one knows what Obi is thinking. Whatever may be in his mind, the truth is he will need a very strong political base to make sense of any future endeavour. The same can be said of Kwakwanso too. His party is also into big time crisis. The party’s strength is located in Kano State but recent events show the support base is shaky. This should take his attention.
People, and then platforms, make politics thick. For a long time we have ran with an electoral sequence that is obviously antidemocracy. Taking the highest office puts so pressure on the electorate. It carries a bandwagon effect. If ours were to be a statistics driven country by now we would have had the figures with us. Many Nigerians don’t care to vote in subsequent polls once the winner is known.
A true voting pattern and preferences would be established if the electoral procedure is bottom up. A bottom up approach would produce a balance that would enhance dialogue and consensus building. The point being made is that opposition should demand that elections start from the bottom and end with the presidential poll. If for whatever reason the suggestion above is not acceptable then they can demand that election to all offices hold on the same day.
It is equally very important that electoral staff run the poll including collection and announcements of results. Their careers should be tied to the outcome of their work. Where there is a breach, they should be arrested and made to face trials. Picking electoral personnel from the universities has failed us.
Finally, the law gives both the electoral body and the political parties the responsibility to educate the voters. None of them undertakes this all important assignment. Now that hunger is pervasive, the people have been rendered very vulnerable. If any kind of education is required, this is the time. Challenge of credible electoral process doesn’t rest with the electoral body and the political class, the people have a big role to play too.
The plain truth remains what it is: until we sanitize our leadership recruitment process, effective and impactful leadership would remain elusive. The opposition should know that those who benefit from the system hardly want it changed.
