The two front runners in the presidential election yesterday, March 28 – Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (CPC) – signed two peace accords within 10 weeks to the vote.
They pledged to encourage their supporters and party members to uphold peaceful elections, and promised to accept results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Such accords could help consolidate the country’s democracy if they were made in good faith. But what took place in Abuja on January 14 and March 26 were theatrics. The time, energy, and effort invested in the treaties could have been better spent.
Even as Nigerians and, indeed, the international community await the outcome of the presidential and National Assembly (NASS) elections and the possible reaction of the gladiators and their supporters, it is time the INEC, political parties, civil society organisations, religious bodies, among others, did some soul searching.
There must be a deliberate effort to promote the education of voters so as to have a well-informed electorate for the 2019 elections. The time to start is now.
Nigerians should learn from the current mistakes that threaten the existence of the country. There should be a national consensus that election is not war. That is the only way to guarantee free and fair polls; not by signing peace accords nobody has the intention of keeping ab initio.
The processes that led to this current election cycle prove that our democracy is flawed and needs total overhauling if we must make progress. Countries several times larger and more populous than Nigeria, such as India and China, have held elections without any fissure.
There must be a way of ensuring that campaigns by political parties and their candidates are based on issues, with the possibility of applying sanctions against defaulters.
As a renowned political economist, Pat Utomi, explained recently, issues-based campaigns, besides the values of promoting learning and mobilising public support for policies, enthrones governments better able to lead and solve problems.
Utomi lamented that the 2015 campaigns failed to turn the national radar on issues critical for claiming the promise of Nigeria, such as the unemployment scourge, frightening size and cost of government, poor security, declining education, and deteriorating healthcare, as well as the empty treasuries of parastatals.
“Amazingly, all of these are easier to engage in than the name-calling and hate messages that have polarised the country,” Utomi said.
Political enlightenment is the key. Voter education is the solution. The militarisation of the political environment is an avoidable aberration in a democratic process.
The pervasive bellicose rhetoric, hate speeches, and name-calling that characterised the campaigns are directly responsible for the increasing election-related violence observed by the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Chidi Odinkalu.
He expressed concern that arms and weapons in worrying quantities are in the hands of cults, gangs, militias, and other unlawful groups with an illicit supply network for psychotropic drugs to the militias to bolster them.
Odinkalu said the two leading parties, the PDP and the APC, and their supporters launched mutual attacks even on each other’s billboards, and that the unprecedented levels of hate speeches conditioned the society to mutual hatred.
Sixteen years down the road, none of the indices of democratic governance is yet on the horizon. There is therefore need for a shift in our democratic paradigm. If that is the only lesson we learnt from the 2015 elections, we can hope that 2019 will be better.
Voter education is paramount. Talkative politicians, their supporters, party members, thugs, and gangsters should not be allowed to use elections to set the country ablaze.
The people must reclaim the electoral process.