I DON’T own a camera other than the one that comes with the phone I use. Even that, I seldom remember to use. The reason is that I am camera shy. I am not too shy to stand at the end of the camera; after all, I only need to be able to say ‘cheese’. But I do hate to stand at the button end. That’s where the work is. It’s just too much work for me to aim, set and shoot; besides, I need more glasses for that. Obviously, to aim, set and shoot is not the problem of some people, because there was a lot of it on the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa State, especially Kogi State.
Let me tell you, there were so many shots from that Kogi election they made me feel like I was there. Well, what with the camera shots and gun shots, I really did feel like I was in the picture. So, which one should I start with? Let me start with the camera shots. Many of the shots I saw showed people deliberately roiling up serene voting environments by shooting guns and watching people scatter. I saw a lot of such scattering. I also saw a vehicle being used to cart away ballot boxes, deliberate destruction of ballot boxes, and people generally running for their lives or lying dead.
A news item reported that a party’s spokesman in Bayelsa State also complained that the elections in that state were marred by rigging, killings, ballot box snatching, arson, violence, thuggery and electoral fraud. In the two states, there were reports of the presence of heavy state security men but there was no clarity as to their uses there. Some said the security men were to scare away trouble makers; others said they were used to intimidate the voters. Honestly, unlike the people who knew which way to direct their feet when trouble came, me, I don’t know which way to direct my brain.
Altogether, it does appear that the elections in these two states were somewhat less than desired. It would appear that a great deal of desperation had been put into those elections such that one might really hold them into question. Indeed, a cartoon depicted the people’s thoughts on the subject matter. It showed a President Buhari wishing indeed to deliver free, fair and credible elections to the people but what he is looking at is anything but. Instead, dead bodies litter the grounds and guns are pointing at people while ballot boxes are being ferried off illegally. A short skit also shows political parties running a race and one party getting rid of the other runners by shooting them down. Seriously?!
These pictures are dreadful indeed, and they raise two questions in my mind. The first is this: Is this the meaning of democracy? The second is: What is the value of this so-called victory won by the governors at gunpoint? I ask these questions because I honestly believed, maybe naively, that democracy is the government of the people for the people by the people through the ballot box, the symbol of voting power. Never mind the very many academic questions that definition raises; but in all the definitions, there is no mention of gun, coercion or thuggery being elements of the democratic institution. From the pictures I saw of the Kogi election, the elements were clear. And they were not democratic.
So, to our first question. Is this the meaning of democracy? I honestly don’t know. It is just like asking a child the meaning of Christmas. His or her answer will depend on how deprived or privileged the child is. If there is plenty of goods and food to go round, the full meaning of the season comes home to him or her. If, on the other hand, scarcity has pervaded, then he or she feels the assaults of the season and the meaning is negative.
Going by the reports of those who witnessed this election, apart from the pictures, the news is not good either. Many reported losing hope on the sudden introduction of gun wielding thugs into the election scenario. Indeed, some fear that many might not recover their sanity. How did it come to this pass? We will come to that in a moment but first to answer our second question: what is the value of the victory?
To answer that, I will refer to a small anecdote that I heard a long time ago, and I’m sure you would have heard it too. A little girl had misbehaved so her mother asked her to go and kneel down in a corner of the room. Reluctantly and after much argument, she complied but not before giving her mother this parting shot: I may be kneeling down but in my mind, I am standing up. From all the complaints one has heard so far about these elections, the victory appears to have been at the point of a gun held at the people’s head! In a situation where people have lost their lives, one, according to reports, being burnt in her house, there is little to say other than good luck to that victory.
Clearly, Kogi and Bayelsa States are testing grounds for our democracy. From the little we have seen so far, it is indeed doubtful if this democracy can grow here. The reason is very simple: the people are being told that they have very little to do with it. That is not good for our democratic growth. The democracy we saw in action in Kogi and Bayelsa appears to be wearing a garb that states clearly: the party’s will be done. In this case, it was the will of APC to capture the states. The good thing is that in the process, the people also captured them capturing the states.
I am beginning to wonder if Nigeria is not under a curse to never do well in her democracy examinations. You know, when a child does poorly in his or her exams, he or she can blame many things: the questions, teacher, time problem, even food, but hardly the self for not preparing enough. Nigerian democratic experiments have never done well since 1960. Now, who do we blame: the teachers, lack of understanding of what democracy is about or the learner?
What I don’t understand is the role of the youth. I’m really confused. In some areas, some young ones were said to have foiled the snatching of the ballot boxes. In others, the young ones were the ones who were sent to snatch the boxes. What gives, young ‘uns? Truth is that the present generation of politicians have lost their way mostly because they refused to remember nothing, even as they also failed to forget nothing. They refused to learn from the mistakes of the past. We were somehow hoping that our young ones would help us forget some things, such as violence.
These elections showed that the errors of the past have been carried forward into the present, and many young ones were used, as ever before. Such footsteps of the past as violence, arson, murder, burning houses, people and properties, snatching ballot boxes and people’s votes, thus disenfranchising them, have been followed systematically into the present. When are we ever going to learn?
Many do not know that this is no light thing, to disenfranchise people or circumvent their will. When people’s votes are not allowed to count or even be counted, then democracy no longer counts. Our political parties really need to watch it if they want to count.
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