Nigeria: The Prospects of One Party State

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@yahoo.com

2011 elections have produced a President-elect, Governors-elect, and a host of legislative members. They have also exacerbated the deep divisions that exist in the Nigerian society. Equally damaging was the recurring losses of lives, properties and investments. Most worrying, was the declaration of inter-ethnic war along religious lines.

The President-elect was swift to offer the promise of compensation to those who lost properties, and may be even the families of those who lost loved ones. Many Nigerians over the years had lost loved ones and properties in inter-ethnic feuds, but I doubt if they were really ever compensated properly. May be because this touched the President-elect personally, (it was a reaction to the Presidential election results that brought the mayhem) that is why he is not taking it lightly.

What many in federal authorities may not have time to reflect upon is that the aspirations of over twelve million Nigerians who voted for the opposition candidate, spread over seventeen states of the federation (half of the Nigerian states?) have been thwarted. We all know it that Nigeria is a not a united country. No country with population diversity, and differences of religion such as ours, can ever hope to achieve a unity of an England for example. I thus believe that if we want to enjoy more semblances of peace in the future, we have to amend the Constitution to build-in safeguards for future election losers: this should be possible even if it is the governing party that loses.

From the little history that I know, which is also common knowledge to many, no party that had ever held power at the federal level in Nigeria lost any election which it organized; adding the word ‘independent’ to INEC notwithstanding.

In the first Republic, the alliance that held the centre did not hand over to an elected opposition party; its leaders were ultimately assassinated in a coup and the military took over. There was to be no democracy again till in 1979, when NPN captured power at the federal level; it conducted election in 1983 which was so unsatisfactory to the opposition that the military intervened again. There was to be no democracy that produced an elected President till 1999, which saw former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo coming back as elected civilian.

His rule of eight years was under a zoning agreement (alternating power between North and South after every eight years); he handed over power to an ailing Northerner, but of his party, the PDP. Yar’Adua died in office, while his Vice, a southerner, became President. He challenged the zoning arrangement and is now President-elect, (to either complete two terms; go on to a third term, or even enjoy limitless terms; for you no longer have any reason to say anything is impossible in Nigeria).

In the election of 2011, the forces controlled by the federal government went about their duties as if they were the creation of the party that is now in power. No security apparatus will be expected to sit back and allow citizens however aggrieved to be killing other citizens and torching properties. Yet unless in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the US badly wanted to have elections at all costs, nowhere in the world are elections held under siege of the army and police as in Nigeria. The security chiefs had more than a passing interest in the elections: their tenure is at pleasure of the incumbent.

So with this scenario how will it ever be possible for an opposition party to capture power in Nigeria since the security chiefs’ loyalty is to the person who appointed them rather than to the nation? They are aided in this aberration when a section of the country refuses to assess parties and candidates on their performance or track record, but rather on geographical location and religion. But we pray to be alive in 2015 to see if President Goodluck fulfills his promise not to contest again, who will be PDP’s presidential candidate, Namadi Sambo? And if Namadi were to emerge, would the South support their own son in another party and ditch PDP? Would the security apparatus still unleash their terror machine in order to secure his victory? Would there be need for other parties to be contesting elections at the federal level ever again if any of the two scenarios posited above were to prevail?

Whether we like it or not, the elections of 2011 have exposed us to the world as a disunited people. We should not play the ostrich and continue to behave as if all is well with us. No, our political arrangement is faulty, and cannot last with these types of behaviors: by those who must win at all costs; and equally by those who do not know how to react to the machinations of those who will not shy away from using ethnicity and religion to achieve their aims, even though it will destroy the nation.

The government may be emboldened to want to throw into jail those who might be linked with the disturbances rightly or wrongly. But what it cannot throw into jail are the aspirations of millions of Nigerians who for decades have suffered from misrule; and who see no way out it since the elections are going to be conducted in the manner we have seen; and since also a segment of the country would rather commit voluntary suicide in the name of ethnic or religious solidarity, than to vote for the prospect of good governance from a person who is not their kinsman.

A tragedy equal to that of Nigeria can only be found in Somalia.