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The first part of this series, started last week under the same headline, attracted a lot of comments, with most readers disagreeing with my perspectives, though laced with hard facts, that Asiwaju Boka Ahmed Tinubu is Nigeria’s President-elect today only because both Atiku and Obi decided to pursue their presidential ambitions separately, rather than jointly, as they did four years ago.
One of the respondents pointed to the inability of that ticket to win the presidential election in 2019, but there are millions of Nigerians who will bet their last new naira (a local currency that is more difficult to come by than American dollars), that Atiku and Obi were rigged out in that election, largely because they were running against a determined incumbent.
Now that Obi and Atiku have decided to challenge Tinubu’s victory in the court of law, a decision I criticize since I do not see them getting justice in the Supreme Court as presently constituted, there will be little or no need to continue to justify Tinubu’s victory by analyzing why Atiku and Obi, especially the latter, could not have won the presidential election, standing separately as they did.
The office of the President of a big country like Nigeria is certainly not a joke. It requires lots and lots of sacrifice, which Atiku told Governor Nyesom Wike he was ready to make, provided he (Wike) and other aspirants would agree to step down their presidential ambition and allow only the Igbo to vie for the office. Of course, as we all know, Wike refused to do so, and Atiku also saw that the call for a southern presidency was being reduced to vested interest, since the only part of the South that has not tasted the presidency was the South East.
Atiku’s call for Wike in particular to accept to allow an Igbo man or woman to vie for the PDP ticket was borne by the fact that once Atiku was out of the way, nothing would have stopped Wike from clinching the presidential ticket. People like Peter Obi, with all his superior qualities, would have stood no chance at all.
It might take the next generation for Africans to learn that democracy is indeed a game of numbers and that unity of purpose is needed to ensure victory, especially when the stakes are high. There was no way, even with all the rigging in the world, that Tinubu could have won the presidential election if Atiku and Obi had run on a joint ticket. Of course, Atiku was a Vice President for two terms in the beginning of this Fourth Republic, meaning he could not have been a VP again to Obi or anyone else.
But for me, Igbo elders ought to have seen the bigger picture and struck an understanding for Atiku to agree to run for only one term of office, and allow Obi take over from him in 2027. Age is on Obi’s side, and in the next four years, given his almost-stainless reputation, the former governor of Anambra State would easily win the support of the majority, if not all parts, of Nigeria to take over from Atiku as President.
As of today, if there is any single individual who inadvertently helped Tinubu win the presidency, it is Peter Obi, as correctly argued by Governor Charles Soludo three months to the election. Until the election penultimate week, Atiku’s PDP had always won all states in the South East and the South-South. But this time around, Atiku could not even get the minimum 25 percent requirement in any of the five southeastern states.
The responses I got, as well as the reality we are all seeing before and since the presidential election, are enough prove that Nigerians are becoming more and more divided. This time around, apart from tribe, the most dangerous phenomenon that reared its ugly head was the politics of religion, which sharply divided Nigerians along the two major religions of Islam and Christianity.
I am privileged to belong to a chat group dominated by many influential Igbos, and another by big-name Yorubas. Of course, being Hausa, I belong to several such groups dominated by members of my tribe, and have seen just how deep our hatred for one another is fouling the political space and destroying relationships.
It, therefore, comes as a huge relief to see my senior in the journalism profession, the great Lanre Idowu, advising all of us to tread with caution and at least save age-long relationships. Writing under the headline “Hate messaging: A plea for restraint and sensitivity,” Idowu’s message, which is also a strong advisory for those of us in the pen profession, goes as follows:
“Journalism ethics enjoins, and common sense upholds, the need for balance in information handling, conscious of the power and reach of information. The pursuit of balance underscores the position that access to any medium where information is shared is a privilege that carries with it enormous responsibility. But in this social media age of information overload, where democratisation of access has sidelined gatekeeping, where the concerns are clicks and forwarding of ill-digested posts, where getting it first trumps getting it right, calls for balance are increasingly dismissed as old-school positioning, or demonised as the stance of saboteurs.
Lately, the venom that drives inter-ethnic relations is so frightening that there is utmost need to be wary lest we unwittingly stoke a descent into anarchy.
On the social media, many seem to be possessed by a spirit of restlessness that is committed to overthrowing balance in social conversations and relationships. Its victims have itchy, childish fingers that see digital tools as toys for drawing out any information that feeds their bias, and sharing it without much effort to ascertain its veracity, and with little sensitivity to their audiences. In many WhatsApp/Telegram groups today, from alumni bodies to religious and cultural groups, to clubs and associations, and professional congregations, we have people of different ethnicities, sensibilities, interests, and outlooks that it is only reasonable and decent to pause, regularly, and ask a few questions before we share whatever catches our fancy.
Careless posts, unrestrained messages, hateful assertions, and insensitive utterances are combustible ingredients that do not breed goodwill. They are known to have ignited violent conflicts that consumed many lives and properties as the examples of Bosnia, Rwanda, Kenya and nearby Sierra Leone clearly testify. It’s also worth remembering that even here at home, the Civil War is a clear example of how ethnic tensions can degenerate when not managed well.
Some of these conflicts started innocuously enough that some of the dramatis personae didn’t envisage the outcomes. Yet some were deliberate and calculated. So, when one calls for restraint in what we post, it is not because one is less proud of his origins or identity, but because conflicts can be better managed without allowing them to degenerate into violence.
The perceived wrongs of several generations cannot be corrected overnight with vitriolic rhetorics without severe consequences. Long-standing cherished socio-economic ties should not be irreparably destroyed overnight because we refuse to exercise restraint over the outcome of elections into public offices.
In this era of citizen journalism, where access to the digital space confers one with the toga of an overnight reporter, analyst, and commentator, there is a lot that we can borrow from the Principles of Peace Journalism, which stress the salience of peace to any sustainable development effort, emphasize the need to frame issues adequately by recognizing the diversity and complexity of conflicts, promote the need for dialogue and trust building in managing conflicts.
Flowing from the above, it is important to avoid analysing conflicts from the narrow prism of absolutes as is the current case on many discussion platforms. Such a stance sees only two opposing sides without exploring the various shades of opinion or the common ground for enduring solutions.
I say to our ethnic gladiators, verbal terrorists, and religious jingoists that you can not be a credible opinion leader in your group when in fact you are a crisis merchant who plays one side against the other. You cannot ignore the middle ground and expect the edifice to hold.
So, before you share the next hateful post, I commend to you the DAME Conflict-Sensitivity Test developed from a 14-month, five-city study and training programme in 2014-2016. It asks that any post, especially in seasons of great excitement as election time, be subjected to a conflict-sensitivity test, which considers the following.
1. Is it factual?
2. Is it fair to all?
3. Will it build goodwill?
4. Is it conflict-sensitive?
5. Does it tower above narrow or
pecuniary interests?
Subsumed under these questions are such considerations as why share because it is trending when you cannot establish its veracity? Why dish out what you will not accept because you imagine that you have a temporary advantage over the other side? What is the likely consequence of that angry outburst of today, tomorrow? How sincere is that point you are anxious to make? Is it in the overall interest of the community or is it driven by narrow concerns that are neither healthy nor sincere? In short, is the information disseminated the product of reason or that of haste?
May your next post be divinely guided.”
