2019 elections: A risky preview
The nation is getting worked up over the general elections which, at this stage of the contest, could be won by either the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari or his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar. Any prediction that is categorical on victory for either of them is, to be polite, pure bunkum. The truth is, there is […]
The nation is getting worked up over the general elections which, at this stage of the contest, could be won by either the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari or his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar. Any prediction that is categorical on victory for either of them is, to be polite, pure bunkum. The truth is, there is everything to fight for. Major traditional players in Nigerian politics such as religion, ethnicity, region, money, violence, politicians who can determine the votes of millions overnight, the disposition of INEC, the police and security agencies and the global community are not yet fully engaged.
The elections will be fought on different but related issues. It will be a class affair, with the overwhelming majority of the political and economic elite across nation intensely hostile to a Buhari second term, even if they prefer to operate from the margins. On the other hand, a hard core of Buhari loyalists largely drawn from the poor will vote for him, and they will be aggressive and unapologetic in ensuring that he gets his second term, or the elite and the opposition will pay for it. The history of the mayhem and violence which followed the 2011 election results are etched deeply in the psyche of many of the PDP elite.
In spite of the fact that the two leading contenders are Muslims, the campaigns will pitch Muslims against Christians in potentially dangerous skirmishes before and after the elections. The candidates are fortunate that all the leaders of faith are transparently inclined to being influenced, except the Shia. This group will cast every vote against Buhari. The size of their votes is in dispute, and they could stimulate greater support for Buhari with overt hostility, so they will stay organized and keep their heads down. The elections could pitch Darika against Izala followers if their leaders make clear signals that they involve sect fortunes. They are unlikely to do this, so religious leaders will make tons of money and remain lukewarm to partisan divisions.
Northern Christians will be hostile to Buhari owing to the narratives that have accompanied killings in many parts of the Middle Belt. This will cost Buhari and APC valuable votes in areas where they broke decades of tradition in 2015, although it is reasonable to expect that a desperate bid will be made by APC/Buhari to tamper this hostility in places such as Adamawa, Plateau and Taraba. The Church on the whole will try to strike deals and extract concessions around security for Christians and restructuring, but since both candidates will provide buckets of promises, other basic interests such as ethnicity and the play for the presidency ticket in 2023 will dilute a solid, Christian support for either candidate.
There will be parts of the nation where either candidate could fail to get 25% of valid votes, in the same way areas that voted for APC/Buhari in 2015 will not give him the time of day this time. Atiku will have to work very hard to reduce the support of Buhari in the North West (NW) and North East (NE), while protecting his turf in South-South (SS) and South East (SE). South West (SW) will be about the state of potency of Tinubu and the muscles of young Turks who will register as strongmen-in-waiting. The play around which zone, SE or SW gets the presidential ticket in 2023 is interesting, not least because Buhari and APC are offering what they do not have. A deal with the SW will deepen APC’s alienation from the SE. Promises to the SW will be hollow in a region acutely aware that APC will dramatically evaporate without Buhari, whether this occurs in 2019 or 2023.The Middle Belt could play a decisive role in making the difference between the candidates, although this will be at the cost of massive fall-outs from ethno-religious politics.
Both parties have massive internal problems to fix before the elections. The party that does this faster and better is unlikely to be “anti-partied” (internally-subverted) at the last, critical moment. There will be many governors who will campaign for their own re-election, but encourage supporters to vote for the opposing party’s presidential candidate. Some Governors in SE and some in SS are hedging their loyalties openly, and a lot will have been deployed in many forms to secure firm commitments. Massive amounts of money will be deployed to reinforce and enlist new support, bring down fence-sitters, compromise INEC and the police, buy media and influential clerics and bribe opposition politicians to nod the other way. Violence will be a strong factor during campaigns and possibly as a second verdict after the elections. The disposition of the top leadership of the Police is critical, and disputes over the Inspector-General of Police’s neutrality will get worse, to a point where he will be the face and the standard by which the Police will be judged.
President Buhari will be challenged to explain away the resurgence of Boko Haram, run-away banditry and a national epidemic of kidnapping. Not many Nigerians will accept excuses for his failures to protect them, anymore than they believed Jonathan this time four years ago. Still, many will vote to have him back. Atiku will make promises to fix these dangerous threats, but he will have to do more than promise: voters will want to hear explicit and informed solutions he will apply if he becomes president. The size of the desperately poor, including newly-enrolled families reportedly living with full-blown hunger will become serious matters of dispute, with Buhari/APC’s anti-poor policies coming in for serious questioning.
The fact that many of the touted hungry will give out their last store of grains to see Buhari back as president will give Atiku and PDP sleepless nights. It is obvious by now that being a victim of poor governance is not sufficient reason to change leaders in many parts of Nigeria. PDP will say Buhari is surrounding himself with corruption, instead of fighting corruption. They will say he is anti- democratic, weak, indecisive and vindictive. They will warn the nation against trusting a president who shows no inclination to change failed strategies and habits. These will enlist the support of some of those who see nothing good in the opposition PDP. Atiku will have to run an imaginative campaign that chips away at Buhari’s hardcore of support, while scaring the nation from a Buhari second term.
The biggest threats to the elections will be INEC’s ability to conduct credible elections and election-related violence, including violence targeted at influencing the electoral process. The perceptions that many APC governors are so unpopular that they can only win an election by rigging it or stealing it through the abuse of state agencies is widespread. Everything will be thrown at the first, presidential elections, since, by Nigerian traditions, this opens the floodgates for the deluge of votes in the second set of elections. Both candidates will push the boundaries of safety to dangerous points, exploiting fault lines that could leave the nation on fire long after the elections. Two things will move the nation beyond disaster arising from the elections. The first is a clear winner of credible elections. Many Nigerians show the scars that suggest that 2015 was a glitch. The other is the willingness of the loser and his supporters to accept the results. There are worrying signs of desperation in the contest that suggest that interventions by local do-gooders and the international community must be more intense this time.
Jamila Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja