Piece of Peace: Against Provocative Campaigns, Threats and Violence (2) By Shafii Abdulhamid shafii.abdulhamid@futminna.edu.ng
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ― Jimi Hendrix Piece of Peace: 2015 Elections
“Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is
better than silver or gold.”
The die has been cast, the drums have been rolled out and the dancers have already taken the centre stage. It is a very rough road that leads to Armageddon and some may never even reach there. We have crossed this bridge before and it was not an easy way to Terabithia. General elections in Nigeria are a very serious business – too serious to be left in the hands of politicians alone. Since another general election is just around the corner, it is time for me to pen down my piece of peace (#PieceOfPeace).
In the past few weeks, political parties were preoccupied with party primaries across all level of governance. Party tickets have been won and lost. The winners are engulfed with joy and they are looking forward to form more alliances ahead of the February general elections, while some losers are still aggrieved, dissatisfied and angry. Some are even looking for ways to cause chaos during the elections. Only a few of them understood the real meaning of sportsmanship in politics and that brings us to where we presently find ourselves. Many politicians in Nigeria are very selfish and they are always ready at any given time to do whatever it takes to get elected. The life of the poor in our society and the peace of the nation mean nothing to them in as much as the elections did not go in their favour. The opposition will do everything within their arsenals to muscle their way into power, while the incumbents will also use all armaments to keep power. All the dirty tricks in the books will be deployed by all and at the end of the day they leave blood in the streets. Oh yes! We have crossed this bridge before and it never leads to Terabithia.
The 2011 general elections was marred with wide spread post-election violence in some sections of the country. The Federal Government constituted a twenty-two man committee headed by a Minna-based former Grand Khadi, Sheikh Ahmad Lemu. Nobody was in any doubt when the highly respected Sheikh presented a very meticulous report with insightful recommendations on how to forestall future occurrences. But very typical of this administration, the report, just like many other committee reports before it, was dumped in a shelf somewhere in a corner of Aso Rock villa. No surprise that nobody heard anything about the Lemu’s report or its recommendations that was submitted to the current president. Ironically, this and many other good intentioned works for promoting peace and religious understanding earn the Sheikh the 2014 King Faisal Prize at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Since then many things have change in this country. The Fulani man carrying stick before is now carrying gun. The repentant Niger Delta militants carrying guns before are now warship importers. The Boko Harams carrying AK47 before are now controlling Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and the Ombatse militia of Nasarawa state are now gun runners. Our territories have been annexed by religious extremists that claimed to be fighting for Islam. Weapons, weapons, everywhere, but not enough for the Army. Of great concern are the recent serial jailbreaks that took place at different locations in the country. The pattern of these prison breaks have political colouration written all over them. Everyday there is a terror story in Nigeria and no one is feeling secure. Unfortunately, the government of the day has its priorities and providing security to the citizenry is not at the top of their scale of preference. Winning election and retaining their offices is all they have ear for. At the top of these all we are facing a general election in an uncertain, insecure, vulnerable and defenceless situation.
It is important to point out that no politician is worth dying for and no one deserve to die because of an election. Rewind: actually, not even an ant deserves to die because of an election. I also believe that the security of lives and properties of the citizenry is the responsibility of all, but the bulk lies on the table of the Commander-in-Chief and the Executive governors of the states. History shows that the utterances of some political gladiators during electioneering are clear pointers that motivate violent tendencies in the electorates. Therefore, it is high time we start holding our leaders responsible for their unguided utterances in the run-up to elections. The way and manner some electorates easily become willing tools for political manipulations to cause violence during or after elections calls for a serious concern. It still beat my imaginations that in this year and age some people still participate in political thuggery without their political godfathers and their children leading the way in the streets. It is totally against the law of fairness for politicians to incite the masses to kill themselves on the streets during elections while their children are sent to the most expensive schools abroad studying. Indeed, common sense is not always common.
The politics of tribe, religion and region is a very sensitive thing to play with in Nigeria, but unfortunately that is what the politicians are using to divide us. The moment any of these is mention, we quickly loose our senses. We quickly take sides depending on which side of the argument we come from. The election is just around the corner, but no one is discussing issues yet. No one is discussing the peace and security of the electorates before, during and after the elections. As far as I am concern, the security of lives and properties of the citizenry is far more important than the value attached to winning elections. Without peace and security in the nation, there will be no country to rule.
Let us be our brother’s keepers and let’s shun any act of violence that will jeopardize the peace and tranquillity of the nation. Vote wisely because your vote is your right. This is my #PieceOfPeace.
