First, let me once again congratulate the people’s General, Muhammadu Buhari, on his eventual accomplishment of the tortuous and long bid for the presidency.
While we rejoice and make merry that Buhari has eventually proved his critics wrong, there are very important notes derivable from the elections that ought to be made.
One, it is dangerous to form mindsets and prejudices based on allegations that cannot be substantiated because it could boomerang and rather be an advantage to the vilified and subtraction to the candidate at whose instance his/her opponent is wrongly accused, as we saw in the 2015 election where such allegations of nepotism and religious bigotry stirred up the 2011 post-election violence and accusations against Buhari rather earned him sympathy and more support because they were unfounded and merely driven by deceit, fabricated to discredit or disparage him, and to cling to power at all costs.
Another note to make is that religious leaders should be cautious in dabbling into partisan politics, while various religious lay faithful should be discerning about what they are told by their faith leaders concerning politics and governance of the polity. In this regard, certain conducts, actions and utterances of religious leaders, Christians and Muslims, prior to the election, come to mind because they were volatile and provocative enough to trigger off uprising in the country, but God took control. Some of them openly and shamelessly mingled with top politicians or governments that questioned their integrity and neutrality.
It is also noteworthy that false propaganda to deceive the electorate against a particular candidate, as we observed during the electioneering, is not only dangerous because the innocent could become a victim of someone else’s falsehood and dishonesty, or it could arouse unnecessary hatred.
Again, a good note derivable from the election is not to take things for granted and relying much on mere information being fed to one by especially those around one, without personally finding out the veracity of what is fed to the person. For instance, as we saw in the last election, I am convinced that if the president-elect had used certain mechanisms of verification, he would have found out that his campaign jingles were virtually not on the air waves in the South East and that no radio or television talk was carried out in the zone to promote his qualities and persuade the people of the zone to support him before the election. I remember calling attention to this, but nothing was done; otherwise he would have earned more votes than he did in the election.
Yet another lesson is that whatever will be will be, no matter the odds because despite the quantum of hate propaganda, name-calling, high level of blackmail and chicanery (particularly in powerful government and certain private electronic media), the unrestrained outflow of heavy monetary inducements that led to spate of ‘endorsements’ of a particular candidate by certain organisations, traditional rulers, religious leaders and individuals, the crass exhibition of impudence and arrogance of power, and the use of coercion and intimidation all against Buhari, he still won the election, overwhelmingly defeating a powerful incumbent president, to the extent that his main opponent, having read the writing on the wall, had to quickly throw in the towel and congratulated him even before the official announcement of the election result by the chief electoral officer of the country.
Another note to be made is that desperation and campaign of hate and calumny in this type of contest should be avoided because of the implications. The last presidential contest was a declaration of war against Buhari by Jonathanians, but he kept his level-headedness, absolved all the venoms and got the reward for his simplicity, which was the sweet victory. It pays for one to be good. As there are lessons of integrity to note, it is worthy of note that on occasions like the one we just had, one should be careful of joining a bandwagon without thinking. A situation where a whole zone could not give the two main contestants 25 per cent votes, unlike every other zone, is something that requires a rethink. The action borders on hate and blackmail, which could be dangerous to the zone, if the victor decides to pay back. However, I am convinced that he will not do that, but will show maturity and magnanimity in victory, being the president of all, despite whatever happened in the election.
Avoiding self-delusion is another lesson to learn from the election. My people wallowed in self-delusion that they became paranoid and could not see the direction of the tide and, at the end of the day, they began to make false allegations of ethnic gang-up.
Another lesson is that anyone holding any leadership position at any level should shun sycophancy, ego-massaging, zealots and bootlickers of any sort, and must also check the utterances of people around him/her, as we observed in the acerbic utterances of Jonathan’s wife during the electioneering.
There are too many notes to be made from the last elections. Even on the side of the electoral body, ensuring in future elections that election result sheets are not only tamper-proof but guarded against being hijacked by politicians to write their own must be made sacrosanct. From the last election, it was been discovered that the use of only the card-reader is not the answer yet to manipulations. There must be in place a mechanism or system to check hijack of result sheets before or after voting, a situation where the only result sheets duly signed by party agents, electoral officials and security agents after votes counting before the electorate will be the authentic results sheets to be accepted by the electoral umpire.
• Anueyiagu (KSJI) is an independent media practitioner.