As Nigeria goes to the polls today, Saturday, February 16, 2019, the issues that dominated the campaigns and the promises of the major gladiators raise the question about who the electorate will vote as the next president.
BY TAIWO FAROTIMI
His face was not readily captured at the mega rallies or those support group outings for candidates of choice. He was not on twitter holding up or tearing down candidates or ideals of some political group. But Abubakar Shettima, a resident of Duala in Dogon Dutse local government area of Plateau State has conviction and sure knows what he will do this Saturday February 16, as Nigeria votes for the next president. He wants to be the first at his polling unit to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC in this year’s general elections. Shettima relocated to his polling unit three days ahead of the election day.
Apart from his partisan belief, Shettima becomes a metaphor for the greater percentage of the voting public in this election: many of them cannot wait to see the exercise come to past. They may not have followed in the example of Shettima by physically relocating to the polling units across the country, they are however mentally transfixed at the election venue, thinking of how to exercise their civic duty. There is excitement in the air, and the talk is about support for candidate A or B, among the tens of candidates on the queue for this job.
The emotion that runs preparation for this year’s election is a replay of what transpired in 2015, when Nigerians went to the polls, some to give a fresh mandate to President Goodluck Jonathan and others to change the then government of the day. The social media, as it is today, played a major role in the campaigns and the monitoring of the exercise proper. That election brought President Buhari to power.
By the time the electorate will go to the poll on Saturday, though there will be 73 presidential candidates to choose from, the two major contenders are President Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former vice president and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Each of them has large followership across the country. Between Abubakar and Buhari is the record of having sought the office with much commitment, tending towards desperation in the past. The two of them have been in politics for some time after leaving the public service. And like most Nigerian politicians have changed parties one or two times to pursue their ambition. President Buhari had been a military head of state, while Abubakar had been vice president after retiring from the Nigeria Customs Service under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo and Abubakar spent eight years in government and left in 2007. To some extent, Abubakar has had to answer questions on what political opponents regard as bagages of the administration he shared with Obasanjo. The latter may have been the one who had contributed more to the political misfortune of Abubakar by insisting that he was not only corrupt but does not have the interest of Nigeria at heart. They have made up in what is seen as part of the desperate efforts to see the back of Buhari from office. But the stigma of alleged corruption still trails Abubakar.
Aside from the issues of development and debate about capacity to administer the office of president, one major thing that has dominated the campaign between the two candidates is integrity. President Buhari’s supporters love him for his incorruptible character, while comparing him to Abubakar who they say is not as trustworthy as the president. However, Abubakar’s supporters insist that their candidate has never been convicted for any corrupt act. For them, Abubakar would be a better driver of the economy, a stronger or healthier leader with a broad mind who will see Nigeria as his constituency.
Unfortunately, the campaigns often veered off the issues to duel on the petty issues of party leaders’ inconsistent ideological leanings, a factor that is hardly defined in the Nigerian political space. Thus pushing to the background the promises about the specific actions that will grow the economy, improve the lives of Nigerians, a people said to be the most sufferers of poverty in the world, and entrench in the land a culture of trust and a celebration of competence.
One thing is clear, even while there is much angst in the air as a result of the emotions attached to the exercise, the fears are not so much about a likely war or break down of law and order, a fear that characterized the polity in 2015. What is in the air today is who will carry the day in this election? Truly, President Buhari still has that cult followership across the country, but the goodwill of pre-2015 election may have waned. Then what amplified that love and campaign for his enthronement during the last election may not be as potent any longer. Then, the northern part of Nigeria wanted the office of president, haven lost same to the death of Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010. Today, it is a duel between two northern sons: the president who is from the northwestern state of Katsina and his compatriot who is from the northeastern state of Adamawa. In a way, this election has a semblance with that of 1993, when the two candidates were of the same faith, thereby making religion a dormant feature of campaign. That election won by Chief Moshood Abiola of the then Social Democratic Party, SDP against Alhaji Abubakar Tofa, also had Abiola parade a Muslim/Muslim ticket. In the current exercise the two major gladiators are Fulani.
So, the election is not about the turn of a major segment of the country [except the north will within its enclave prefer a local part of it] to produce the candidate for Aso Rock, seat of government in Nigeria. The issue is who can really be trusted to give to the people the best of life. More important the issues that rule this election remains majorly the prevailing issues in 2015. These are war against corruption, insecurity and the economy.
