Major casualties of the 2019 elections

In a real sense, no one won the 2019 elections. The nation went through the motions of electing President, Governors and legislators, and the electoral process yielded candidates who were supposed to have won. Most of these will not know whether they can keep their mandates or forfeit them until the judicial process decides winners […]

In a real sense, no one won the 2019 elections. The nation went through the motions of electing President, Governors and legislators, and the electoral process yielded candidates who were supposed to have won. Most of these will not know whether they can keep their mandates or forfeit them until the judicial process decides winners and losers. Popular verdicts regarding real winners will have no effect on mandates, but they will influence attitudes towards elected leaders and the democratic process on the whole. All elections are important, but Nigerians and the world anxiously waited to see if the 2019 elections will add value to the electoral process of Africa’s largest democracy, or they would be a disastrous anti-climax after the much hyped 2015 landmark. As it turned out, the 2019 elections registered major casualties. These are some of them.

1. The electoral process

The jury is still out, but even the most charitable critic will accept that the conduct of the 2019 elections set the nation back on its challenging journey to institutionalize credible elections. Organized violence in many forms, from state-sponsored intimidation, harassment of voters and officials and facilitation of other forms of violence specifically aimed at influencing outcomes has never been more prominent. Every organizational shortfall, including postponement of the presidential elections was visible, in spite of extensive experiences since the 2015 elections. Hundreds of billions of public funds and billions more from the global community failed to improve the process. The reforms of the basic legal framework was  frozen by President Buhari at the last moment. INEC’s few initiatives such as Continuous Accreditation and Voting System (CAVS) and ‘margin of lead principle’ which were meant to address long delays at voting stages and large numbers of voters who are otherwise disenfranchised by violence, subversion or system failure were a mixed blessing. CAVS made it relatively easier to vote, but  the margin of lead principle created the new phenomenon of large numbers of inconclusive elections because it was relatively easy to contrive by politicians in need of respite at collation stages. The nation has to rediscover new faith in a new INEC if the democratic process is to improve. The vast majority of losers, including the principal contender for the presidency are heading to election tribunals and courts, a continuation of a respected tradition where losers do not accept defeat, but, even more significantly, a setback from 2015 when a sitting president walked away with an uncontested defeat. The levels of bitterness, desperation and suspicion which these elections have witnessed show that the electoral process is both a culprit and a victim of Nigerian politicians’ penchant for breaking every rule of competetions.

2. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

Unless it wins the presidency through the judicial recourse (a highly improbable prospect, but not impossible), the PDP faces the prospect of eight years without control of the center. It has fewer state governors and is heavily outnumbered in the federal legislature. In a nation where politics is almost entirely fed by largess from public offices, this will be literally a death sentence for a party that spent the last four years starving and bearing the stigma of the conclave of the corrupt. It could build on the certain prospect that APC could atrophy without Buhari, but this is a party rich in muscle and poor in thinkers. It will, in addition, go through its own convulsions when it insists on antiquated zoning principles in the face of realities that geo-politics and voting patterns may not recognize.

3. All Progressives Congress (APC)

The APC won a second term in control of the center, majority of states and a strong presence at the federal legislature. This feat was fueled by a wasting asset (Buhari), an unprecedented role for violence in the electoral process and an exploitation of the widening gulf between communities. The party that benefitted from a seemingly credible election and a peaceful transition just four years ago lost the high moral ground when it led the way to new depths in the decline in the quality of the electoral process. It proved a quick learner and even bettered its main rival in muscling its ways into mandates and even inventing new methods of compromising the integrity of the process. It lost the opportunity to add value to the process, and this failure will come back to haunt it when its internal processes crumble under the pressure of the competition for President Buhari’s shoes heats up soon.

4. Prospects for cleaner politics

Elections represent good benchmarks for judging the nature of the political process particularly in emerging democracies. In the case of Nigeria, elections remind us how stuck we are in a process that merely creates the facade of motion. Huge, mostly illegal funds go into compromising the electoral process, security agents and inducing pauperized voters to vote for those responsible for pauperizing them. Divisive and dangerous sentiments around religion, region and ethnicity are exploited to points where they become worse with every election, and administrations that emerge on their backs lack the capacity or interest to address them. Our politics is still hostage to the same clique that has determined the politics of the nation for more than six decades. Beneath seemingly popular movements are personal scores being settled, injuries  being redressed and ancient competitions that still need to be won.

5. Third options

The dramatic collapse of any challenge to the dominance of the two major parties will disappoint Nigerians who believe that the political space has a lot more room for newer options. It is a sign of the dominance of an elite with a firm grip of the nation and its resources that alternatives are snuffed before they even take root. Members of this elite can move into each other’s camps without causing a stir, assume strikingly similar shapes, form or character, then fight like mortal enemies without any space for third parties.

6. Younger politicians and women

For a nation with quite possibly the largest ratio of young citizens to the population in the world, the recent battle for the presidency between two male geriatrics says a lot about the difficulties of breaking through the huge fortifications erected by wealth, connections and traditions in Nigeria. It will be more depressing for those who expect that women will show up in larger numbers in the ranks of those elected. The entire nineteen northern states will still have only one female senator and one deputy governor.

7. Lifetime powerhouses

Many politicians who thought they call all the shots were spectacularly rejected by voters with a little help from powerful enemies. As their stars dimmed, the hope that popular will may have a stronger say in future elections was registered.