2023 Gubernatorial Elections and Presidential Polls: Theatrics of Demagogues

2023 looks likely to be a year of political unrest and racial discrimination, with forlorn casualties witnessed at the polls, justice seems to be browbeaten.

Now despised and feared, the Army has become a virtual force in its own country, aloof of what was already an Orwellian nightmare with speculations of petty state control of daily life, alongside INEC’s same old story of inept competence.

Lagos that we have known since the mid 20th century, which produced unprecedented peace as well as human advance, is changing at a pace and in directions that threaten to evolve towards dystopic violence and revulsion. Election has come and gone, the process that produced the winners, how worried should we be?

What makes a nation in the beginning is a good piece of Geopolitics, purveying unity. This is how we keep the artilleries silent and save Nigeria and her over 200 million inhabitants.

Nigerians mingle in heterogeneous harmony, deepening the quality of public life across the board.

Sadly, impenitent political players today are power drunk upon divisiveness, introducing ethnicity, hinged on the pedestal of crafty fairness and self interest. Orwellianism is not just about big government; it is about authoritarianism coupled with lies peddled by power brokers.

Nescient mischief makers now align with some political elitists who falsify populisms, resultantly waking the poor public to the risks of bitter partisanship, embroiled in a cynical ruckus with Igbo kinsmen over an attempt to seize control of the state.

Loyalists with herd mentality now switch from allegiance to extremism.

Blistering attacks by some overly ambitious Nigerians at the polls, planning to wreck Nigeria’s dream ship on the sharp rocks of reality, but in the sunny, fantasy isles of secession, all our barkentines will race into port with canvas billowing and winds wiggling through the mast. Corruption and nepotism are as rife as ever, with regional party leaders running their local fiefdoms like mafia godfathers.

Between the hammer and the anvil, crook’s invasion of credible electioneering changed how politics works. Instead of peace, prosperity and globalization, the scenario became ethnic war and offsets.

Suddenly, Lagos was separated into a conflict between the Yoruba and Igbo kinsmen, fuelled by rigmaroles of irregularities and skirmishes, ranging from voters’ intimidation and disenfranchisement to malfeasance politics and ballot snatch at the polls.

Afterall, there is but one ethnic- Humanity. The boundaries of our actions have always been defined and guided by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sadly, edicts are didactic statues; More human than the beings at their feet. Ethnically divisive politics is the clog to the wheels of a forward throttling democracy. Despite all odds, the strained ethnic today survive the political imbroglio, though, not as winners, but as forces for good who suddenly flipped from growing cooperation to feared confrontation.

Power tussle (conquest) should not be motivated by naked ambition and greed, forcefully tossing the coin in your favour. Political terms will be over, many final weeks will
be filled with torrential good-byes and dramatic turns.

A hand goes on a Bible; an oath gets repeated. Your furniture gets carried out while another’s comes in. Closets are emptied and refilled in the span of a few hours. Just like that, there are new heads on new pillows—new temperaments, new dreams. And when it ends, when you walk out of the door that last time from public office, you are left in many ways to find yourself again. But what remains – just HISTORY of power transition. This ephemerality should deter us from base thoughts, low ends, and ignoble gains.

Remember, Harry A. Overstreet in his illuminating book; “Influencing Human Behaviour” said: ‘Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire’. Now that many winners have failed to arouse in the public an eager want, in a bid to secure the plum job and occupy the most coveted seats in the land, then, Nigerian politicians walk a lonely way.

No forgetfulness will take away such odd memories of ethnic jingoism, political thuggery, corporate malfeasance, money slavery, social climbing and power grubs. Nobody forgets where the hatchet was buried, only that time consoles. A good student of History will always remember how ethnocentrism and kin selection altruism affected Nigeria politics prior to independence in nearly a century-old glory. Today, History has proven not to be just about old past, it sparkles. Everything old is new again.

READ ALSO: 2023 POLLS: A tale of electoral ellipsis and security shortchange

The demand for justice is not only a basic human right, but also a human need. At times of rapid societal change, like those we are now living through, office holders need to re-inject ethics into leadership; re-establish the legitimacy of governance. New thinking and new acting or a bastion of conservatism are requisite at this moment in history. A Nigerian tradition of engagement which is deeply egalitarian and participatory and can provide a platform for peaceful outcome. The public keep yearning for the most polished, deft and adroit men as leaders to rule over them, on a platform which enables dialogue where our differences can be managed through give and take and persuasion, and where the acceptance of a common vision for the future can be defined and embraced.

Give the people, true federalism – Equity, fairness and justice, and peace will follow all too readily. Hate speech will turn to love letters. Dissenters will chant praise songs.

This is how to indoctrinate citizens into the tenet that the formula of a democratic republic is the only way forward for a sovereign, peaceful, prosperous Nigeria.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves. The outright disintegration of Nigerian democracy will only lead to final fatal explosions of startling, irreversible despotism, and possibly, regrettably irreconcilable differences.

I conclude in the golden words of Emily Dickinson; “Hope” is the thing with feathers, I have heard it in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea, yet never in extremity. Let us learn the act of tolerance while we manage our differences, to violent end is violent start. Nigeria shall win!