Electoral violence and polarisation of the electorate may characterise the 2023 presidential poll if the two leading parties split the country along North, South divide by their choice of presidential candidates, ONYEKACHI EZE reports
The post-election violence of 2011 that claimed over 800 lives and rendered 65,000 homeless in the northern part of the country is one Nigerians will definitely not want to reoccur. The violence was because Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) lost to Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the candidate of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Jonathan is a Christian from Bayelsa State in southern Nigerian, while Buhari is a northern Muslim from Katsina State. There was agitation that the North, which had been out of power since General Abdulasalami Abubakar handed over to a civilian government in 1999, should produce the president of the country.
Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a northerner, also from Katsina State who was elected president in 2007 died after less than three years in office. Though there were many political parties that fielded candidates in the election, PDP and CPC were the major contenders. Incidentally, their candidates were of the North/ South divide. And as the nation prepared for the 2015 presidential election, there was the same fear and apprehension that the post-election violence of 2011 might rear its ugly head. This was more so because the two front line candidates were from the same North/South divide.
Former United States (U.S.) ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, who had followed electoral process in the country for some time, said in real electoral contest, Nigerian electorate are polarised. Thank God the nation survived it, but its unity was stretched to a breaking point. Like the 2011 presidential election, the two leading political parties, the PDP and the newly registered All Progressives Congress (APC) fielded candidates from different parts of the country. While the PDP, once again, fielded Jonathan, the APC chose Buhari as its candidate.
All types of foul languages were employed during the campaigns. The PDP accused the APC of a “devilish plot” to impose an “Islamic agenda” on Nigeria, The APC, on its part, threatened to set up a “parallel government” if the election was rigged. A prominent northern opposition politician, Mohammed Junaidu, told a news media that “if they deny Buhari victory, it could mean civil war because both sides are so dug in.”
The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, admitted that the fear of electoral violence led to the setting up of the National Peace Committee (NPC), with a former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar as its chairman. Electoral violence has continued to dog Nigeria since independence. This was blamed for the fall of previous republics. But it gets worse if candidates of the two major parties are from the North/South divide. For instance, in 1999 when the PDP candidate and the candidate of coalition of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD) were from South West, the country recorded no electoral violence.
A former military head of state, General Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP and an ex-Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Olu Falae, candidate of APP/AD coalition, were from the South West. It was the same scenario in 2007, when the three major political parties, the PDP, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Action Congress (AC) chose their candidates from one region. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, candidate of PDP, Buhari of the ANPP and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the AC were from the North. Also in the 2019 contest, the two parties, APC and PDP fielded President Buhari and Atiku, both from the North. The debate over the region that will produce candidates for the 2023 presidential is already heating the polity. Governors of the 17 states of Southern Nigeria, who met in Lagos State penultimate week, demanded that the next president should come from their region.
The governors who met under the auspices of the Southern Governors’ Forum (SGF), reiterated their “commitment to the politics of equity, fairness and unanimously agree that the presidency of Nigeria be rotated between Southern and Northern Nigeria and resolved that the next president of Nigeria should emerge from the Southern Region.”
This has attracted reactions from groups and politicians from the North. In an interview before the SGF resolution, Diran Odeyemi, Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, told New Telegraph that the party is not obliged to follow the APC pattern in choosing its presidential candidate for 2023. Odeyemi who tactically avoided the issue of likely consequences if both parties go to either of the regions to choose their candidates, noted: “PDP’s last president was from South- South, while the APC candidate is from the North. We are still looking for a candidate who will be acceptable to all Nigerian.” As it stands, both the Prince Uche Secondus-led PDP and Governor Mai Mala Buni-led APC are not forthcoming over where the candidates of their parties for the 2023 presidential election will come from. Both parties are playing the mind game and have scheduled their national conventions for elections of national officers later in the year.
The outcome of the conventions might give incline on where their presidential candidates might come from. But suffice it to say that the North and South are already divided on a number of issues, including restructuring of the country, the herders/farmers clashes, state police and the general security of the country, among others.
