Many years from now, students in Political Science departments in Nigerian universities would be studying the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 2015 presidential campaign under the theme: ‘How not to run a campaign.’
This is not to suggest that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has run a flawless campaign either. Fortunately for them, their rivals are gifting them with so many blunders and unforced errors it’s almost like Christmas all over.
For all the ruling party would want to crow about as its achievements, its record regarding the economy, insecurity and corruption is the sort you run from – not run on.
The statistics about fadama fields, almajiri schools, federal universities created and Nigeria being the largest economy in Africa are not resonating because the administration’s failing are even more graphic – dwarfing President Goodluck Jonathan’s modest achievements.
I speak in terms of an insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of Nigerians and, in the last two weeks, produced a gory first with claims that 2,000 people may have been killed in the assault on Baga. Over 200 schoolgirls snatched from their dormitory in Chibok remain in the hands of Boko Haram maniacs – symbols of the regime’s helplessness.
The photograph of a stadium full of the desperate unemployed who gathered together last year for an ultimately fatal job interview with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is reminiscent of the picture of a snaking line of the jobless used to devastating effect by the Tories against the British Labour government in 1979. The poster carried the simple legend: ‘Labour isn’t Working.’
A string of financial scandals – beginning with claims by the former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that billions of dollars that ought to have been remitted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the Federation Account were missing, to the Stella Oduah armoured cars saga, to the botched arms shopping run in Johannesburg, South Africa, left the government mired in a swamp of sleaze. Earnest explanations of its officials have done little to wash the administration clean.
All of these play into the age-long narrative that our public officials are serial bunglers only looking out for their pockets. There’s nothing the government has done in its time to make many think of it differently.
It is therefore not surprising that the PDP campaign seems to have lost its way. Put on the defensive from the outset, it has scrambled for a coherent argument for reelection. It was never going to convince anyone about its competence: the opposition had successfully defined it as incompetent long before the campaigns started.
Today, the ruling party isn’t really making the case why it should be given another chance: it is desperately trying to stop the other side from winning. The strategy according to officials of the campaign team is to make APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, the issue.
If he’s perceived as honest, make him look dishonest. If people think he’s strongwilled and firm, make him look weak and beholden to entrenched interests. But more than anything play up the religious card and tell anyone who cares to listen that he’s the ultimate Islamic fundamentalist.
But rather than get traction, the strategy has backfired spectacularly because the PDP – overconfident and conceited – left it too late. Just as the image of Jonathan not being up to the job took years to create, Buhari’s reputation was built over decades.
His actions over the years have only helped to concretise that perception. Little wonder they call him Mai Gaskiya – meaning the truthful one. It is wishful thinking to believe that his image for uprightness will be so damaged by a contrived certificate controversy that his legion of followers would suddenly convert to Jonathan’s cause two weeks to Election Day.
The major plank of attack lined up against the APC and its candidate was that they were out to Islamise the country. The hope was that in the age of Boko Haram, Christian voters north and south of the Niger out of fear and sectarian hatred, will not touch the opposition party because of the religious smear.
Unfortunately, the attacks soon collapsed under the weight of illogicality and scrutiny. First, pseudo-historians and rogue clerics banged on endlessly about how Turkey succumbed to Islam. What they don’t tell us is how location and the historical forces at work then made this possible. We are now to assume that because it happened where East meets West, it must of necessity happen here too.
At this point Nigeria can only be Islamised in two ways. First one is legally through an amendment of the constitution. That is a non-starter because it would require the Houses of Assembly of 24 states to concur and then the National Assembly to pass it.
The other way is by conquest – the route that Boko Haram is going by carving out its so-called caliphate in North Eastern Nigeria. Islamisation by conquest is easier as it doesn’t require national consensus or agreement.
However, as a nation it is within our power to decide to roll over and be overrun or to stand up and fight for a way of life that allows our people to worship God whichever way they choose. Even without waiting for some central government in Abuja people will fight to remain free and maintain their cultur.