Few days after the above was published, I received the news that the two leading presidential candidates in Nigeria - incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen. Mohammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) have signed a peace accord ahead of the general elections in February, 2015. The images of these two gentlemen hugging each other and smiling at the venue of the peace deal greeted the cyberspace with warm reception. Many of us that saw those pictures circulating on the internet immediately welcomed this development because it symbolized peace, understanding, tolerance and hope. Yours sincerely was particularly very ecstatic feeling somebody was listening to my #PieceOfPeace. I really felt we were making progress towards having a relatively peaceful general election in Nigeria, until recently when my escalated hope was put on a very serious doubt just few days later.It all started with a sitting governor of a supposedly highly enlightened Nigerian state putting up an advertorial in the front pages of supposedly highly respected Nigerian dailies wishing the candidate of the opposition party death. In more clear terms, a sitting governor that suppose to be at the forefront of peace advocacy placed a death-wish advert in the national dailies for the opposition candidate. It sounds unbelievable, but that was what happened in the binoculars of all living Nigerians including our security agencies. Yes, some things can only happen in Nigeria, but this one was far at the extreme! I understand the sponsor of this provocative advert has a history of behaving in a very comical way, but even a clown should not crack this inciting joke in any circus. I also heard that his party came out to dissociate themselves from the publication. Well, that is good but it’s not enough. What I expect from the party was to condemn the said publication, ask him to retract it by issuing an apology letter not only to the candidate but also to the millions of Nigerians that he incited. This apology letter should be publish in the front pages of the same newspapers he used. Having failed in controlling such a loose child, the party should know that they have set a rhythm for a very dangerous dance. As it is the mango fruit that causes the mango tree to be stoned. Therefore, if anybody is asking for the first party to contravene the Abuja peace accord, do not look beyond this provocative advertorial.While the nation was yet to fully recover from this shock, she received another blow in faraway Katsina - a state that has branded itself to be the nation’s home of hospitality and not hostility. This time it was the convoy of Mr. President that was stoned by miscreants during a campaign rally. It was an act that needs to be condemned by all right thinking human beings. As expected, both parties came out and dissociated themselves, then went ahead to condemn the disrespectful act. To me those were not enough. It is important to note that, even though the state is the home state of the leading opposition candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the paradox is that, the state is governed and controlled by the leading PDP. Again, many of us cannot forget in a hurry how the governor of that same state was recently caught in a video camera inciting his supporters to kill the opposition – just like during the Rwandan genocide, he was making reference to killing cockroaches. But to my greatest surprise the director of media and publicity of the PDP presidential campaign organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, was quick to blame the opposition for the attack, while in an effort to exonerate their party from this blame. The oppositions also blamed the PDP for stage planning the attack themselves. All this to me was a show of shame.As if we have not seen the end of it, another attack was unleashed on the campaign train of Mr. Present again but this time around it was in Bauchi state – another state governed and controlled by the ruling PDP. In what came as a surprise to everyone, the governor of the state Alhaji Isa Yuguda was quick to exonerate the opposition from blames. He asserted in an interview that it was some disgruntled elements from within his party that intentionally planned the attack to discredit him. At this juncture, I am tempted to ask this question: why is all the incitements and violence coming from the PDP-controlled states?Nigeria is like a very old water tank; just when you try to fix water leakage from one position another position just bursts. Oh yes, you only need to know about the threats coming from those glorified Niger-Delta ex-militants to agree with this old water tank analogy. In faraway Bayelsa state, a group of ex-militants that benefited from the peaceful amnesty program of the late former president Umaru Musa Yar’adua are now trying to distort the peace of the nation. According to newspaper reports, they regrouped in the state government house at Yenagoa to discuss about the 2015 general elections and at the end of the meeting they issued a threat of violence to the nation. The warlords threatened that, in the event that Mr. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan loses the election in February, there will be war! In a sane nation, these nuisances should by now be cooling off in a Kiri-Kiri maximum prison for treasonable felony. But before I forget, Bayelsa state is the hometown of Mr. President and is also governed and controlled by the PDP.I call on all Nigerians not to be intimidated by this empty threat or any similar one that may come in the future. No one should be allowed to be cowed into voting against his or her wish. The future of our country lies finally in our votes. We finally have another opportunity to make it right as a nation. While I shall continue to call on all of us to avoid any act of violence, I shall also continue to call on all of us to vote wisely because our vote is our right. This is just a #PieceOfPeace.Shafi’i Hamidu wrote-in from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Twitter: @shafzon FaceBook: Shafi'i Hamidu |