In more ways than one, the 2019 Nigerian presidential election mirrored the November 2, 2004 US presidential election in which Republican George Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry by a narrow margin of 53 percent of the Electoral College votes. That election had all the suspense, suspicion and nerviness that signposted the Nigerian election. It sharply divided America prompting the authoritative Economist magazine to craft the caption: ‘Now, Unite Us’ in its November 6, 2004 edition. It was an agenda-setting edition for Bush.
That same cover could easily apply here. The February 23 presidential election won by incumbent Muhammadu Buhari further widened the cracks and divisions in the nation’s polity. And this is without prejudice to the outcome of the judicial redress being sought by the major contender, Atiku Abubakar, of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Atiku and his party have resolved to seek legal redress to what they consider a rape of democracy and abuse of the electoral process by the electoral umpire in cahoots with security agents and the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC). These are mere allegations and only the judiciary can adjudicate on them and bring a closure to the election. But worthy of note is the urbane post-election conduct of the politicians. The losers, even as they disagreed with the outcome, did not mobilise their supporters and hirelings to the streets in our usual post-polls fatal rage. That’s commendable. That’s democratic.
Prior to the February 23 elections, Nigeria has had her fault-lines of ethnicity and religion magnified. President Buhari was the clear catalyst for this widening gulf in the nation’s differences. For a man who had badly sought to be president three times and got lucky on his fourth try, you would expect him to seize the occasion of his historic victory to unite a nation fractured by his brand of campaign and the relapse into ethnic snooze by a majority of the people. Buhari did not. Instead, he widened the cracks and amplified the divisions with his lopsided appointments and pronouncements.
In his first term, Buhari ran a northern presidency. Only die-hard irredentists would defend the president’s appointments and distribution of national wealth. It was grossly skewed. The good thing, however, is that the president has realized this obvious aberration. In one of his victory speeches at the APC Campaign office, Buhari said: “We will strive to strengthen our unity and inclusiveness so that no section or group will feel left behind or left out.” This brilliantly couched statement must and should define Buhari’s second term. An inclusive government where no group would feel left behind or alienated is the elixir for the current tension in the polity fuelled by ethno-religious bigots and their recruits.
And here, I bring to the attention of Mr. President the seething schism and needless umbrage between the Igbo and Yoruba in Lagos. The Igbo have always been at the receiving end of ethnic attrition in Nigeria. Yet, it was an Igbo man, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who lit the lamp for the liberation of Nigeria from the vice grip of an exploitative British hegemony. The late Pa Obafemi Awolowo in his autobiography painted a graphic picture of the intellectual exploits of Azikiwe across Africa in his solitary quest to drum up international support and national consciousness for the Independence of Nigeria. Awo, according to his own narrative, was a cub reporter in the Daily Times then and his first assignment was to cover a symposium where Azikiwe was deploying his oratorical weapon to rouse the rabble. The same Awo, Azikiwe and others from the north and south sustained the agitation for Independence which materialized on October 1, 1960. Such was the spirit of nationalism and sacrifice by a few good men for the national good. And you just wonder, at what point did this Igbo phobia sprout in Lagos? In my secondary school days in Delta State, we had the Adedejis, Olamides and others in our class. Up till this day, we have Yoruba landlords in Delta and in the East. There is a good number of Yoruba entrepreneurs in the South East who have learnt the intricate skill of merchandise from the Igbo have established themselves in their new homes. Some have intermarried and they are living ever happily. Where then did some social media freaks get their revisionism that Yoruba do not own property in Igboland? There is no state in the South East that you do not have a thriving Hausa community who are plying their trade and doing big businesses unmolested.
President Buhari has his job cut out this time. Aside the challenge of securing the nation, stabilizing the economy and taming graft; he must strive to unite the nation. He must prove to the likes of Femi Kusa that Nigeria and Nigerians have transcended beyond the stump of ethnicity. Mr. Kusa, a very senior media executive descended to the gutter of infamy when he authored a rather divisive and tribally-dripping treatise in which he called the Igbo names. I hold Kusa in high esteem. A former editor at the Daily Times Group in its glorious years and later an executive at the Guardian, I had the fortune of interviewing him in my days at the Daily Times as one of the newsmakers when Daily Times was 70 years.
He was calm and genteel, even avuncular. He opted to write his experience rather than a question and answer interview. His reason was that he did not want to be misquoted. He was just being careful after a nasty experience he had as editor of Sunday Times. He had presumed that a certain candidate would win the election in Australia at that time whereupon he cast his headline, rested the paper and went home only for the reverse to happen. It was, as he put it, the most embarrassing moment in his career. I learnt so much listening to him in his Rutam House office as he narrated the story. He is our pride in the journalism profession. That is why I find offensive his rancid disquisition on the Igbo on the heels of the attacks on Ndigbo during the presidential election. That article in its entirety did not fit the person and persona of Mr. Kusa. It merely stoked the fire of ethnicity and tarred the Igbo as land-grabbers and economic jihadists. It’s in bad taste and stands condemnable. A person of Mr. Kusa’s estate and stature should be teaching others of low life the rudiments and grace in tolerance and nationhood. He should not be numbered among scoundrels whose forte is to fan the embers of hate and disharmony in a nation deeply steeped in cross-cultural marriages, inter-religious matrimonies and all manner of inter-linked existential questing. This is why Buhari must strive to unite the nation to put the likes of Kusa out of their ethnicity-induced scaremongering business.
Is it not arrant hypocrisy that the same Nigerians who work hard, even pay, to earn citizenship of America, Britain, Canada etcetera, would take to social media to determine who should be ‘indigene, ‘settler’ or ‘citizen’ of a particular state. Enough of these divisions that serve us no good.