More rivers to cross
After the presidential and national assembly elections that
took place penultimate weekend, Nigerians and the global audience must now look
forward to state elections that are scheduled for this weekend. In doing that,
lessons from the recent poll need to be applied to make the best of the
impending governorship and state houses of assembly elections.
The national elections have been won and lost in a manner
that suggests Nigerian voter behaviour cannot be taken for granted by the political
elite. For the presidency, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) secured a mandate for another four-year term. He
defeated his real challenger, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), by polling 15,191,847 votes to Atiku’s 11,262,978
votes. According to official verdict of the umpire, the president won outright
in 19 states and secured the statutory 25 percent of votes cast in 15 others to
make a haul of 34 states in all. He thus outpaced Atiku who won in 17 states
and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). But the Atiku challenge sprung
surprise incursions by his party platform into the South West geopolitical zone
with narrow victories in Oyo and Ondo states, even though he struggled to
barely win his home state, Adamawa, with 410,266 votes to Buhari’s 378,078 votes.
There were more dramatic nuances of outcomes for the
national assembly poll. In the 109-member red chamber, for instance, Senate
President Bukola Saraki is doubtless the most prominent casualty – crashing out
in his third-term bid for the Kwara Central constituency seat that was won by
APC candidate, Yahaya Oloriegbe. That defeat marked the collapse of his
family’s long dynastic reign over Kwara State politics that the APC fiercely
waged against with the ‘O to gee’ (‘It
is enough’) slogan. Other prominent upsets include Oyo State Governor Abiola
Ajimobi, who lost his bid for Oyo South constituency seat to Kola Balogun of
the PDP; Shehu Sani, a defector from APC in Kaduna State who sought reelection
on Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) platform and lost to replacement APC
candidate Uba Sani; reputed Benue State kingmaker, ex-Governor George Akume of
the APC, who was sidelined by relatively upstart political challenger fielded
by the PDP; and Ifeanyi Ubah in Anambra State who upended the dynastic sway of
the Uba brothers on the state’s politics with his defeat of incumbent
constituency Senator Andy Uba.
‘It
just seems (our) political culture is wired with proclivity to primitive
violence that some actors and their foot soldiers are reluctant to be weaned
from’
On the other hand, there are notable winners like Deputy
Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who is set to become the highest-ranking
member of the legislative chamber with his fifth-term mandate; as well as
highly controversial Senator Dino Melaye, who dramatically survived a recall
bid from the outgoing Senate and is now making a return for Kogi West
constituency seat in the new session. New entrants include Ogun State Governor
Ibikunle Amosun and his Imo counterpart, Rochas Okorocha, who will take their
seats in the incoming Senate close on the heels of statutory expiration of
their governorship reigns and in spite of their high profile standoff with
their party platform, the APC; former Abia State Governor Orji Kalu, who will
be joining his former political ally-turned adversary, Theodore Orji, and
returnee Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe in representation of Abia State; and also,
former Enugu State Governor Chimaroke Nnamami of ‘Ebeano’ fame, ex-Senate
Majority Leader Teslim Folarin and former Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswan,
who are returning to political centre stage after some time out in the cold.
The House of Representatives election as well had its fair
share of upsets and fidelities with bookmaker projections.
In broad terms, President Buhari’s victory outing in the
recent poll compared quite closely with his showing in the 2015 general
election in which he polled 15,424,921 votes and won in 21 states to overawe
then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan who got 12,853,537 votes; even
though the 2019 election involved a crowded field of 73 political parties in
the presidential race, as against 11 parties that fielded candidates in 2015.
But in the 2019 election, just as in 2015, it was strictly a two-horse race
between the dominant APC and PDP. In overall quantitative terms, the PDP got
even fewer votes in the 2019 presidential poll than it did in 2015. But there
were as well significant variations in the votes that accrued to President
Buhari in his most redoubtable electoral strongholds, compared with 2015. In
Kano where he made his biggest haul of 1,464,768 votes in the 2019 poll, for
instance, he had polled 1,903,999 votes in 2015; in Katsina, he got 1,232,133
votes in the latest poll as against 1,345,441 in 2015; in Kaduna, 993,445 votes
now as against 1,345,441 votes in 2015; and in Lagos, 580,825 at the latest
score as against 794,460 in 2015.
The downward spiral in voter profile was however a bigger
challenge that forth more profoundly in the overall voter turnout, put at
29,364,209 out of 82,344,107 registered voters for the presidential poll – a
turnout that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) estimated at
35.66 percent. Some analysts argued that it was perhaps the lowest turnout ever
in all elections that have been conducted in the 20 years of the present
republic – in 2015, for instance, it was 43.65 percent – and may signpost a
worsening disconnect between the governing class who contest in elections and
the governed who constitute the voters.
In such event, there is apparently an urgent need for the
power elite to recalibrate governance as would elicit greater public interest
in the political process. Towards the forthcoming state elections specifically,
the power elite, especially governorship contenders (simply because state
houses of assembly contenders are far less visible), should seize on the few
days remaining before the poll to hold out better deals to voters as could
convince them of their stake in governance and kindle greater public interest
in voting. Even for the poll already held, and in view of the comparative
numbers, the Buhari presidency can with its renewed mandate work at doing
things much more inclusively going forward, so to redress the perception of
clannishness that dogged its first coming.
There is, of course, the likelihood that the low voter
turnout was partly a function of the last minute shift in the earlier schedule
for the general election – from February 16th to February 23rd
for the national poll. As such, the onus is on INEC to ensure the impending
state elections conform strictly to the new March 9th date, and that
the logistics challenges that hobbled the last poll are effectively averted.
But perhaps a greater disincentive to voter turnout is the
high record of violence during the last elections. For instance, no fewer than
20 persons are reckoned to have died in violence related to the national poll,
with the highest record being in River State where a national youth corps
member who served as INEC ad hoc staff as well fell casualty.
It just seems the Nigerian political culture is wired with
proclivity to primitive violence that some actors and their foot soldiers are
reluctant to be weaned from. But they must yield to good counsel, so our
democracy would get better and align with global, even regional, exemplars.
Elections held in West African neighbour, Senegal, barely 24 hours after
Nigeria’s, and there were no reports of the kind of violence that bedevilled
our own poll. The challenge in the meantime is for our security operatives to
by all means legal ensure the insulation of the electoral environment against
violence, including voter suppression as was witnessed in some areas during the
national elections. That is one critical task incumbent on them for the
imminent state elections.
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