By Martins Oloja
I WOULD like to share another ‘Message of Hope’. I wrote on this when the youth who under the auspices of #EndSARS in 2020 shook the table in Nigeria. This is also another time is to warn the elders of the land that the February 25, 2023 presidential election result is a warning signal, a yellow card to the members of the old set-up who are generally believed to be ‘the trouble with Nigeria’, which Chinua Achebe in a classic, says, ‘is simply and squarely a failure of leadership’. The noisy outcome of the elections also elicits a congratulatory message to the enough-is-enough generation who should be robustly encouraged to continue to remain steadfast as our emerging ‘Salvation Army’.
Specifically, it is a time to encourage our young ones who have been derided, demonised as ‘Obidiots’ that they should not look at the weather that the declared results of the presidential and national assembly elections of last week represent so far. They should study the significance of the ancient words, which teach us that ‘He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds shall not reap’.
The young ones who predictably pitched their tent with Mr Peter obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party should not feel too bad that the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been declared winner, after all. That is not a death sentence yet to the opposition parties as the struggle continues peacefully on many fronts, notably the courts. The victory of the Labour Party on some fronts is a testimony that is worth celebrating before God and man. They came, they saw, they conquered the two most important capitals in Africa’s most populous nation: Lagos and Abuja.
I don’t need data analysts to tell me that this is a political calculation in which we can claim that this is where two can be greater than thirty-four. They defeated the incumbent Governor of Abuja, (the President) in the capital of the Federation. They also against all odds, beat the Grand Master, the President-elect in his state, Lagos, generally regarded as the economic capital of West Africa, and easily the sixth largest economy in Africa. What is more, none of the two older political parties, the APC and PDP, could obtain 25% in the Federal Capital Territory. That has become a nightmare too in some camps as legal fireworks on the February 25, 2023 elections begin soon. Apart from the fact that the ‘structure-less’ Labour Party won 11 states while the ‘structure-ful’ and acclaimed largest political party in Africa the PDP won 12 states.
The young ones should have organised a Thanksgiving Service today in any church to proclaim the faithfulness of God, the majesty of democracy and resilience of the youth that enabled failure of 80% of sitting governors who contested elections to the Senate. The Governors of Benue, Abia and Enugu States, powerful members of the G-5 kissed the dust in their states and only the Courts can certify them to the 10th Session of the Senate.
The wind of change blew them despite the incumbency advantage. The Labour Party’s storm that isn’t over yet exposed the two-term Governors in the East. Even the ‘erudite’ Governor of Cross River State could not win his senatorial seat in the state he has governed for eight years. Even Hurricane Nasir Ammad el-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna state, the political capital of the North, lost the presidential election and the three senatorial seats to the opposition, PDP in the State.
The three musketeers (two former governors and the incumbent) in Kano engaged in a political battle on three different political platforms there and the current Governor lost the economic capital of the North to his former principal. Two Senators emerged from Nasarawa State on the platform of a relatively unknown SDP. Interestingly, the two senators-elect defeated two former governors of the state including the current Chairman of the ruling Party, APC.
Painfully, but for the curious failure of INEC to transmit the results of the presidential election real-time from the polling stations as widely promised, the testimony to the majesty of democracy through the 2023 elections would have trumped the famous June 12, 1993 unannounced result, which the late M.K.O Abiola was generally believed to have won. It is thus ‘getting curiouser and curiouser’ that till the present, the INEC so many of us have written to praise for their steadfastness before the elections, hasn’t explained to us what really happened to technology we legalised to deepen democracy in our country.
Let’s leave INEC and its silence alone for now. What we need in this place now before and after May 29, 2023 is ‘Nation Building’. Yes, ‘nation building’ with the energy, vivacity and righteous indignation (anger) of the youth nurtured by wisdom of the few good elders who mean well for Nigeria. What is this nebulous thing called ‘nation building’? Are we even a nation?
‘Nation Building’ is a normative concept that means different things to different people. The latest conceptualisation is essentially that nation building programmes are those in which dysfunctional or unstable or “failed states” or economies are given assistance in the development of governmental infrastructure, civil society, dispute resolution mechanisms, as well as economic assistance, in order to increase stability. Nation building generally assumes that someone or something is doing the building intentionally.
