The 2023 general election has taken its pride of place in the long line of elections that have traumatised Nigerians due to the extremely high levels of ethno-regional and religious bigotry that marked them. The 1964 elections might have been the most acrimonious following the census controversy that followed the rejection of the 1962 census and divergent attitudes to the 1963 census, the creation of the Midwest and Operation Wetie in Western Nigeria. In short, all the key ingredients about the survival of the Nigerian State were on the table in that election. The result was a complete breakdown of public trust and the civil war. The learning from the 1964 elections was that the abuse of powers of incumbency to impose the will of a section of the political class was a threat to the survival of the state itself. The outcome was that the First Republic fell.
The next major trauma for the Nigerian state in elections was in 1983. The ruling National Party of Nigeria steered the polls from arithmetic “normal” rigging to the exponential level with the writing of new results sheets that bear no resemblance with numbers from the polling units. The centre of the trauma was the attempted gubernatorial imposition of Omoboriowo over Ajasin and the trauma of the Ondo people, represented the angst of the entire nation with a clear question posed – why bother with elections if you will write any result you like? A maigaskiya, (man of truth), called Major General Muhammadu Buhari, stepped up, disturbed transition to new year 1983-1984 parties with a coup d’état. The learning from the 1983 elections was that the abuse of power of incumbency to impose the will of a section of the political class over the others was a threat to the survival of the state itself. The outcome was that the Second Republic fell.
The next trauma was the June 12, 1993 elections when the process was successfully conducted, M K O Abiola won and it was a beautiful occasion for nation building with both a transition from military to civilian rule and power shift from North to South occurring at the same time. A certain General Ibrahim Babangida decided power is too sweet and refused to hand over precipitating a major crisis of survival for the Nigerian State. The learning from the June 12 elections was the abuse of power of incumbency to impose the will of a section of the military-political class over the others was a threat to the survival of the state itself. The political transition programme collapsed, the junta went into crisis and General Sani Abacha, the most brutal junta member took over power until he was removed from the scene.
Then a strange thing happened, trauma took leave from Nigerian elections. The two most rigged elections in Nigerian history by my assessment were the 2003 and 2007 elections where the 1983 rule book on the most efficient way of rigging through re-writing result sheets was re-invented and INEC rewrote results with reckless abandon. Election turnout in the said elections were very high, not because people came out to vote, but because officials were ready to write they came out. We screamed a little bit but the mobilisation of ethno-religious bigotry was minimal and civil society, where I was, took the decision to simply focus on improving the integrity of future elections. The learning from 2003 and 2007 elections were – don’t bother, your votes will not be counted. Nonetheless, we did not scream bigotry.
Then the Nigerian magic started to happen at the point of the nation’s lowest political despondency. President Goodluck Jonathan appointed a competent man with integrity called Attahiru Jega as INEC Chairman and then a series of reforms leading to steady improvement in the credibility and integrity of elections started. The next Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu sustained the reforms and the 2023 elections can in no way be considered to be on the list of the most rigged elections in our history. The learning from the 2023 elections is that technical improvements anchored on the successful use of the BVAS voter accreditation system was not sufficient to prevent one of the most explosive mobilisation and expressions of ethno-regional and religious bigotry related to elections in our history.
Right from the beginning, the elections were defined by the determination of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling APC to contest with a Muslim-Muslim ticket and the religious label stuck. A new phenomenon had emerged on the political terrain with the entry of Peter Obi on a platform of youth mobilisation for the establishment of a competent and technocratic government. His label failed to stick. Irrespective of what he and his movement wanted, political reductionism brought them down to the level of the Christian alternative to the Muslim-Muslim ticket. The clergy on both sides, but even worse, the intellectuals on both sides, sealed the deal by producing massive evidence that the core issues that defined the elections were ethnicity and religion.
The Electoral Commission played its part with the failure of electronic transmission of results from polling units to the IReV public portal. The failure became evidence that the election was rigged and non-transmission was evidence of the grand INEC conspiracy. No one was interested in hearing that the integrity test was BVAS and for the most part it worked. Serious discussions of the elections have become very difficult because the partisans have taken their positions and repeated their conclusions to justify their bigotry.
The key issues of contestations in the elections are all cast on ethno-regional and religious terms. Power shift to the South. In the South, is it the turn of the Igbo or the Yoruba? The Muslim-Muslim ticket is marginalisation of Christians. Voter suppression was used against some ethnic groups, mainly the Igbo. The Labour Party vice presidential candidate is a fascist because he said Tinubu is not even qualified to run, says our Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. No, replied our great novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, the fascist is Mahmoud Yakubu, the INEC Chairman. When fascism is reduced to an invective against individuals, clearly, the purpose is to stop the conversation.
As the cacophony of bigotry gets louder, no one is even posing the key question, was the 2023 general elections organised in SUBSTANTIAL COMPLIANCE WITH THE ELECTORAL ACT? If and when we return to this question, we may begin to find out that all the identity questions posed are real AND in addition, the elections have substantial credibility if you ask all the powerful incumbent governors who failed to get the tickets to their normal retirement home, the Senate. The voters who are so happy that they stopped their hated governors from continuing in power may have even more interesting narratives to share. When we get to these conversations, we will get on the pathway to recovering from our collective trauma over the 2023 general elections.
