What will Atiku challenging Buhari’s wide margin of victory do to hurt the country’s political system?
Matters or, better still, problems arising from the 2019 elections—national and subnational—will undoubtedly vary from observer to observer; however, such matters must be in the hundreds. But now thuggery surfaces at every election season. A situation in which a few politicians and their many thugs turn what should have been a democratic ritual into a theatre of war ought to be stopped.
Between 1959 and 1979, thugs featured prominently in pre-election activities. Many opposition party agents were even prevented from entering many cities in the North to campaign for their candidates, especially in the days of Action Group/Unity Party of Nigeria (AG/UPN) and Northern Peoples Congress/National Party of Nigeria (NPC/NPN). In the South, party thugs, generally male, even entered polling booths with stomachs pregnant with votes for delivery into ballot boxes. Snatching of ballot boxes by thugs of various political parties ready to disappear amidst sporadic shooting into the air that we still witness today was popular in the 1960s. But in 1993, the intensity of thuggery went down noticeably, to the extent that the Babangida-organised elections that would have brought MKO Abiola to the presidency was adjudged locally and internationally as the freest, fairest, and most credible general elections in the country. Though not adjudged to be as free and fair as the 1993 election, the election organised by Abdulsalaam Abubarkar in 1999 did not take us back to the absurdity of the 1960s.
But from 2003 till 2019, hoodlums seemed to have returned to electioneering with vengeance. More than ever before, the so-called principal political parties have condoned brigandage in the days before, during, and even after elections. No part of the country has been spared from election-related violence in the last three weeks. I have relations who came back to the country to vote for the second time in a row since 2015. Enamoured of the Not too Young to Run legislation, one of them came this time with a younger brother who was not old enough to vote in 2015. But the story from the two young men has been since February 23 about the need for the legislature to pass a law authorising Nigerians abroad to vote at the nearest embassy to them. The young men cite the sight of young men carrying knives, daggers, and charms in open vehicles from village to village, without being stopped by the police.
Although there are jingles every election season warning young men not to allow themselves to be used by politicians to commit crime, the role of thuggery in our electioneering is not as simple as it may appear. Young men with parents in the same socio-economic bracket with politicians are hardly in the gangs of thugs that cause tension during election seasons. It is children of poor people that are hired to serve as hoodlums. Politicians who hire hoodlums and the young men who accept to be hired as thugs share equal responsibility in the matter. But the politicians are more to blame for taking advantage of economically vulnerable citizens.
The country’s law enforcement agency needs to be asked why thugs seem to overpower police during elections. Given the noise made about drafting of thousands of police, security personnel, and even members of the military to states to prevent breakdown of law, the reports of breakdown of law in some cities in different parts of the country should not have happened. There are signs that the police system the country is operating may not have been designed to solve many of the problems facing the country. And getting a police model that can control community-specific crimes like thuggery requires special attention after the elections. We do not need to wait for electoral law reforms before we respond to the rise of thuggery in the country’s political culture. The impunity of hoodlums, such as occurs when thugs openly threaten to pour acid on selected targets or thugs of political parties brazenly throw objects at national officers at election rallies suggests that there is urgent need to rethink law enforcement in the country.
President Buhari’s promise to apply additional energy to security of the land in his last term is good news and citizens should stay on the president’s case on this matter, because four years is not a long time in a country facing myriads of problems. It is not clear if the president’s definition of security includes ridding the country’s streets of thugs. Many people interviewed about low turnout of voters during the recent presidential election in the Southwest cited fear of thugs as one reason for staying home on election days. Expecting 450,000 police to enforce law in a country of about 200 million people and with rudimentary police communication is not good enough for the task at hand. In addition, a centralised police system in which most police officers do not speak the language of the average citizen in their beat does not seem to be the most effective way to secure a country of multiple languages.
As if it was not enough for thugs to scare innocent voters, several political parties have complained in the last few weeks that the posters of their candidates were destroyed by political opponents. Such hooliganism was evident in Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta during the presidential and the recently concluded gubernatorial elections. I was told that the same thing happened in many other Yoruba cities. Undoubtedly, such acts of hooliganism must have been encouraged by thugs-loving politicians. It is the fear of different political messaging that could have encouraged this kind of misbehaviour on the part of politicians and their hoodlums. Marketing of candidates is part of the game and should not be aborted by hoodlums.
A new development from the last presidential election to watch is the new enthusiasm by cultural leaders to appeal to any presidential candidate from going to court. It is good for traditional rulers and members of National Peace Committee or Council to congratulate the winner of an election. But what purpose is to be served by such leaders begging Atiku not to go to court? Isn’t the provision of going to court by anyone who feels aggrieved designed to add further legitimacy to our political system? President Buhari went to court three times before he became president in 2015.
What will Atiku challenging Buhari’s wide margin of victory do to hurt the country’s political system? Appealing to Atiku not to go to court can be misunderstood as giving him the impression that the country believes that Atiku has been wronged. This kind of ‘peace effort’ on the part of cultural leaders is not good for enhancing democratic culture in the country. We should always allow due process to work. This move may have worked with Jonathan four years ago, but it should not be an approach to use every four years. Otherwise, it may become a part of the country’s informal post-election culture.
Persuading Atiku not to go to court can give the impression that our leaders do not believe in the country’s judicial system. It was not for nothing that separation of powers was conceived as one of the checking and balancing devices to stabilize democratic governance. Nobody should be given the chance to believe that he has a strong case that cultural leaders are afraid of. Such fears are not good for electoral democracy. Nothing should be done to make Atiku or any other presidential candidate feel that he or she has been cheated. It is not even good for Buhari’s victory or his confidence for any group or agency to plead with Atiku not to go to court. Unwittingly, cultural leaders involved in sending emissaries to Atiku may send a wrong signal: that they know what ordinary Nigerians do not know about results of the presidential elections. It is reassuring that APC has vowed to meet Atiku in court.