WHY I THINK THE 2019 ELECTIONS SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED

A lot of people have come to me with the Rhetoric that Nigeria is not bad today because the rulers are not good but because the people are not good, and each time, I have always tried to counter that mindset. I have always maintained my stand on Nigeria’s problems is first of all, a square failure of leadership, as Chinua Achebe put it in his small book, THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA. That book, written in the early 80s and reading it almost forty years later, one still has a sense of resonance of a particular pattern followed by the problems plaguing the country. But again, thirty years is time enough for anything to happen in a country, it is long enough for the wind of revolution to sweep through and elevate what was once a destitute country into developed nation, it is also time enough for the opposite to happen. In Nigeria, the case has been a close kin of the latter. The political decadence and development stagnancy in Nigeria has been constant since after the Civil war which ended in 1970s and Nigeria has since then become even worse than it was in the 1980s when a profound book was written about its problem.

In 1980, ‘the square failure of leadership’ might have been adequate in describing Nigeria’s problem but in 2018, even after the country has celebrated 21 years of uninterrupted democracy, it is no longer enough — it is no longer just a square failure of leadership, but a square failure of citizenship as well! The structure of the country has so far polluted the position of leadership that it is already a no go area and the only thing at this point to save Nigeria is a silent revolution which can only be championed by the people. And for so long, the people have been indecisive to mount the podium of responsibility for their country, hence the decadence. Nelson Mandela put it succinctly in a 2007 interview by Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed when he said:

“YOU know I am not very happy with Nigeria. I have made that very clear on many occasions. Yes, Nigeria stood by us more than any nation, but you let yourselves down, and Africa and the black race very badly. Your leaders have no respect for their people. They believe that their personal interests are the interests of the people. They take people’s resources and turn it into personal wealth. There is a level of poverty in Nigeria that should be unacceptable. I cannot understand why Nigerians are not more angry than they are….”

And you find that this goes a long way in sparking a bright light on the heart of the double edged problem. “..I cannot understand why Nigerians are not more angry than they are..” says Mandela and neither do I too but one thing I do understand is the fact that the country would have a turn around the day the people become as angry as they ought to be and take the right actions against their rulers.

As 2018 draws to a close, the preparations for the up and coming 2019 election is reaching its climax and there are many discussions being brought to the table about which directions should be taken. Majority of Nigerians are divided between the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari of the PDP and Atiku Abubakar of the APC, while a large percentage of people spread across the country, mostly from the eastern region of the country who identify with the separatist group, IPOB are clamouring for the elections to be Boycotted. There are also some few young candidates from smaller political party like the former World Bank and United nations staff, Kingsley Moghalu, the journalist and founder of Sahara reporters, Omoyele Sowore and …… Fela Durotoye who are making some little noises in their small circle — however, the first three groups are the majority and for the sake of brevity, the nexus of this discussion.

In a democratic setting, the idea of elections is usually for the citizens to gather and elect a candidate of their ‘choice’ to rule over them on good terms that is at least, fairly considerate to the people, if not outright favourable — this is what leadership entails in a democracy. The primary idea is that the people are in charge. This is part of the reason Aristotle referred to democracy as ‘Mob government’ because ideally, the masses are supposed to be in charge. They have the right to vote in and vote out whoever they want and do not want in and out of power. And these candidates are usually nominated by the people, sponsored by the people and voted by the people — in a democracy, the fundamentals lie in the instinct of the masses, hence the term, government of the people, for the people and by the people.

For twenty-one years, many Nigerians have been cajoled into believing that what they practice is democracy. It is not. I will be kind at the expense of being wrong here. In the past twenty-one years, Nigeria has conducted a handful of peaceful elections here and there but the brutal truth is that most of the elections have been rigged and turned into a bloodshed where many innocent people lost their lives because some selfish men have desperately set their sights on political offices. A democracy is not like that. But that is not even the main problem! Nigeria practices reverse democracy; government of the government, for the government and by the government! There is absolutely nothing for the people, of the people or by the people in Nigeria’s democracy. To start with, every time the elections are close, Nigerians have always found themselves stuck between two top political parties presenting them with an alternative of candidates which they would rather not have anything to do with. In 2011, it was Jonathan and Buhari, in 2015, the same, and now in 2018, it is Buhari and Atiku — all failed politicians with despicable track records. There are however, other candidates from smaller political parties who will at least bring a fresher perspective into the Nigerian equation, but the sad truth is that they do not stand a chance! This is because Nigeria’s election is a showdown of wealth, it is an affair in which not the man with merit has the day but the man with the largest pocket. Buhari is the candidate of the APC because he is the incumbent, Atiku, according to insiders won the PDP ticket because he spared no dollar in his primary campaign. And as the nationwide campaign begins, the main showdown of wealth begins which involves the distribution of one thousand naira notes to people with voters card on election ground. And the suffering continues for another four years!

Muhammadu Buhari is on the brink of completing four years of the most despicable regime in the history of Nigeria. Many people have come out to say that not even in Abacha’s regime did Nigeria experience the kind of insecurity and economic hardship we have experienced in the past 42 months. And now, this president wants to rule again! And the only person there to match him power for power, money bag for money bag is Atiku is his close kin, who is expected to not do any much better. He has just released his so called plan for restructuring and there is nothing elaborate in it, and so the truth is clear!

The problem with Nigerians is that they have been caught in a haze of a political structure that resists rightful progress rid of corruption, as long as things are dictated by it. Nigeria is not a republic, it is not a federation, history is not taught in the country, citizens are clueless of what to do and are so, willing accomplices of the problem. This is why a lot of people do not see sense in the fact that election boycott is a very valid option.

Pause to think for a while, Emmanuel Macron is the president of France today. In Nigeria, a forty year old man without a godfather would sooner pass through the eye of a needle than make it to the house of assembly. Kingsley Moghalu, Omoyele Sowore and their likes do not stand a chance in Nigeria because the people are caught in a trap. Vote either PDP or APC. Vote Vote Vote Voteeeeeee! The political landscape doesn’t encourage critical thinking. The people cannot stop and think, if there is an alternative. The people do not recognize their powers, neither do they understand what casting their votes truly entails. They have not understood that what makes a good leader is not employing a brilliant man to handle your twitter accounts and shady manifestoes that bother around the main issues, they do not understand yet that what it takes to spark a revolution is an ideology, no, they do not understand, they can’t even think of voting somebody else, because before they do, a supporter of Atiku will come up with the rhetoric, ‘A vote for a smaller candidate is a vote for Buhari’ and they are both blinded to the big picture. They do not realize that what coming out en masse to vote in a democracy truly means is ‘We are satisfied with the way the country is being run and we want to elect a person to carry on with the trend.’ If they understood this, they would understand that a candidate voted in the current trend of things has no option but to carry on with what was handed over to him. And if he has not been attacked for his radical ideology for change, if he doesn’t have a previous history of being assaulted, arrested and battered by the president in previous history for the fearless and disturbing way in which he preaches his ideology, if he has not been longsuffering and passed though the test of flaming rod for his ideology, he can never be the man for the revolution. If they understood all these things, perhaps, they would know it was time to stop, think and do something differently. If they understood that if they all sat at home on the election day and the streets in the whole country are on that day, empty, such that even rigging was impossible, if they understood that if all these happened, that the people at the helm of affairs will ask them what they want, if they understood that this is what it takes to strike that silent revolution, more effective than any war, if only they knew, they would have realized it was time to stop being ‘accomplices’ as George Orwell put it and put their PVCs in their boxes and Boycott that election.