Nigeria is going through a period of severe trial. How it handles and resolves the current predicaments will define the nature of Nigeria that will emerge at the end of the crucible. It could transform into a more united nation, or it could be a severely weakened and fragmented country. The future of Nigeria remains a mystery.
What is on trial at the presidential election appeal tribunal is not just the determination of the true winner of the election. Nigeria’s moral character is also facing severe scrutiny.
At the centre of the current anger and frustration in the country are the transgressions committed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). INEC was expected to demonstrate a higher level of autonomy in the conduct of the 2023 elections. Not only did senior officials of INEC violate their own rules about how the elections should be conducted and how the results would be transmitted electronically but INEC officials also took sides.
Now, INEC, led by senior officials with blemished integrity, is vigorously defending the criminality that tainted the presidential election. They are doing so by claiming the election was conducted according to the rules and that the best candidate was declared the winner. What a baloney.
When people talk about corruption and kidnapping and insecurity as the key problems facing Nigeria, it seems to me they have underestimated the serious impact that Mahmood Yakubu’s ill-informed decision to declare the winner of the presidential election without all the evidence would have on the country. That irresponsible decision will adversely affect the future of the country. This is why Nigeria is portrayed as a lawless country in which officials make silly unilateral decisions that fly in the face of reality.
Yakubu might have declared his preferred candidate as the winner of the election but he must also be prepared to withstand the consequences of his temerity in announcing the result of the presidential election without full proof.
When the judiciary is invited to resolve the controversial outcomes of a presidential election that was riddled with abuses, violence, misconduct, voter intimidation and audacious rigging, Nigeria cannot claim to be a democracy. Democracy and Nigeria are strange bedfellows. Since the return of democracy in 1999, we are still wondering whether the variant of democracy in Nigeria is a curse, a blessing, a façade or a smokescreen intended to show the world we are capable of governing ourselves.
We mock the principles of democracy when we superimpose predetermined election results over the genuine results of votes cast by voters. We delude ourselves when we violate election rules and then gather a multitude of lawyers to defend the stolen mandate, to silence the truth, to venerate injustice and to support a preferred candidate who rigged the election openly.
When people say that Nigeria is unique, it should never be taken as an honourable mention. It is a statement meant to cajole, ridicule, and expose our backsides to the international community. It is also meant, derisively, to show that what is criminalised and rejected in other countries are acceptable practices in Nigeria.
Nigeria cannot be unique or distinctive when it celebrates criminality, when it promotes second-rate presidential candidates who lack the ability and good health to govern. We cannot be respected when we present to the world men of low moral character and frail health as our president.
Perhaps, except for Nigeria, I know of no other country that is happy to present as its President a man who cannot produce accurate records of the educational institutions they attended, or their correct date of birth, or clarify the state, city, or local government in which they were born, or answer questions articulately, logically and impressively during media conferences. He cannot answer questions without stuttering or stumbling over certain words.
For many years, Nigeria claimed rightly that it was the “giant of Africa”, a continental leader that other African countries looked upon for assistance in many ways. Today, Nigeria has crumbled to become the butt of jokes, and a favourite subject among newspaper cartoonists. It is mocked because it cannot conduct general elections that are free, fair, credible, peaceful and transparent. Nigerian politicians are portrayed as greedy, deeply corrupt and incredibly selfish. That representation is correct. They say civil society in Nigeria is lily-livered. That is also an undeniable fact.
In our environment, there are politicians with corruption cases hanging over their heads who are competing fiercely to be elected Senate President or Speaker of the House of Representatives. It is either that we adore corruption or we are afraid of expressing our disgust at crooked men and women who aspire for leadership positions. Where are the men and women of high character, conscience and integrity?
Today, I use my travel experiences in Singapore 22 years ago to reflect on the sad situation in Nigeria. The experiences show clearly that Nigeria is regressing rather than progressing, and that many people are experiencing worse economic hardships today than they did more than two decades ago. Those who are keen to exaggerate the achievements of a government that never really got off the ground for eight years it struggled to govern should look conscientiously at the current situation in Nigeria.
It was 6.35am on that Thursday. The garrulous Singaporean taxi driver wouldn’t let me hear a word. During the 15-minute ride from the Century Roxy Park Hotel to Singapore’s Changi Airport, he rattled on proudly about so many things regarding his country. He asked whether I had had a restful night, whether I enjoyed the food at the hotel and whether I liked the weather that morning. For someone who had been flying for the past 17 hours, the taxi driver’s efforts to kick-start an early morning friendly chat was rather irritating. All I needed was rest and more rest. I was aware I still had to fly for more than seven hours before reaching my destination in Australia.
The taxi driver was not going to let me rest. He kept talking. He talked about the multiracial composition of his country and how different racial groups in Singapore had lived in harmony for a long time. He talked about some architectural structures in Singapore, the design of the streets, the beauty of the roads, the plants that lined the major roads, the cleanliness of the city, how the people are receptive and warm to foreigners, the law-abiding nature of the citizens and Singapore’s reputation as the hub of modern technology and air transportation in Southeast Asia. And the driver talked about the safety of foreigners in Singapore. At the mention of the word “safety”, my senses sprang up.
I felt ashamed that, unlike the taxi driver, I could not speak proudly about many things concerning my country. In Nigeria, neither foreigners nor local people feel safe either in the day or at night. Everyone is a target of kidnappers, bandits, ritualists and other criminal groups.
As a mark of the degree to which criminality has spread across Nigeria, I found that villages no longer serve as a haven for anyone wishing to escape the madness in the cities. Armed robbers have been displaced by the dreaded but amorphous outfit known as “unknown gunmen”. Where are the “unknown gunwomen”? Men or women, they have infiltrated the villages and now hold regular rendezvous in marketplaces, rural roads and village squares.
Whoever emerges the President after the current appeal process will have a lot of work to do to reposition and transform Nigeria.