Twenty-twenty-three election is four months away. Already, ugly has begun to show its hand – in violence. It is typical. Elections in Nigeria without the spectre of violence is like a hunchback man without the hump. Preparing for election here – at whatever level – is akin to readying for war. And it often turns out to be war; war in all its odious details and grotesque outcomes. Lives are lost, limbs are lopped; properties pillaged or perished or both. Of course, the election itself is usually the first and ultimate casualty. And the jury often returns with the same verdict: violated and integrity impaired election is the synonym of coup.
While the nation is bracing up for 2023, violence has also starting rehearsing and readying to report for duty. In the past few weeks, there have been bursts of political violence, aimed, as always, to intimidate political opponents. Just the other day, political thugs attacked the convoy of the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor. This happened at some place in the Badagry Local Government Area of the state while the candidate was on campaign trail. Reports said that the thugs were armed with guns and other dangerous weapons. At the end of their manic impetus, several members of the candidate’s entourage lay wounded, some sodden in their own blood.
About one week before that, two supporters of Labour Party (LP) escaped death by a hairbreadth in Oshodi, Lagos. They were attacked for flaunting the party’s flag. One of them said they were walking along with the party flag and some thugs accosted them. According to him, “their superior ordered that we should be beaten, killed and set ablaze. We were beaten like common criminals. They were about to set us on fire when a soldier came to our rescue.” Mr Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos PPRO confirmed the incident and simply told the young men to “go and report to the police,” with an assurance that “the case will be investigated.”
Since then, nothing has been heard of the matter. But that should not surprise anyone. Knowing how issues of such nature are treated here, expecting the result of the said investigation would only have the effect of looking at the east while the sun is setting – disappointment. Only a stranger who is not acquainted with how law and order functions in Nigeria would truly be expecting police report on the case, or to hear considered and coherent statement on the matter. For all we care, the case is closed. It’s the way we are. We are full of paradoxes, quick and passionate to talk virtue but consummate in opposition to the punishment of vice. It’s our way; we are like that.
So, the thing is, whether the political violence occurred in Oshodi, or in Badagry as with Jandor, or in Ekiti as in Segun Oni’s case; or it is the attack on the Ebonyi State APGA governorship candidate, or the attack on members of Labour Party in Kaduna, the aim is the same – to intimidate and to cower political opponents. Things can only get worse as we move closer to the February election. It is not about the prime candidates signing whatever peace accord. Political violence has a mind of its own. This is not being pessimistic or cynical about the accord. It’s about the evidence of past failures of this type of vow to non-violence in our clime. We do not need any augur to tell us what to expect. We already have the promise of violence. It is the expectation of the ugly foretold.
For us, sadly, violence has become a strategy for electoral victory. But it’s not exclusive or patented. Scheming and perpetuating violence cuts across parties and across all the states. To the party in power, it is a self-perpetuating stratagem. And to the desperate opposition, it is perhaps the only possible means to come to power. It doesn’t matter if you call it break-and-entering. As they say, if roguishly sarcastic, “all is fair in war!”
The 2023 election has raised the stakes and therefore the premium. As everyone knows, this election is like no other; not like any this country has ever had, including the 1993 election with all its goodly portends. In this, so much more is on offer. Coming at this critical, determining juncture in our nation’s life, the election has everything that makes it to look like it is the election to end all elections – like the Tribunal of Penance. Some would say, like the coming of Ragnarok. In Scandinavian mythology, Ragnarok represents the end of the world of gods of men, after a series of cataclysmic events, including the submersion of the world in water. The myth proclaims that after these, the world will rise again, cleansed and fertile.
Someone said this election is a clash of visions. Very true. It is election to determine whether we’ll perish or persist; whether it’s our perdition or our promise – the promise of new, working and workable Nigeria. There is also this persuasion out there. It likens the coming election to a Manichean contest – battle between light and darkness; between good and evil. It is the election to free Nigerians from the hold of political potentates and their army of little demons who ceaselessly annex all the good and fat of the land – and they do this with such paganistic passion. Season in season out, the same ruinous band, this tribe of mindless freeloaders, debauch on Nigeria with unceasing carnality and hedonistic recklessness. Strong words! That’s what it is. The result is now a people in dire straits and the country lying damaged like an old woe-begotten wench.
Indeed, this election has offered Nigerians a rare opportunity to say enough is enough, and to prove it by resisting the beguiling, rampaging political masters, who, like the Dracula, renew themselves by sucking the people’s blood. Resisting their wiles includes resisting their resort to violence as a tactic to capture votes in the coming election.
Among others, we can think of two ways to frustrate the coming political violence. One is for the people to stand and defend their right to vote. They should do this by coming out in their numbers. As the advertisement now goes, this is the election to take back Nigeria. This is to retrieve the country from these ogres, these brigands who have pillaged this nation from the gatehouse to the granary. The logic is, when a good number of voters show up in their mass on that day, these goblins sent to carry out violence will feel overwhelmed, and therefore impotent.
The second, and perhaps complimentary to people’s resistance, is for INEC to stamp down its feet in its resolve to conduct credible election. One of such is to put it on notice that anywhere violence occurs, election there will be cancelled, and the exercise repeated. No Nigerian must be disenfranchised by desperate politicians who are practiced in the art of intimidation for privilege and advantage.
Violence-disturbed polling area should not just be cancelled – because that’s one of the aims of perpetrators. It should be repeated. Repeating disturbed exercise would draw general attention – including state coercive details – to the area. Awareness of this concerted attention is enough check on these felons and their paymasters. Perpetrators visit a place with violence if they perceive they are not likely to win legitimately there. There’s no other reason to disrupt election order than to gain an unfair advantage over political opponents.
While we agree that violence is a present danger, we should also expect that, because of what the 2023 election represents, it is going to show up, and it will do so in its fiercest and most convulsive temper. Violence remains a major obstacle to civilised, credible election in Nigeria. This time, it must not be given free rein. It must be resisted by the rest of the people who expect to see a Nigeria that works, and works for all.
- Malogo is a journalist and member of Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE)