Ides of February

In Nigeria, the fear of election violence is the beginning of wisdom. There are three categories of election violence that Nigerians are afraid of. The first one is “pre-election violence” which accompanies election campaigns. In other lands campaigning is all about trying to sell your program to the voters but in Nigeria it is more […]

In Nigeria, the fear of election violence is the beginning of wisdom. There are three categories of election violence that Nigerians are afraid of. The first one is “pre-election violence” which accompanies election campaigns. In other lands campaigning is all about trying to sell your program to the voters but in Nigeria it is more like pre-invasion artillery bombardment. One would have thought, why not allow the other person to say all he wants to say, I also say what I want to say and then we allow the voters to decide? We don’t see it that way in Nigeria. One cannot take chances by allowing his opponent to have his say just in case some voters find his message to be appealing. An opponent’s campaign poster must be ripped up because some female voters are so fickle minded that they may vote for him because of his good looks. Ten days ago the newspapers reported that pro-PDP thugs shot at APC supporters on their way to a rally in Port Harcourt. The last thing a Nigerian politician wants is for his opponent to stage a successful rally. Many voters here are bandwagon joiners; they may conclude just by watching an opponent’s rally that he is going to win, hence they must join in voting for him.  
It is important to realise that politicians and their thugs convince themselves that they are not violent; that it is their opponents that are violent hence the need to defend themselves. On this page last week I quoted Malam Adamu Ciroma saying in 1991 that election rigging is a self-fulfilling prophecy because if one believes that his opponent will try to rig the election, he will take steps to prevent himself from being rigged out and could end up rigging his opponent out. Election violence is even more so. One day before the 2007 election I listened to a discussion by pro-Alu youths in Sokoto as they washed my car. They spoke about an upcoming Alu rally in Gwadabawa and said they were sure that Bafarawa’s boys will attack them, so they were stocking up knives and swords to defend themselves. I imagined that elsewhere in town pro-Bafarawa thugs were making similar assumptions.
Why, for example, must Jonathan/Sambo campaign buses be attacked in Jos and Suleja? Why not allow them to sing whatever song they want and then vote against their principals? But that’s not how a working politician sees it. If they are allowed to pass through a pro-APC neighbourhood blaring Jonathan campaign music the impression could be created that Jonathan is popular in the area, which could win for him some more supporters.
Which brings me to last week’s episode in Bauchi, when thugs threw pure water sachets at the podium during the PDP presidential campaign rally. The whole country was initially tense when stories spread that APC thugs had pelted the president. Governor Isa Yuguda however made most Nigerians to breathe easy when he said it was PDP thugs that did the job. He blamed FCT Minister Bala Mohamed for organising the attack while the minister in turn blamed the governor for staging it. Someone asked me last week, “Who among them do you think is telling the truth?” I murmured that “In a quarrel between politicians, there is nothing like truth.”
Incidentally, I was in Bauchi the week before the PDP rally. I saw hundreds of pro-PDP youths massed at Zarandah Hotel and I asked what was happening. A man told me, “Kaura [that is, Bala Mohamed] is inside. He is distributing money.” Now, I did not see the FCT Minister and I did not see him sharing money but I tended to believe what the man told me because when I passed by Zarandah Hotel two days later the huge crowd was still there, going inside in groups. I concluded that the minister must be mobilising the youths ahead of the presidential campaign tour. Now, that kind of mobilisation is very likely to backfire because there is no way that thugs will share money peacefully. In all likelihood it was short changed ones among them that threw water sachets, which happened just when the minister was speaking. However, I congratulate them for their decency in using pure water sachets instead of stones.  
The second category of violence that we fear is Election Day violence. Nigerian voters are so afraid of violence that even the heavy presence of security forces on Election Day, which is meant to prevent violence, actually makes many people to remain at home. It was alleged that heavy security in Ekiti and Osun led to a low voter turnout. Election Day violence often involves fighting between roving gangs of party thugs and the snatching of ballot boxes. Who organises that? There are about 500 votes in a polling station. Since 1983 a presidential election has been won with gaps of millions of votes. There are 120,000 polling stations in this country; a presidential candidate is unlikely to think that snatching and stuffing a box in one or even many polling booths could do much to change his fortunes. However, a local party chieftain is intent on maximising his candidate’s votes in his own ward in order to enhance the chieftain’s bargaining power in the sharing of spoils after the election.
Then there is the third, most feared category which is post-election violence. This one follows the declaration of results. Many a thug cannot understand why a candidate who handily won in his own area should lose the overall election. He believes that it must have been rigged. Now, there are reasons in other lands why an apparently popular candidate could still lose a free and fair election. I am thinking of John Kennedy’s experience in 1960. When he went to Columbus, Ohio he was welcomed by a wildly jubilant crowd, with young girls falling over themselves to touch him. Yet when the results were counted Kennedy lost the city to Richard Nixon by a wide margin. Months later Kennedy returned to Columbus as president and was given the same tumultuous welcome. When he began his speech he said, “Thank you very much. In Columbus, Ohio I always receive the warmest welcome.” Then he added, “And the fewest votes.”
Right now the atmosphere has been fouled by threats by ex-Niger Delta militants to unleash violence unless President Jonathan is re-elected. I thought, what then is the use of elections if we can’t vote as we please? In the North too, the passion with which most people are approaching the elections gives reason to worry. Two days ago when the Sultan of Sokoto arrived at his Kaduna residence for a long-scheduled meeting with Muslim professionals from across the country, some youths in Unguwar Sarki spread rumours that the Sultan had arrived for the next day’s PDP presidential rally. Never mind that at the time the meeting was fixed, no one knew that PDP would hold its rally in Kaduna that day. It speaks about the tense and foul atmosphere now prevailing in the country which could set the stage for future trouble.
This is the time to remind everyone of the message from this year’s Daily Trust Annual Dialogue two weeks ago that post-election violence only damages the community and retards its progress. The Electoral Act makes no provision for reversing a declared election result because some people have rioted or attacked oil installations. Why attack your neighbour over an election result when, just like you, he also had only one vote?