The March 28, 2015 election was indeed none like any other the country had witnessed; it will go down in history as one of the most watched election on television in Nigeria – akin to watching a world cup final. We saw pictures of women in Northern Nigeria waiting patiently on very long queues in the blazing sun to cast their votes. Some of the women who came out to enforce their fundamental human rights have spent the last four years burying husbands, children, sisters, brothers and neighbours killed by Boko Haram (BH) insurgents. These women – whose children could not go to school because of the threat of kidnap and murder – should be commended. They decided to vote even after BH threats that they should not.
We equally saw pictures of women in the south – I saw some bottle or breast feeding their children as they wait to vote. The story from Delta State, where the women of Madangho town acted as our heroines of democracy, is quite touching. After they had cast their votes last Saturday, some soldiers drove into town and wanted to whisk the ballot papers to a neighbouring village – Ajudaiboh for “collation.” It was alleged that a chieftain of one of the political parties was waiting there to conduct the “collation.” The women resisted. When the soldiers insisted, they stripped naked and harassed the armed soldiers out of town.
This, indeed, is an election like no other. These brave mothers, sisters and wives were vigilant, and most importantly they knew what they wanted. They are tired of environmental pollution; they’re tired of the pains of subsistence living – hand to mouth – in a land of abundance. All they ask for is to have a clean land to fish and farm. Is that asking for too much?
There’s something special about women when it comes to struggle. The civil rights movement in the United States of America got a boost when Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) defied the law to rise for a white man on December 1, 1955. For her action, she was dubbed “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement.” On that day in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order to give up her seat in the coloured section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled.
Being with the late Martin Luther King Jnr, she must have heard times without number that “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” In Nigeria’s case, the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) became the weapon of freedom.
We equally saw pictures of Nigerians standing in the rain to vote – like yours sincerely. We saw the elderly standing, or sitting on wheel chairs to vote. I saw the picture of an elderly citizen brought from his hospital bed, assisted by nurses, who came to vote! This is the Nigerian spirit that often refuses to die. Just like the classic Volkswagen Beetle advert said of years ago; you can’t kill the beetle; I make bold to say you can’t kill the Nigerian spirit!
As we were battling to vote against all odds, we also have some of our ex-Campuslife writers who were busy serving their fatherland in election duties. We are all true heroes of a country we all love and desire to be great. For once I saw Nigerians waiting without much of a fuss despite hiccups with card readers in some polling units. Some had to wait till 2am on Sunday morning for their votes to be counted; some came back the next day to continue the exercise.
What does this tell us? It tells us that the good thing about this election is that, no Nigerian leader will take Nigerians for granted anymore; and that things would never remain the same again and it won’t be business as usual.
In the past, we had problem with voters’ apathy as most voters believe their votes won’t count. But not today; the masses have realised that it is a suicidal strategy for them to bury their heads in the sand, hoping and praying everything works out well, without their input. They’ve discovered it does not pay sit on the fence. Today, they are now active participants in the democratic process.
There’s also the issue of ignorance. In my opinion, the best way to enslave a people is to keep them ignorant of their rights and privileges. An example would suffice here; when slavery was abolished in America, some slaves in the South were unaware of their new status and continued working for their masters. In many ways, the masses in a democratic setting are ignorant of their huge powers over the political elite. Again, the PVC has changed things for good.
Poverty is also a fundamental factor and will remain one for a long time to come and politicians know this. However, just like we are beginning to get the electoral process right, when the poverty level reduces, people will in turn vote for integrity and performance. We will get there someday.
As one leg of the election has come and gone, I’m glad it has increased the level of political awareness among ordinary Nigerians. Given what we all saw at the rallies and the way Nigerians embraced the elections, it appears they have come to realise that it is only by participating in the electoral process that they can effect a change in the society. We are going to see a greater level of involvement in future elections as it has changed the perception of Nigerians about politics. I hope it will also change our perception about governance, especially about holding our leaders accountable.
Our vibrant youth population has become more politically involved in the democratic process, this is a good sign. More than ever before, they participated in the build-up to the elections by attending rallies, engaging in debates and being at the forefront in mobilisation for campaigns and voting. Their involvement is not surprising because they constitute about 70 per cent of the population. Their impact was also felt on social media platforms.
This is one election where social media played a very visible role. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were utilised to pass political messages across. As debates went on in the public space, the battle was also fiercely fought on the social media by supporters of the two dominant parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
As effective as this tool was, it was discouraging that instead of using it to engage on issues of national development, the platform was deployed as a tool to hurl personal, ethnic and religious slurs at one another and groups. Ethnic politics, xenophobia and hate mongering dominated the cyberspace. The snag for me is this: if those young people drumming up primordial sentiments on social media are the future leaders we have often talked about, then I am afraid the future is very bleak.
The base level of partisanship exhibited on social media is akin to the campaign of hate we saw at the rallies and campaign circuit, which unfortunately, our youths imbibed from the elders, tribal or religious sentiment were not in short supply. I expect our youths to be more concerned about performance and good governance as a new dispensation begins.
As we celebrate a peaceful election, it is clear that it also exposed and widened our fault lines. The campaigns which were dominated by ethnic and religious rhetoric reflects the deep divisions that still exist among Nigerians. It is sad to see how politicians exploited these cleavages to shore up their political chances unmindful of the danger to our peaceful co-existence as a nation. While the line between religion and politics has often been blurred, this year’s elections deepened the relationship between the two separate entities. For the first time, political positions were determined by religious considerations.
Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s new government should start the healing.
