Nigerian Elections 2007 Is The Same Pattern In Six Decades Except OneBy Dr. Abayomi Ferreira The Nigerian elections, 2007 have come and gone. The entire world has condemned the process and outcomes as not representing the wishes of the peoples of Nigeria. Indeed, the presiding chief executive, Olusegun Obasanjo has equally declared that the process was ‘faulty’, although he would quite predictably uphold the outcome. I must express my surprise at the outcry of the world with respect to this rather expected farcical event of the 21st century. Anyone who is familiar with the contents, quality and process of elections in Nigeria since the first inter-party elections in that country in 1951 would wonder at the expectation by the world for anything better or even different. And I am particularly surprised at the outcry. The world-wide condemnation of the pattern and outcome of the elections merely gives an undeserved and wrong credibility to the Nigerian constitutional and political processes. It wrongly elevates the role of the self-seeking politicians in power to a level of genuine patriots which they are not. It diminishes the value of the palpable desire of Nigerians for a credible replacement of the existing polity. Further, we must never forget that the present polity has inherent features that make it impossible to conduct clean and reliable elections. Firstly, Obasanjo was military head of the dictatorship when he sacked the Chief Justice of the Federation to enable his appointee “make monumental decisions” to install “not necessarily the best candidate” as the President of Nigeria. That was in 1979. Secondly, in spite of his current anti-corruption campaign, his government is riddled with corrupt politicians. Thirdly, the electoral regulatory outfit INEC is constructed in such a manner as to prevent a credible political development of Nigeria. Far against the provisions of the 1999 constitution that is in force, INEC ensures that political parties with alternative and opposing views are denied the constitutional provisions for their growth and survival. The only credible elections that has been held in Nigeria, since 1951 was the June 12, 1993 elections, which, Babangida and his cohorts criminally annulled by military fiat on 25 June 1993. Origins of the Nigerian fraudulent polity The political history of Nigeria, as it is being played on the very rough electoral terrain that has been the undeserved lot of the peoples in the past six decades do not portend anything different or respectable in terms of elections and their outcome. The first inter party elections were experienced in Nigeria only in the colony of Lagos and Calabar in 1938. The contest was between two genuine political parties, the Nigerian National Democratic Party NNDP and the Nigerian Youth Movement NYM. Those elections, like the ones of 1922 and 1934 before then were totally devoid of rigging or cheating. The 1951 general elections were held in the throes of electoral fraud, rigging and cheating. That election has set the pattern for all subsequent elections, except one, June 12, 1993 to date. The twin formations of the Action Group of Nigeria AG as the political expression of Yoruba irredentism and the Northern Peoples’ Congress NPC as the political party of Hausa-Fulani feudal oligarchy in 1950 unfortunately dragged the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons NCNC from its progressive and socialist agenda to become the party of the Ibo State Union and the third limb of the parochial internecine politics of Nigeria. The pattern has remained the same ever since. Between 1951 and today, the politicians who injected the poison of electoral rigging into the Nigerian political process have consistently bred their type. The younger ones, although better educated though not necessarily more enlightened, do not behave differently. Their political parties are not genuine political parties in that they lack a consistent ideology for the political advancement of the people. They are bereft of any credible policies and programmes for the economic development and social reorganisation of Nigeria. Indeed, they have been correctly described by many writers as private clubs parading as political parties with the plans and efforts to access the public till for private acquisition. The anti- historical incursions of military politicians into the equation between 1966 and 1999, a period of more than three decades, compounded the national and political situation by breeding new and more vicious predators on the terrain of Nigerian politics. In the so-called fight against tribal politics that the military politicians used to throw wool in the face of Nigerians, political warlords emerged in form of godfathers who are now dominant in concert with the military politicians in the process of serving other interests as against the developmental interests of the Nigerian peoples. The politicians of the pre-military era, euphemistically referred to as the First Republic went into mutually beneficial alliance with their military ousters to continue the rape of the people. The military politicians deliberately went into alliance in governments with the same politicians they booted out of office. In the process, they pilfered the national treasury to a conservative tune of 500 billion dollars over a period of 35 years. The privatised funds have created powerful military politicians and civilian godfathers who are ready to commit and indeed are committing the most heinous crimes in the book to remain in power. Thus came the new republic in which between 1999 and today, the predators have pilfered some 100 billion dollars from the national treasury. The sources of these figures are none other than the National Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the most active and probably the only dedicated of the multiple agencies established by Obasanjo to wipe out corruption in Nigeria. Recently, the World Bank revealed that 170 billion dollars that had been pillaged in the period from official Nigerian funds are statched away and lying in foreign banks. With such easy and criminal access to the national resources for private acquisition, the establishment political parties will continue to deny the peoples of Nigeria their rights to free, fair and acceptable election processes. Is it any wonder that the brother of godfather Chris Uba is the new governor of Anambra State where in 2003, Chris as the mighty godfather bankrolled the election expenses of the governor, all the elected members of the State Assembly, all the Senators and Representatives of Anambra State in the National Assembly? Is it any wonder that in Oyo State in 2007, the mighty godfather Adedibu has his son, grandson and son-in-law as winners in the elections? Is it any wonder that in Delta State, Uduaghan is to take over as governor from his cousin Ibori? Are we to be surprised that the Action Congress AC, the new nome de guerre for the Alliance for Democracy AD won all the seats in the Lagos State of Assembly, the National Assembly and the governorship contest? Would INEC have declared the Ondo South senatorial as a win for the PDP that did not put up a candidate for the seat? The problem is not just the PDP but the political machines of exploiter politicians whose corporate agencies are the dominant political parties. Their temples are the Arewa Consultative Forum, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Afenifere and the Yoruba Council of Elders. These are the temples from which the exploiter politicians derive their inspiration. They are the 21st century successors of the tribal and parochial organisations of 1950 that gave rise to the political debacle in which Nigeria is stuck.
