I, practically, covered my face in shame as a Nigerian when viral videos of various party primaries in the country emerged in the social media. The videos eventually found their way into the national television for the world to view the scam that is Nigeria’s brand of democracy.
Apparently in a bid to beat the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deadline for submission of candidates’ lists, the parties had adopted Humphrey Nwosu’s Option A4 for the direct primary elections, where voters stood behind their candidates or their pictures to be counted. Well, if the National Assembly refuses to recognize Humphrey’s legacy, his legacy will refuse to leave this nation.
Deadline? But, the court shut INEC up on that, saying it had no right to fix such a deadline that had resulted in the breakneck speed for parties to meet up. Confusion, sweet confusion set in as soon as news of the court ruling broke. The parties were actually loving it for the time it offers them, although with a pinch of salt. The confusion, better still, controversy surrounding the judgement was not so much as about the content of the judgement than who tried to make the parties smile. As INEC was contemplating appeal or compliance, the Youth Party, supposedly the plaintiff in the suit, denied ever instituting such a suit against INEC. So, who done it!
An attempt to find out the fact from the supposed counsel met a brick wall. How can such a sweet judgment subsist without a plaintiff? The many mysteries of Nigeria keep unfolding.
Back to the primaries. In the videos that circulated, remnants of respect and dignity Nigeria held in the process of elections vanished. Despair was the lot for many Nigerians who had hoped that the country would change its culture of crass falsehood, dishonesty, disingenuousness that has enveloped this nation and held it captive.
Option A4 requires that the counting be done aloud. The videos had shown the counting being done in the most ridiculous manner as to jump-count in quantum leaps. “One, two, 5, 10, 11, 16, 20, 30, 100, 1,000…” the voices counting the people lined up ring out, utterly in disregard to the ubiquitous android phones recording the drama. In other words, the monumental fraud can go viral. It’s our own brand of democracy.
Nigeria finds itself perpetually in search of its own people possessing the quality of being open, honest, and completely straightforward in speech or attitude, in the handling of national affairs, in politics, in social life. Name it. How long we are going to search depends on the resolve of Nigerians to do away with the lie culture. It didn’t start with the convoluted figures from today’s party primaries in preparation for 2027 polls. It didn’t even begin with the 2023 glitches that left the actual results of the presidential elections of that year in doubt.
The beginning of our lie culture, still, was not when Nigeria hired a minister of information whose name, fortuitously, turned out to be a homophone of the word “lie”, a word not so complimentary for whatever or whoever it is attached to.
When the honorable minister joined the business of governance in the hey days of former and late president Muhammadu Buhari, the culture of inconsistency of government statements with the actions of those in authority, for some inexplicable reasons, flourished so much that jesters could not resist alluding to the coincidence in the two words, Lie and Lai.
Nigerians cannot easily forget the vigorous campaign that brought Buhari and his team to Aso Rock, the beautiful words of remorse from a repentant despot who pledged, at Chatham House in faraway United Kingdom, to convert to a resolute democrat as soon as he was given the reins of government of the most populous nation in black Africa. In his glittering manifesto was a promise to Nigerians that the much-needed restructuring would take place. Today, we have known how promising the promise was.
Former governor, Nasir El Rufai, of Kaduna State, one of the outstanding architects of the APC government before he fell out with President Tinubu, was heard saying that it was time to restructure Nigeria, that “the present situation of things where all component units get monthly allocation from the Federal Government only makes the state lazy and unproductive”. APC indeed placed him on the head of a committee that sat and never produced results.
It was a gimmick to get the voters to accept them. As soon as the reins of power came into their hands, they kicked over the restructuring that was heavily touted in their manifesto and adopted a systematic elimination of other tribes from the power echelon. Their promise of change became a change in the promises. Gradually, the nation watched nepotism play out in appointments. The federal character law was flouted with impunity and citizens were so helpless as to suspect that what was happening was a complete “Fulanisation” of the nation. With Tinubu in power at present, nepotism rose to a superlative height.
It is worrisome how forthrightness has continued to vanish from governance in Nigeria, leading to a series of crises in the country. The alarming level of insecurity has been fueled by this seeming lack of frankness on the part of the leaders. The shame of the nation was further exposed in the statement once credited to the governor of a state that is a flashpoint of kidnapping and banditry. The governor was quoted as saying that the bandits terrorizing his people were not criminals! Tell me how such a governor would deal decisively with the bandits’ menace.
That the identity of Mr. President has been on the line of doubt ever since he moved into Aso Rock is proof of the absence of candour in government. Controversy continually dogs his age, his origin, his certificate and more. A majority of Nigerians believe he is older than what he quotes as his official age.
If the president had lied in his biodata, it is not exclusive to him to tell such lies. The average Nigerian lies about virtually everything to gain advantage. They lie about census figures and cost of public projects. Security institutions deny reports of terrorism which turn out to be true. Artisans fleece customers. Young men learn scamming as a trade.
The grandmother of deceits plaguing the nation is the kind of federalism we run, a federal system imbued with principles that tend to tear federating units apart instead of the other way round. The nation is robbed of the needed patriotism for national growth. Politicians seeking power habour selfish agenda. They speak from both sides of the mouth during elections and when they collect the power they go ahead to implement their parochial interests.
Nigeria is a country where politicians openly boast of their prowess in election rigging without consequences. Slowly, insincerity has assumed a prominent place in the heart of the nation. For that reason, political parties and their supporters do not find it an issue to worry about.
The Seriake Dickson-led Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in this dispensation was the only party that gave a thought to the crooked elections in party primaries. Although it is yet to implement its grand design against fraudulent voting in its primaries, kudos must go to the virgin political party for its dream to have the primaries done through electronic voting system.
At the present level of our rating in integrity, it appears Nigeria is raising a generation that thinks that whoever cannot lie, scam, deceive is not smart. There lies the base of our national tragedy. To reclaim it, we must listen only to leaders who tell us the truth and live by it.
On a Candid Note, the candour drought has roots in power concentration at Abuja where everyone rushes to for allocation, armed with bogus statistics to attract jumbo shares. The solution is nothing but a return to true federalism, even a revisit of the Aburi Accord. Let the cake be baked at the grassroots and the pieces sent to Abuja. Nigerians should fight for it with their last breath.
Dr. Odu can be reached through [email protected] or SMS 07016722929.