Unfortunately, the ruling party’s strategists made a fatal mistake in trying to position Jonathan as a bulwark against Islamisation. His record doesn’t support the borrowed robes he’s been draped with.
It was under the nose of this great scourge of the Muslim hordes that hundreds of mostly Christian schoolgirls were snatched in Chibok. They have since been forcibly converted to Islam by Boko Haram. While this was happening, the president didn’t even believe that the abductions happened. He preferred the fantasy that it was another gimmick by his enemies to make him look bad.
Up till today, the poor girls remain trapped in the middle of nowhere. Still, the great defender of the Christian faith has not been able to secure their release.
If we are to consider the fact that huge chunks of three North-Eastern states are in Boko Haram hands, then Islamisation may be happening faster under this administration given our inability to either keep the insurgents at bay, or defeat them militarily.
Despite the fact that this line of attack has clearly passed its sell-by date, PDP strategists like Kamikaze pilots embarked on a suicidal mission, plunge ahead oblivious of all warning signals. They keep pushing the religion button hoping to win enough converts to prevail on February 14.
Joining them in banging their heads against the wall are a coterie of Pentecostal pastors who have inserted themselves in the middle of the political free-for-all. They don’t care that by making religion an issue in this campaign they are encouraging hate and dividing our people even further along sectarian lines.
This election will come and go and there will be a blowback for these clerics that will affect their standing in the larger society – and even worse – with their own flock.
Luckily it is their standing that would be damaged and not the church because the God who has ordained that the gates of hell wouldn’t prevail against His church is able to ensure it outlasts this season of political chicanery.
The fate of the church in Nigeria cannot be tied to the political ambitions or fate of any individual – no matter how eminent. These persons on whom many are now hanging their Christian future will only hold office for four years at a time. When they vacate office, assuming they are elected, will Nigeria be governed forever by Christians – so as to stop the greatly feared Islamisation?
Will Muslims never occupy the office of President after Jonathan? Just think about it.
2015: More grandfathers needed
Beyond his certificates and religious beliefs, the next big issue the PDP wants us to ponder before voting is the age of the candidates. One is 57 and the other 72.
The excitable Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, and others have referred to him as a doddering grandfather who should probably retire to a rocking chair in the anonymous precincts of Daura. But this ancient grandfather may just be what Nigeria needs at this point in her history.
If 54-year-old governors can be carrying on like adolescents, aren’t we better off with gentle, wise and deliberate septuagenarians running our affairs? Fayose in his infamous advertisement declaring that Buhari would die in office must have thought he was fighting Jonathan’s corner. But he was actually hurting him by denigrating a zone whose votes the president badly needs. It may just be that this 54-year-old is too young to understand the implications of his actions.
Through the actions of intemperate politicians and other public figures, Nigeria finds herself more badly divided today than it has ever been in her history. Whoever wins the presidential elections would need to lead national healing as an urgent task. And who better to tackle that assignment than a grandfather with a calm temperament?
On Dasuki’s proposal
Of all the excuses so far advanced by those who would like to see the February general elections postponed, the most ludicrous has to be that offered by the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. Speaking at a lecture in London during the week he suggested that the polls be moved to allow all eligible voters collect their PVCs. How considerate!
Let’s stop postponing the day of reckoning. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will never be 100% ready for elections. Even if the polls are moved six months or one year from now, the commission will still be battling with one thing or the other. If it isn’t PVCs, it would be card readers or ink pads.
Even if all registered voters collect their cards as Dasuki would like, there’s no guarantee that there would be 100% turnout. So what is the point in postponing the polls just because some people haven’t collected their cards?
There’s no excuse under the sun for postponing the polls. Every election cycle when it looks like something momentous is in the offing all sorts of people spring up trying to move the goal posts.
It happened in the dying days of President Ibrahim Babangida’s regime when he began having second thoughts about ceding power. No one should be surprised that a figure so close to the sanctum of power in Abuja is making this curious proposal at an even more suspicious hour.