These might be a precursor of what to expect in the 2023 presidential contest. There are concerns that the security situation in the country could worsen if candidates of the parties are not from the same region. In the last few months, the facilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in some parts of the country became object of attacks. This forced the commission to call for an emergency of Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) meeting, a body charged with providing security during elections.
In the wake of the attacks, Festus Okoye, Chairman of INEC’s Information and Voter Education Committee, warned that if unchecked, the attacks might be a setback to the commission’s preparations for the 2023 polls. Okoye had earlier threatened that INEC would backlist any political party whose congress or convention degenerates into violence and destruction of property, from the receipt of materials for their activities in the future. He warned that the commission would “reconsider its involvement in these events, should they continue to put lives of members of the public and staff of the commission at risk.”
“Parties must ensure that their primaries are peaceful and orderly. Above all, they must adhere strictly to the Electoral Act, INEC Regulations and Guidelines, as well as party constitutions and rules, which are domiciled with the commission,” he added.
INEC began online continuous voter registration (CVR) exercise on June 28. The commission’s Chairman, Prof. Muhamood Yakubu explained that this is based on the advice of ICCES members. According to him, election stakeholders advised on adoption of graduated registration exercise, arguing that the consensus was “that it is important for the commission to place a high premium on securing the lives of registrants and staff, as well as the protection of the expensive registration equipment to be deployed for the exercise. “Consequently, they advised that the commission should adopt a graduated approach to the CVR exercise by starting online. After appraising the situation, the exercise can then proceed physically at state and local government offices before finally deploying to all the 2,673 centres nationwide.
“Based on this advice, the commission decided to adopt a roll-out and roll-back approach to the exercise such that the registration centres will not only be accessible but safe and secure.” If INEC considered the volatile nature of the polity to shelf physical CVR exercise, analysts argued that politicians should as well reciprocate by moderating their ambitions. More importantly, political parties should not further heat the polity but should zone their respective tickets to the same region. Security concerns have dominated discussions ahead of the 2023 presidency.
The British government had warned that Nigeria’s democracy is at risk before the 2023 general election due security challenges. Development Director, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Chris Beecroft, in a goodwill message at the launch of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) Peace and Inclusive Security Initiative (PISI) in Abuja, said conflict represents an existential threat to Nigeria’s unity and its development. According to him, “the rise in conflict risks destabilising Nigeria’s democracy in the run-up to the 2023 elections.
There is an active insurgency in the North- East; famers-herders’ conflicts are extending across the country; resource conflicts in the Niger Delta; tension in the South-East and banditry in the North-West.” A former Minister of Labour, Chief Emeka Wogu, is of the opinion that security situation in the country would determine ‘the outcome of the 2023 general election because elections thrive in a secured environment.” This view was shared by a former governor of the old Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, who expressed worry that Nigeria risks disintegration if nothing is done to tackle the kind of insecurity in the country.
His words: “As it is now, elections may be difficult to conduct in this kind of atmosphere of insecurity. We need to pray and appeal to the conscience of everybody to think about Nigeria. The thing is that you don’t know the value of what you have until you lose it. “Nigeria is a gem of a country and we should not lose it. I expect change to come long before 2023. God can bring about a change in many ways in life. We expect substantial changes that can make for free and fair elections.” A member of Board of Trustees (BoT) of the PDP, Ebenezer Babatope, who warned that President Buhari should not lead the country to chaos, described the security situation in Nigeria as grave and baffling. “Many of us are afraid to go home now. And when we go home, we pray to God to save us from Hausa/Fulani marauders.
However, I don’t pray for a situation that will make us not to conduct elections. We have to compel INEC to give us free and fair elections. That is the only thing that can save us from this problem. “President Buhari is spending his last term in office; he must give Nigerians credible elections. If he doesn’t do so, he himself must be preparing to handle anarchy and chaos. I pray we should have elections in 2023 because it is only a government that is guided by democratic principles that can rescue the country from what is happening now,” he said.