I met up with some Naija friends for dinner over the weekend, and of course the elections dominated a huge part of the conversation. Over goat meat pepper soup and dodo and fried yam, we discussed Naija 2023. Who will win. Who should win. The possibilities of election violence. When I speak to family and friends in Naija, there’s palpable anger about the state of the economy, the botched promises of the past eight years, insecurity, poverty. There’s also excitement, anticipation that with some luck, Feb. 25 will be the beginning of something new for the Giant of Africa.
Much has been made about these elections – with good reason. There is, across the board, an understanding of what is at stake. That is why we’ve had even people too young to vote making their voices heard in different ways. Recall the student who presented her pocket money to one of the candidates as her investment in her future? And then more recently, the teenager who stood in front of the candidate’s car, captured in a photograph that has now become iconic. Even the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has asked Naija universities to shut down from Feb. 22 to Mar. 14, 2023 to allow students to vote. Whether or not it’s a good idea to shut down schools for three weeks after months of strike is a different conversation. Most people I’ve spoken to agree that since these students form a huge voting bloc, three weeks of no classes is a small price to pay.
Never mind that in other countries, elections are held with minimal disruption to everyday life (including studies) but shebi we are not other countries? And these elections are anything but ordinary. One only has to see how Nigerians have been closely following the polls to know that these elections are different. NOI. Nextier. Bloomberg. We2geda. While the pollsters have been making their own predictions, some folks are sceptical that the elections would be free and fair.
The scepticism isn’t undeserved. Once bitten, twice shy. And the Naija electorate has been bitten several times. In March 2019, the Nigerian Army set up a committee to probe allegations of thuggery and killings against NA troops during the elections. Up until today, the NA has not provided any information on the findings of the committee. Human Rights Watch has warned that the inability of the Nigerian authorities “to address accountability for past elections-related abuses and widespread insecurity across the country threaten the safe conduct of the upcoming 2023 general elections.” They point to the violence and thuggery that have accompanied previous elections and cautioned that this one may not be different.
When it isn’t violence threatening free and fair elections, there are other factors at play. Voter intimidation by community leaders telling folks who to vote for or face the consequences, for example. Messages have been forwarded to me of community leaders in certain parts of the country ordering their residents to vote for a particular candidate/party “or go home.” Go home in Nigeria kwa? Na wah. Or fellow citizens being attacked because of the party they support. Or, as Gov. El-Rufai allegedly told the Premium Times in an interview, a cabal working on scuttling the elections and forcing an interim government on Naija. Or rumours of deals being made behind the ordinary citizen’s back. Or IPOB’s abroad-based Simon Ekpa ridiculously asking the South East to sit out the elections.
It’s easy, given all the obstacles for one to raise their hands in defeat, to wonder what the point is but we must believe that a change is possible. That is the audacity of hope: believing that your wildest dream is possible. One only has to follow the excitement surrounding these elections to know (feel?) that Nigerians still have hope. But hope isn’t a strategy, and faith without work is dead. So go out and vote. Let your voice be heard.
May God bless Nigeria. May the best man win. And when he does, I hope that he ensures that we in the Diaspora can vote. Nigeria is ours too, and we should be able to exercise our rights like our brethren in the country do.
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