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Promise Adiele
Politics, that inevitable indulgence of all earthly creation which emphasises power control, assumed a different dimension in Nigeria recently. I extend the frontiers of politics beyond humanity because politics is found in diverse areas where life exists. Those privileged to see the television channel, NatGeoWild, will agree that politics exists even in the jungle. However, human beings, in their claims to civilization, pretend to practice a developed variant of politics. But recent developments in Nigeria suggest that our brand of politics rarely exist in the books. Rather, it negates the basic principles of decency, defies all processes of deductive reasoning, but enthrones the rule of primitive desperation. Sometimes, I imagine that the occupants of non-human habitats, the ones we love to call animals, insects, aquatic elements and birds of the air will revel in mockery of their civilized, human counterparts.
Nigeria’s political consciousness seems to acquire new apparels only during the election year. After every election, people forget politics, leaving the political sweepstakes winners to smile home with their booty. Prior to the 2019 elections, Nigerians were viciously divided while supporting politicians who are ultimately united by common class interest.
Unfortunately, the masses take different combat positions to defend what they hardly know or understand. This was the case shortly before the elections. Confronted with two political parties thinly separated by nomenclature, Nigerians, in their millions became enemies in their choice between APC and PDP. Verbal onslaught, an acerbic outpour of emotions, and caustic tirade dominated different media outlets. Sometimes, it was personally directed, other times it was ethnically motivated and most times it bothered on mere propaganda, underlined by a grotesque desire to create mischief. Such was our political experience until the elections were conducted, won and lost. Since then, Nigerians have gone their separate ways in the midst of anomalies that define our everyday engagements. Nobody is asking any questions, everybody seems to be happy, losing the vigour with which we all approached the elections. The economy is in bad shape. National orientation is abysmally lacking. The youths are more desperate in their search for fulfilment.
Power supply has hit an all-time low. Insecurity bestrides us like the proverbial colossus as many citizens are routinely slaughtered with disdain and relish by fellow citizens of homicidal convictions. Cost of living graduates on daily basis and a myriad of other mitigating conditions are swept under the carpet while we wait for another four years to make new enemies in the name of politics.
Suddenly, Nigerians were once again roused from their political slumber when the PDP and its presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar decided to go to the election tribunal to challenge the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and his party APC. This move was encouraged by concerned citizens free from the bug of maniac fanaticism. While it was reported that some groups and interests advised Atiku to allow peace to reign, others supported the move.
There is nothing wrong for a party or its candidate to challenge the victory of another candidate or party in court. Muhammadu Buhari went to court on all the occasions he contested and lost the presidential elections. Therefore to attempt to dissuade Atiku and his party from going to the election tribunal smacked of sophistry and betrayed unease in some quarters. And so, PDP and Atiku Abubakar made a move. In all the plausible cases they raised, in all the issues which for PDP proves that APC manipulated the electoral process, cheap blackmail found its way into the mix.
Among other things, PDP and their lawyers claim that President Buhari did not possess the requisite academic qualifications and therefore was not qualified to have stood for the last presidential elections. With this argument, PDP is asking the tribunal to declare their candidate, Atiku Abubakar winner of the last presidential elections. Blackmail has a corrosive effect, it can obliterate the issues at hand. How is it possible for the PDP to lower the standards of political ethos by resorting to this kind of mongering in the face of other important points they should have concerned themselves with?
Were they all asleep before the elections took place or did they only realize that Mr. President does not have School Certificate immediately after the elections? Were they on holidays when President Buhari contested and won the 2015 elections, serving four years in that capacity? By including this element of blackmail in their case, PDP have derailed in their challenge of the magical and surreal figures which emanated from some parts of the country in favour of the APC.
It confounds cosmic elements that in a state where a governor, with all his retinue of security protocols could not vote due to security challenges, millions of people turned out to vote which accounts for the humongous number of votes recorded for the APC.
Unfortunetly, PDP chose to the way of blackmail. A person or a group established in blackmail is a wayfarer whose destination is only known to the gods. Following the PDP allegations, the APC, in their response have also alleged that the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar is from Cameroun and therefore was not qualified to contest the presidential elections in the first place. In their further argument, APC is asking the tribunal to declare the over eleven million votes recorded for the PDP and Atiku Abubakar null and void. Nothing could be more puerile. Was the APC, in all their famed omnipotence, on leave of absence when Atiku Abubakar served as the vice president in the country for eight years? Was it a case of amnesia for the APC to have allowed Atiku Abubakar contest the elections without raising a voice in protests?
From the foregoing, it is obvious that both APC and PDP have elevated blackmail as a political ideology and regrettably, most people are aligning along its dilapidated lines while urgent matters of national interest are left untouched. The question to ask is – why didn’t PDP pursue Buhari’s certificate saga before the elections? Why didn’t APC remind us about the true nationality of Atiku Abubakar before the elections? These blackmail tools should be dismissed in order to have a clearer perspective to tackle the more important issues of the last elections.
When I see APC and PDP embrace blackmail as a political tool, it grieves my heart because it distracts us from the many issues we should be concerned with. The judges, tribunal chairmen and all those who have the responsibility to attend to these cases of blackmail should set them aside immediately. They should concern themselves with establishing truths and facts of the last election instead of meddling in mere blackmail. Were the elections rigged across the country and in what manner and quantity?
Was the electoral process compromised? Were the figures cooked up and exhumed from graveyards? The tribunals and law courts should go to work, make a pronouncement and save us the embarrassing effects of these cheap blackmails.
Dr. Adiele writes from Lagos via [email protected]