Of these, corruption has been the most contentious. Since President Buhari took over in May 2015, his administration has opened cans of worms detailing how officials of the administration of former President Jonathan helped themselves to state resources. A number of the officials are still being investigated, while some are already in court. The slogan has been that the years of PDP in government were a period of locusts, with lots of money stolen, projects abandoned and private estates developed at the expense of the people. For these malfeasance, the PDP had to tender public apology to Nigerians. While that is an admission of guilt, even though the party still argues that its members are being persecuted, it was also seen as a step towards appeasing the people who had been wronged. But the prosecution of corruption war has been a controversial one that raises questions about why the administration of President Buhari would turn a blind eye to allegations against people who are either members of the ruling party or officials of his administration. A case often referred to is that of Mr. Babachir Lawal, erstwhile secretary to the government of the federation, SGF who was indicted of corrupt practice and removed from office after much public protest but was not presented for trial until few days to election. As a matter of fact, Lawal was a major anchor of President Buhari’s campaign in the northeast. There have been complaints especially by the opposition that allegations against some cabinet members are totally ignored by the government. What critics of the war on corruption cannot deny is the haul of state resources that have been seized from corrupt persons as well as properties that have been confiscated.
In the area of insecurity some gains have been recorded. The dreaded Boko Haram, a terrorist organization that has held Nigeria to ransom years before President Buhari assumed power has been contained substantially. Though the president and his party appeared to have lost sight of the fact that the Boko Haram war was not a conventional war when it promised to end the war in months of his assumption of power, the military has shown more strength under him in this war. The sect now aims at the soft targets, and sadly enough its operatives have made incessant attacks on military formations around the theatre of war. The opposition holds against the administration the fact that the war still rages.
Now, apart from the Boko Haram insurgency, there is also the rage of clashes between herdsmen and farmers. This has resulted in deaths of people in Kaduna, Benue and Plateau states, among others. Even while the campaign was going on there were reports of fatal clashes in the north and southern parts of the country. The response of the government at the centre has been a bit inadequate. Between the president, ministers and security chiefs different reasons have been advanced for the conflict. It was said that the crisis in Libya led to the proliferation of arms in that country which invading herders then used to force their ways into Nigeria. Governor el-Rufai of Kaduna State once said that the herders attacked their victims because their livestock was either killed or stolen, but he had paid them and pleaded with them to stay off his state and the country.
But mostly, even the president , aside from the Libyan theory, believes that the abuse of the grazing route of decades past is at the heart of the trouble. This has created crisis between states like Benue and the federal government, even as the suggestion by the federal government that states should surrender land for ranches have been resisted by many state governors. In Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Enugu and some other states in the south, there have been conflicts involving the death and destruction of farmlands and property.
Another contentious issue is the economy. Within the first year of the Buhari administration the economy suffered some losses among which was the slide in the capital market. Some people argued that portfolio investors took flight because of the slur in the response of the incoming government then to economic indices. Others insist that local and foreign investors were discouraged by the lack of clarity in the policy direction of the Buhari administration, and so did not want to further risk their investment in Nigeria. It took President Buhari five months to name ministers. But handlers of the administration argued that the economy was already stressed before it took power in 2015.
This will not be far from the truth, as the federal government under President Jonathan had resorted to borrowing to pay workers’ salaries before the election of that year. But the question was whether having told Nigerians about how bad the economy was managed under the past administrations during the pre-2015 election campaigns, the APC government could not have reversed the downward trend as soon as it got into office.
The economy has since recovered from recession, and certain steps are already being taken to restore the strength of what was once rated as the largest economy in Africa. That is why the APC campaign has been strong on its provision of infrastructure and the boost in agriculture and internally generated resources. The Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, given impetus under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has been further boosted to raise the earnings from tax to an enviable level. The same goes for revenue from the Nigeria Customs and Excise, as well as the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB. There is also the campaign about empowerment of youth, farmers and traders. The ‘trader monies’ scheme has generated so much controversy that the opposition christened it vote buying. President Buhari did not fail to refer to the gains of his government in his state of the nation address on Thursday, the last day of the campaigns.
Prior to that address, the two parties had gone round the country canvassing for votes from Nigerians. The crowds were massive, from state to state, and so readily showcased on twitter and television. But this Saturday will show how many of people in the crowd really would vote or actually have the permanent voters’ card, PVC or whether the same set of people truly went out to cheer some candidates and then decided to humour another with their presence.
Whatever may be the issues, there are indications that there is going to be a serious contest between the two major candidates. There have been opinion polls, most poorly conducted, suggesting victory for candidates with little or no scientific backing. So, it is not certain yet where the pendulum will swing. There have been talks about hunger in the land, people have complained that the current administration is as deficient in the management of the economy as its predecessor. What resonates in all this is that Nigerians are hungry for the improvement of the economy, and that means the betterment of their welfare. They will use this election to make the bold statement of who should be trusted with that mandate to deliver the good. The question then remains, who will Nigerians send?
