The
April 2011 elections that saw us into this hardship, this open
senseless corruption we are wallowing in, this quick-sand we are sinking
into without flinching is the most dramatic, the most climatic and
(considering the waste of public treasury on election campaigns that
broke the nation, the deaths before, during and after the elections) the
most tragic in recent times.
There was the controversy that
trailed the illness of late President Musa Yar’adu that produced an
"Acting President". Then the death that followed that proved to us that
"it was the will of God that Goodluck Jonathan should be President"!
There
was the argument that tired heads; of PDP and its zoning formula.
"Jonathan should not run under the PDP", people argued; "He should stand
by the agreement he signed as deputy Governor of Bayelsa state". "No!
Jonathan is not going against the agreement he signed!", his supporters
argued. "Jonathan ran on a joint ticket with a northerner and (no matter
how absurd it may sound) that makes Jonathan a northerner fit to run
under the PDP!"
There was the Eagle Square bombing that quaked
Abuja: the first of its kind since 1914. "They want to kill him (i.e.
Goodluck Jonathan]," a girl said, "surely he will win". There was the
"Northern consensus candidate" that elicited laughter especially from
Chief Olusegun Obassanjo as Atiku Abubakar emerged the representative of
the North—the PDP representative of the North.
There were the
campaigns that followed and the delegate-bidding. There was the PDP
primary election that literally woke up the North to the painful reality
that theirs was a region with no leadership, a region with a bleak
future, a region of dead brotherhood!
There was the debate the
incumbent President cowed from because, as reports have it, he was not
allowed to see the questions before hand. At the debate, there was the
eruption of laughter when Muhammad Buhari, responding to the question
what he will do about the ailing electricity of Nigeria, said to the
effect that: "I will not promise anything. Before 1999, we knew where we
were, we knew the amount of electricity we were generating and between
1999 and today, we have spent more than $16b with little or no
improvement. Now if elected president, I will find out what has happened
to all that money."
There was the election that made Mr. Goodluck Jonathan president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
This
article is an attempt to show how we were deluded. How our common sense
was clouded as we (I did not) voted handsomely for PDP—a party most
Nigerians will always agree is the very metaphor of corruption and
injustice. This article is an attempt to show why we may fail to make
right choices again come 2015. God forbid!
1. Tribalism is
one of the factors responsible for the tragedies in Nigeria and in
Africa. Most, if not all, wars fought across black Africa is as a result
of tribalism. A university student, you must agree with me, should be
the most broad-minded of the other population of the country. A student
of the university should be so well informed that his mentality should
be sterilized completely of tribalism and all forms of bigotry. But
sadly, this is not so. Gary is a coursemate. It was before the elections
we met in a cyber café. "Vote Goodluck," he said to me. "Why?" He could
not say exactly but the reason he gave was that Goodluck Jonathan is
from the South South (Gary’s mother, he told me, is from the South
South) and that we have had enough of Hausas. I remember asking him to
bring forth sound arguments like the past performance of Goodluck
Jonathan as deputy Governor, as Governor, as vice President, and as
acting President. There could have been some but Gary did not know any.
So I told him about the outstanding performance of Muhammadu Buhari as
military President and I further related to him Adamu Adamu’s "Buhari:
the PTF years". Collected speeches that showed competence, remarkable
credibility and transparency. Gary was unmoved. It just has to be
Goodluck, enough of Hausas.
Now if a university student will see
things so, how about the countless other half-educated and illiterate
compatriots across the country? Which way Nigeria?
2. Religion.
(I should make it plain that whatever I say in this article, especially
here, I stand — literally, with head bowed —to be corrected). A man in
one of the states of Northern Nigeria ran for the office of the governor
of his state. During his campaign, instead of the usual praise-singing
music, this man played the verses of the Holy Quran. The poetry,the
verses filled hearts with inspiration. He broke into tears when he gave
his speeches after saying "Salam Alaikum". The Muslims (the majority of
the state) did not only support him, they believed in him, loved him,
voted for him and stood outside the threshold of the electoral office,
under the scorching sun as the votes were counted. "If you doubt the
votes, come out and count us!" and so the PDP incumbent governor was
unseated. The new governor, you do not know what he did; hastily he left
the ANPP for the PDP. The Muslims who voted him thinking it was a duty
to Allah felt betrayed. Marvel at the power of religion in the politics
of Nigeria!
"Buhari is a bigot, he hates Christians", "Enough of
Muslims", all this echoed across the country, as I was told, especially
in churches. A photographer screamed "Blood of Jesus!" Because I said to
vote Buhari. It was shock that then gave way to laughter. My friend
Gbenga even said of Tunde Bakare "a fake pastor" because he agreed to
run as vice President to Muhammad Buhari (a Muslim). It was narrowed to
"vote Biblical not Political".
The Muslims on the other hand were
also moving in the same direction as the Christians. "A Muslim is always
better", one Muslim would say to another. The roar of "Allahu Akbar"
that went up the roof of the mosque upon a Friday when the Imam said to
vote Buhari still lingers in my mind. Some Mallams made the assertion
that it was even a sin to vote a non-Muslim. I agree that a Muslim is by
default a leader, an administrator. If you read the history of Islam,
the life of the none materialistic Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who never went
to bed with money on him and possessed very few properties, or the
rightly guided Khalifas, you will agree a Muslim is by default an
administrator.
Islam is a religion that hates injustice. I was
listening to Shaik Kabir Gombe when he spoke about injustice. He related
a hadith of the Prophet that says that before Allah forbade injustice
to mankind, He forbade it to Himself first. That He, Allah, will never
be unjust and none of His subjects should ever be unjust. I listened to a
tafsir by Shaik Yahya Haifan and he stated that it is haram for a
Muslim to accept any trust; any form of leadership knowing that he is
incompetent. And then the story of Khalifah Umar, during his reign as
the leader of the Muslims of the world, he was about to speak to a
gathering of Muslims when a man—a commoner interrupted him. Oh leader of
Muslims, you must tell us how you made a garment so long the man
demanded. Cloth material was shared equally among all Muslims. The share
that was given (everybody knew) was not enough to make a garment that
will extend to Umar’s ankle for Umar was a tall man. So since Umar’s
integrity was in doubt, he was unfit to address the Muslims as their
leader till things were clarified. Umar asked his son to explain. And
Umar’s son told how he gave his own share of the material to his father
and that was how Umar made so long a garment. And so Umar was allowed to
address the gathering of Muslims.
A governor — a Muslim governor
jailed a young man for criticizing him on Facebook! A Muslim is better
if he is not materialistic, if he is competent, just, incorruptible,
trustworthy but not just because he says "I am a Muslim" (when in fact
some do not even perform Salat). If you accept and digest the notion
that "a Muslim is always better" ask your self this: why is the North,
with all its Muslim Governors, one of the most pathetic places in the
world? Now considering the Islamic injunctions on corruption,
competence, and justice, don’t you think a Muslim, out of love, should
vote against an incompetent, corrupt, unjust Muslim? Don’t you think
that voting for him (helping him to thrive in corruption, injustice and
incompetence) is paving a path to hell for him?
The PDP Muslims
who voted Goodluck Jonathan justified it thus: a vote for PDP is a vote
for a Christian as well as it is a vote for a Muslim for Namadi Sambo is
a Muslim, and a vote for CPC is a vote for a Muslim as well as a vote
for a Christian for Tunde Bakare is not only a Christian but a pastor.
Logical I say. Now it is wrong (I ache to say it is stupidity) to bypass
a man like Tunde Bakare to vote a man as Namadi Sambo as it is to
bypass a man as Muhammad Buhari to vote for a man as Goodluck Jonathan
for no rational reason than the religion they practice.
3. Fear and Bribery.
Once upon a time the network of MTN went terribly bad. There was no
explanation why. Inspired by Nigerians on Twitter, I arrived, alone, at
one of the branches of MTN in Abuja. I said to one of the attendants:
"Your network has been unstable for the past two weeks and as a result, I
have scarcely been able to use it in the past two weeks. So I want
compensation." The shock on the lady’s face said it all: This had never
been said to her in this office, it was very unlike the typical
Nigerian. We never speak to demand our right as we never stand to demand
and ensure a free and fair election and so we watch a party rig
elections, snatch away ballot boxes, thumb-print fake ballot papers and
stuff them into boxes before our very eyes and we never flinch.
There
is always bribery, voters selling their God-given rights, as it was
reported during the last election, for millets, rice and made to swear
by the Quran to vote a particular party.
Naij