What should be done? When Pat Utomi and Adams Oshiomole, undoubtedly the best materials that came out in 2007, chose to contest for power on the platforms of the establishment political parties, I wrote to both of them and assured them that they could not get to power through those political parties. I argued using the facts from Nigerian political history and showing that those parties are not the platforms for the economic development of Nigeria. The solution to the Nigerian democratic quagmire lies in a new political beginning by those who are not yet infected by the 56 year old craze for power through rigged elections. The new beginning that is needed is to create a brand new movement, a political party that has no historical, philosophical, ideological, and programmatic, and indeed leadership connections with those parties that have forcibly and criminally occupied the Nigerian political terrain in the past 56 years. When the Labour Party accepted defeated dissidents from the establishment parties in the likes of Femi Pedro and Olusegun Mimiko as its candidates, the Labour Party was only repeating the fraudulent crossing of party lines that lack all principles of ideological credo and policy commitments. In the 2003 elections, the Democratic Alternative rejected all such career political carpet-crossers. Yes, it is possible and it is doable. Indeed, the seeds of such a new pro-people party are already planted in the Democratic Alternative DA, National Conscience Party NCP, and the Peoples’ Redemption Party PRP. Unlike the establishment parties that keep robbing our peoples of their rights to elect their leaders and rulers, such a party will have an ideology for the rapid economic development of Nigeria. It will promote genuine membership of committed members who pay their normal party dues and attend meetings to take democratic decisions regularly. It will have a party school to educate both its members and the ordinary Nigerians of the possibilities for development and progress that is available in Nigeria. It will have party news media for the education and exchange of ideas with members and the general public. It will present a manifesto for national development to the electorate. It will be committed to replacing the current military constitution with a new pro-people and pro-development constitution that is based on the document recently approved by the Conference that was midwifed by PRONACO. It will present an irreducible minimum programme on full employment, realistic minimum wage, agriculture, education, health and energy. It will plan to revalue the national currency to its original value before the IMF imposed structural adjustment programme that has reduced our people to unprecedented poverty in the face of advancement in other countries. That unacceptable immersion in sustained poverty will continue as long as the current fraudulent polity remains. It must be ready to send the IMF and the World Bank personnel who presently dictate programmes and overlook the governmental activities of their lackeys on a long holiday outside Nigeria to allow indigenous formulation and efforts at development. There has been no country in the world and in history that has been developed by foreigners. The parties that control power in Nigeria today do not have such programmes. The elections were never fought on the bases of issues and programmes. The electorate had no such choices in the 2007 elections. The current Nigerian political terrain is essentially for the interests of foreign powers and the Nigerian establishment politicians. The interests and keenness of the West, particularly Britain and the United States of America do not go beyond ensuring ‘stability’ in Nigeria as manifested by the absence of violence to sustain their control and dominance of the Nigerian economic system including the large market for consumer goods. The constitutional and political processes and quality is not their business. However, without the relevant democratic contents for the development of Nigeria in the polity, our people will never have access to the resources of Nigeria. The West, in spite of the damning reports by the foreign and local observers at the 2007 elections will certainly do business with the ruling oligarchy. Indeed, they have just celebrated the bicentenary of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Then, some two to three centuries ago, internal strife and violence in the yet to be created territory were a necessity to take the slaves out. Today, internal peace and submission are a necessity to keep the people at home and in sustained poverty. Obasanjo served that purpose excellently. Yar’adua will equally serve the same purpose. I am convinced that our people are not in support of the supervening polity in Nigeria. In the newly declared results, only 25 million voters are said to have participated in the elections out of the 65 million on the register. This is a predictable repetition of the mass protest that was silently expressed by the same electorate at the 1999 and 2003 elections. Only 14 million voted in 1999 out of 48 million. In 2003, 25 million out of 60 million voted. These are the people, these silent but unorganised protesters who have clearly but silently expressed their disdain for the fraudulent polity that we need to build into a formidable political force. Boycotts and street protests have their uses. We know that those uses are not lastingly applicable in the question of political power. The street protests and literary outcries will soon end and the fraudsters will carry on in power as usual. Indeed, some of the protesters will seek and take offices in the new Federal and State governments The fight for power through a new formation is relevant when we consider the facts that in eight years of Obasanjo and PDP, ANPP and AD governments, 16 trillion naira of public funds were shared to the various governments, not counting the 51 billion naira that is not accounted for at all levels of government. What have the people gained? They remain in sustained and irredeemable poverty in which 100.8 million Nigerians belong to families that exist on less than 5000 naira in twelve calendar months.
27 April 2007 |