Former Dean, Faculty of Social Science and Professor of Sociology, University of Lagos, Prof Lai Olurode has said that Nigeria’s political system is witnessing political haemorrhage, which he blamed on voter apathy, disinterestedness in the political and electoral process, low voter turnout, vote buying, protracted legal tussles, stark transactions in freedom, electoral violence, among others.
He also identified diverse electoral mythologies and malpractices, rapacious money culture, factions within political parties, generalised breakdown in party discipline, oligarchical tendency and absence of consensus building in the electoral process as factors responsible for the haemorrhage.
The university don who spoke at the launch of a book The Bisi Akande Phenomenon? in Lagos last week, said that to avert the unfolding trend and reduce cost of conducting elections, there is need to ‘revive our embedded cultural and ethical assets and deploy them more in the service of our electoral process both at the front and back end’.
“Rather than pointedly and frankly addressing these challenges as deriving from the failure and absence of strong ideological roots at party formation stage, drowning of dissenting voices within the party structure and absence of elite consensus in SW, they are being approached primarily from the monetary angle. Even then, the rage has not abated. The truth is that an average voter is becoming more confident, resilient and rebellious with the increasing deployment of technology in the electoral process,” he said.
According to him, between 2015 and 2019, the total votes cast in the Northeast and Northcentral increased but Southwest suffered a decline. He recalled that in this year’s general elections, Southwest recorded the highest percentage of rejected and wasted votes and that voter turnout was 34 per cent in the region in 2015 whereas it was 50 per cent in Northwest.
“In 2019, it was 27 per cent in Southwest but 44 per cent in Northwest; Southwest figure was far lower than those of Northcentral, Northeast and Northwest. Thus vote bleeding is severest in the Southwest. Fringe political parties had a noticeable outing in SW. Yet, in the market place of politics, votes are the main negotiating instruments,” he added.
He however recalled that Pa Bisi Akande expended less than N100,000 in his election as Governor of Osun State in 1999, noting that it cannot be said that money answereth all things political.
He stated that the future of Nigeria’s democratisation process should be anchored on a strong ethical foundation in the context of internal party democracy if robust participation by the people is to be induced in place of peripheral engagement with the electoral process.
“My message to SW leaders is to plough more ethical assets to drive the electoral process and thereby terminate political bleeding. Unfortunately and sadly though, ethical voices have become greatly diminished. Yet, without strong foundations in cultural and ethical assets, a country’s development is doomed,” Prof Olurode warned. .
