2011: The Darkening Clouds and A Silver Lining

By

Iliyasu Gadu

Ilgad2009@gmail.com

 

 

Although the Federal Government has issued a strongly worded riposte to the doomsday scenario painted in a recent article by former American Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell on the 2011 elections, we need not entertain any illusions that the coming days and months will be anything but uncertain for Nigeria. While it may be politically correct to denounce the underlying assumptions of Ambassador Campbell’s take on the forthcoming elections, it will be difficult however to totally ignore the Ambassador’s conclusions on the likely consequences for Nigeria should the elections on which so much is hinged, fail. If it is anything to go by, the Independence Day Bomb blasts that took several lives brought home to us the reality

 

There are three fundamental reasons to buttress this argument.

 

The first and most significant reason has to do with President Jonathan’s decision to enter the presidential race for the 2011elections. Up until the last moments before he took that step, there are those who earnestly hoped that President Jonathan would in enlightened self interest elect not to run. In their reckoning, what Nigeria needed at this critical defining moment of its history was for the President in an act of supreme and noble sacrifice, to undertake the difficult but necessary cleansing of the electoral system.  As someone who was literarily coming from the shadows Nigerians were presented with an opportunity to critically examine the type of leader President Jonathan is. Is he the long anticipated leader in whom we could invest our hope for the desired march to the fulfillment of the greatness that our potential points to? Or will he turn out like the ones we had in the past who left us high and dry at the end of their unremarkable passage far from attaining that goal?

In coming to grips with this the President had two choices before him; either to be the statesman and rise above the fray to enable him do all that is benevolently necessary to thoroughly sort out the electoral system thereby earning him a favourable reckoning in the annals of our history, or to join the fray and swim in the murky waters of Nigerian politics with the real possibility that he may unwittingly come to be consumed by it eventually.

 

 

Now that President Jonathan has joined the fray we have our unequivocal answer. Since coming to power the President has regrettably taken steps that bear him out as someone who harbours no scruples in using the power of incumbency to determine things in his favour. We had already seen this in the way and manner the chairman of his political party PDP, was brutally shoved aside to make way for a more pliant one who apparently will be expected to deliver the party ticket to him willy nilly. Also despite his avowals to ensure credible elections in 2011, the President has been seen and heard by his actions to be moving in a direction towards a total seizure of the political and electoral system on his own terms, for his own ends. In this regard as he seems bent on installing himself in power, we cannot expect him to reform the electoral system in ways that may stymie his chances of winning the 2011 general elections even if such changes are necessary in the overriding interest of the country. The downside of this as we have clearly seen, has been in the President’s willingness to patronize the company and services of political gladiators with dubious political antecedents. It remains to be seen how the President beholden in this compromising quid pro quo to such political characters can superintend a much desired credible 2011 elections.

Going into the 2011 elections with such significant question marks on his neutrality, the President may have provided the ammunition to those who believe that with him on the ballot, the elections if it comes to hold would neither be credible, free or fair. In such a scenario, what moral and statutory right can the President stand on to sanction possible political and electoral infractions from within his own party and outside it in the 2011 elections, if he himself perchance stands accused of same?

 

The second reason that supports the view that Nigeria is headed for uncertain times in the run up to the 2011 elections has to do with the OBJ-IBB factor. In many ways the 2011 elections can be described as a continuation of the long drawn war of wits between the two. Those who had known them intimately from a long time attest to the fact that the political chess game between the two dates back to their army days. Back when General Obasanjo was military Head of State, he was always wary of then Colonel Ibrahim Babangida to the extent that Supreme Military Council meetings do not commence if Babangida was absent unless Obasanjo was assured of his whereabouts. The reason for this is not far fetched. From his serial involvement in coups, to his convoluted political programmes culminating in the annulment first of the NRC and SDP presidential primaries and the annulment later of what is widely considered to date as Nigeria’s freest, fairest and most credible elections on June 12, 1993 while in office as military president, through to his efforts at maneuvering Obasanjo back to power, Babangida’s track record of political wheeling dealing is unrivalled in Nigeria. Although Babangida played a prominent role in helping to install Obasanjo as President in 1999, Obasanjo would certainly know that Babangida was at the head of efforts to frustrate and ultimately deny him his third term bid. Discerning political observers link Obasanjo’s volte-face on the zoning issue as way of getting back at Babangida who has signified his interest to seek the PDP’s ticket for the Presidential elections in 2011, for this. The Babangida camp will also strongly suspect that by backing President Jonathan for the PDP ticket, Obasanjo intends to be in a vantage position to nail their principal in a final act of coup de grace if Jonathan eventually wins the Presidential race.

But like or loathe him, in the run up to the 2011 elections Babangida’s image will undoubtedly loom large in the political horizon, notwithstanding the formidable array of the Obasanjo-Goodluck forces against him. But because both Obasanjo and Babangida are outstanding individuals with wide following and influence, there is every possibility that their political differences, if left to fester might negatively affect not only the 2011 elections, but the entire country as well.

 

The third factor that should necessarily concern us about the forthcoming 2011 elections has to with the state of Independent National Electoral Commission, the body charged to handle the elections. In this regard it should concern us that the success or lack of it of the 2011 elections should be hinged on one man, the INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega. Although the credibility of Professor Jega has been vouched for by his antecedents, we should not however overload our expectations of a credible election on the shoulders of one person no matter how well intentioned. To do this is to ignore the obvious deep seated defects in the electoral body which requires a thorough structural overhaul coming against the background of our experiences with INEC in the conduct of the 2003 and 2007 elections. As yet, a few months to the 2011 elections there is nothing to suggest that the concrete measures needed to make INEC ready to deliver credible elections in 2011 have been undertaken. At best what we are likely to have is a muddling through of the elections which will create more problems than solve.

 

Against this background, it is clear that we are heading to the 2011 elections not only unprepared but more deeply divided along regional, ethnic and religious lines than at any other time in our chequered political history. It is even more ominous that the elite consensus that have in the past often helped in resolving potentially threatening situations in the country seems to have been fatally impaired.

 

Bleak as this scenario appears, it however clearly offers some opportunities for emergence of new leaders with new attitudes in the country. Indeed looked critically what we are witnessing and heading for in the coming weeks and months is a possible seismic shift in leadership forged fortuitously by the uncertain circumstances of the 2011 elections. For the sake of the labours of our heroes past Nigeria should and must endure.