In the same vein, ‘nation building’ refers to the process of engaging all the citizens of a country in building social unison, political stability and economic prosperity in a comprehensive and democratic manner. This building is possible only when all the citizens are involved in the development of the nation.
According to experts, in the African context, nation building is used to refer to efforts of leaders of newly independent nation-states to redefine the populace with a single identity, of citizenship, regardless of ethnic, religious and other identities, so that they assume a coherent national identity.
What is ‘nation building’ in Nigeria, our Nigeria? It is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation building here aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. This is not happening at the moment.
As I noted here on Sunday February 17, 2019 when this same INEC postponed election on the day of elections because of logistics management challenges, it is time for the spiritual man to strengthen the natural man to understand that this is not a time to bicker, hiss and run away. We need to note that it is not a time to blame the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) alone and even any cabal.
This is a time to say to one another, be not discouraged. It is not a time to ask questions about whose script is being implemented on this thing called election. It is just a time to let only Nigeria win. It is not a time to analyse the person who caused the rain to beat us so ruthlessly. It is a time to reflect on how to beat the rainmaker – and conquer our low spirituality, our emptiness, our complacency.
I once looked into the seed of time and saw ‘curious desperation to lose Nigeria’ by the people we have trusted to keep the country safe. I also once advised the nation on the need for vigilance over our fragile democracy. Before that, on this same page, I had drawn the attention of the power elite in the far North to the expediency of examining the consequences of allowing PMB to run again in 2019 as an old man who could win re-election and then lose Nigeria. I said then that the taciturn, lanky General was too old to run. But no one cared about the warnings of the oracles anymore. We have since gone beyond that.
But despite the current shocker from INEC and the political class, I would like to appeal to people who are still asking about how we got here that lamentation book is not a strategy paper. Election is not an event: it is a process that may fail us painfully and the brains behind the debacle will not give up. They have a strategy to confine us to the social media where we are sometimes paid to lament and go to bed and resume from there to continue to lament until nothing happens. It is therefore a time to be vigilant even as we are prayerful.
We need to understand the times so that we do not perish again for lack of knowledge of the principalities and powers that would want Nigeria to come to harm through 2023 elections. Young ones, as I often say here, do not lose the momentum you have gathered though the 2023 elections. You need to face the remaining elections squarely. Let’s put pressure on INEC to do the right thing.
If we continue on this journey and we strengthen democratic institutions, you will see the importance of having good Governors and strong State Houses of Assembly. These are very important institutions for strengthening our country to become a strong nation. State Assembly elections should not be trifled with. We need good Governors too for development everywhere. That is how federalism we lost to soldiers of fortunes in 1966, which we are desperately seeking to regain will have meaning.
I just wish to say we need to fix the broken walls and even the desecrated temple of justice. But it is more urgent to fix the country’s wobbly democracy whose pregnancy is facing strange miscarriage threat. It is time to keep vigil over this democracy through the enough-is-enough non-violent engagements. We need to fight a good fight to bring back our country we almost lost to provincial and mediocre people. As the ancient words have noted, ‘Christians! seek not yet repose, Hear thy guardian angel say; Thou art still in the midst of foes, Watch and pray…’
No doubt, those who have kept Nigeria down; those who want the labour of our heroes past to be in vain are still around. They are still in power at all levels, and in all the arms of government. As I noted the other day, here, democracy has some powers to fix some of these challenges but there should be no room for complacency at this stage. As Alan Paton in ‘Cry the Beloved Country’ counsels too: ‘When the storm threatens, a man is afraid for his house. But when the house is destroyed, there is something to do.
About a storm he can do nothing, but he can rebuild a house’. Yes, we can rebuild the house from the debris we have seen, especially now that we are starting to witness the beginning of the end of an era of those who campaigned to rule us on the back of an over-rated integrity and capacity. Don’t be discouraged, young ones. Let’s celebrate what you have gained without structure. Let’s begin to mobilise more people, the organic structure who will take Nigeria to where we want it to be.
Oloja is former editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.