April 2011 Elections: What's at stake for Nigeria

When we strip democracy bare, the only thing it asks of us is that the people should have a credible way to elect the leaders they want. And when the people have elected these leaders, that the people should have a way to throw these leaders out when they are not responsive to the needs of the people. It is that simple. But since the creation of Nigeria, that straightforward process has never happened.

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Starting this weekend, Nigeria will try it again. Unlike in past attempts, Nigeria will try to elect its leaders in the shadow of a fast changing world. The events in the Middle East and North Africa have altered the world in very fundamental ways. Despite the denial of Nigerian leaders, the pivotal lesson from the ongoing revolutions is that people’s grievances can simmer for decades. If left unaddressed, the grievances will ultimately explode one day – unannounced, and in a manner, unprecedented.

There is no grievance as humiliating as that the people have no say on who should govern them. Obtaining the consent of the governed is supreme in a democracy. Nigeria may not have a sit-tight leader who has been in power for three decades, but Nigerians have had their mandates trampled upon for over five decades. It is as infuriating as having a dictator lording over the people for decades. In fact, a denied mandate is a dictator of a bigger magnitude.

Since the fall of Tunisia’s Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, something has deeply changed in the minds of the people. A great dose of confidence has returned to all the oppressed people of the world. Nigerian leaders must not let themselves be blindsided by the peculiarities of Nigeria. Nigeria is not immune from this all important paradigm shift.

If the former U.S. Ambassador, John Campbell, had written today what he wrote in the September/October 2010 issue of Foreign Affairs journal about the high stakes of the April election in Nigeria, he would not have received the kind of furious denunciation he received, then, from Nigerians. The reason is because things have changed from what they were in the last quarters of last year to what they are now.

What has changed is that the things we knew yesterday have little or no congruence with the things that are happening today. The convenient foils have disgraced conventional wisdom.

A cursory look at the dynamics of the upcoming April 2011 elections shows that a storm is gathering. It is a storm like no other. The hope is that it is a storm that will put away, forever, the dusts that have been hovering over Nigeria for generations. The fear is that it is a perfect storm.

Invoking the first one is easy. The nation simply needs to conduct a credible election.

Attracting the second one is equally easy. In fact, we are on course. And that is my concern for today.

The political landscape is showing something we have never seen since the creation of Nigeria. We have a president from a minority ethnic group running for reelection within the dominant party in the country. With formidable oppositions in the North and West, the president’s support base seems to have shrunk to the marginal electorate in the South-South and South-East. The low enthusiasm level that the president receives as he campaigns across the country undermines the traditional argument made by the ruling party after each rigged election, that even without the rigging, the ruling party would have won the election.

To top it all, the president does not have the kind of strong personality that most of Nigeria’s previous presidents had. He has even said that nobody should rig the election for him. But still, he has surrounded himself with the same team of political old hands who thrive on do-or-die politics. That combination led to the debacle that followed the 1983 election. And compared to today, 1983 was the year of innocence.

The winner of the 1993 presidential election, universally adjudged the most credible in Nigeria’s history, Chief Mushood Abiola, was denied the chance to uphold the mandate of the people. Were the annulment of 1993 to have happened today, the consequences will be much more devastating. Since 1993, subsequent elections in Nigeria have progressively gotten worse.

As it stands today, one of the possible outcomes of the election is a stalemate in which two major blocks of the country vote for the two major opposition parties. In a way, it could be said that the 2003 election followed the same pattern only for the so called national party to rig itself into a national position.

Despite Thisday’s roundly condemned opinion polls, the PDP has lost the perception war.

Having lost the perception war, there is a serious risk in the ruling party manipulating the election as it has done in the past. Even without counting on any safeguards that may come from the Prof. Jega led Independent National Election Committee, (INEC), the cruising excitement from events around the world means that a disturbed stalemate can trigger a crisis.

The first prerequisite of a free and fair election is that people are free to participate in the process that brings up party candidates contesting in the election. We were witness to the disorganized party primaries that took place in Nigeria where favored candidates of party leaders were imposed on the party members.

The second prerequisite is that the candidates so elected should have the opportunity to take their messages to the electorate. This entails the ability to freely campaign across the political landscape.

On these two counts, the April 2011 elections are already a failure. The rate of violence has surpassed the level of 1983. And we all know where that election ended.

Election monitors already in Nigeria are bearing witness to all these. The first paragraph of their election report might as well have been written. And we won’t be surprised if it was not complementary.

It is, therefore, important that Nigeria’s political aspirants, the judiciary, and the electoral body, INEC, all understand that the world is in a new season of spontaneous combustion. In the minds of the electorates, these stakeholders in the electoral process have been severely damaged by a barrage of scandals. They are as unpopular as the falling dictatorial governments of North Africa.

The Economist of London was famously quoted to have said that, “Nigeria is the only country in the world where the best is impossible and the worst never happens.” I beg to differ. And the wind blowing across the world backs me up on that. The April 2011 election is still an opportunity for Nigeria to prove to itself, and to the world at large, that the best is possible. But if Nigeria fails to do that, Nigeria may not have any say as to whether the worst will happen or not.