Given the campaign of hate rather than of issues displayed by the ruling and opposition political parties, Assistant Political Editor, DANIEL KANU, writes that the message of the ‘No Baga Group’ may be instructive against electoral violence
It is, perhaps, hard to imagine any election in Nigeria’s history that has been more consequential than this year’s ballot, because the stakes are higher.
With six days to the February 14 polls, most Nigerians, going by the latest political campaign of hate, are becoming alarmed.
Day after day, politicians, as well as ethnic leaders, are hurling invectives at one another, making provocative, inflammatory, divisive and inciting comments capable of plunging the nation into high scale violence.
Curiously, there have been attacks on President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign convoys in some Northern states of Katsina, Bauchi and Taraba. While the convoy was stoned on the president’s way to Yar’Adua Quarters in Katsina to visit the mother of the late president, Umaru Yar’Adua, the Bauchi incident involved youths who blocked the convoy on Nasarawa Street on his way to the Emir of Bauchi to pay homage.
In Jalingo, while Jonathan made his way to the palace of the Emir of Muri from the airport, his convoy was also pelted with stones.
Jonathan was not spared in Yola, Adamawa State capital, just as his posters are reportedly destroyed in some parts of the country.
There is no assurance that the attacks, which are quite reprehensible and condemnable, will stop. It is also uncertain the shape the post-election period will take, given the deep-seated hatred in the polity.
Similarly, there were earlier reports of attack on the campaign office of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Port Harcourt, among other cases.
It was even more bizarre when bomb exploded near Jonathan’s Gombe rally on Monday, February 2.
Expectedly, there are also war threats from ex-militants. Recently, former Niger Delta militants, at the end of a recent meeting at the Government House, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, issued threats against the country in pursuit of what they consider the inalienable right of President Jonathan to have a second term in office.
They had argued that the attacks on Jonathan’s campaign convoys suggest a rejection of his bid for a second term in office, which they are ready to resist violently, including denying the country access to Niger Delta’s oil resource. They insist that Jonathan’s re-election was not negotiable, as they would take up arms again, if he fails to win the presidential election.
To political watchers, the antagonism and bad blood generated since the campaign started are all signs that there is a high possibility of electoral violence despite the signing of a peace accord by the political parties.
Conscious of the looming danger in the continuous degeneration of the 2015 polls into hate, anger, and in the end electoral violence, an apolitical organisation, ‘No Baga Group’, is out to preach electoral peace and unity among Nigerians, despite party leanings.
Baga represents the utter rejection of the carnage and horror which took place in Baga, a town in Borno State, where the terrorist group, Boko Haram, wasted over 2,000 lives of innocent citizens.
No Baga Group has become a protest to the Baga madness and a clarion call to Nigerians that ‘Never again’ will the country witness such avoidable tragedy. More importantly, it is a call to vote and not to hate.
The group is appealing to all Nigerians to eschew violence during this coming election despite any provocation, but to use their votes wisely to decide who will lead the country.
It advised Nigerians to be wary of the canards of continuity and change being bandied by the ruling party and the opposition, rather to make statements during the election with their vote.
Speaking during an interaction with the media on Tuesday, founder of the group, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, who was moved to tears recalling the manner the electioneering is degenerating into severe hate, advised Nigerians to reject electoral violence in its entirety.
Popular faces in Nollywood stars such as Kanayo O. Kanayo (KOK), Okey Bakassi, Nkiru Umeh, Kabiru Ailodu, Pete Edochie, Osita Iheme and Patience Ozokwor are being used for mass mobilisation of Nigerians to vote rather than hate.
Some of their banners at display during the session had inscriptions such as “vote not hate”, “the power to decide your future is in your hands”, “vote right, vote for the candidate of your choice”, “your love for Nigeria should be paramount”, “Baga-working towards a peaceful and united Nigeria” and “Say No to electoral violence and thuggery”.
According to Anyiam-Osigwe, “We must not have a country where each time there is an election we are afraid. We should stop dividing ourselves by ourselves. We are supposed to be our brother’s keeper. It does not longer appear we have a soul in Nigeria. We must resist this hate campaign, rather election must be based on issues. As I speak, it is sad that over five million displaced people abound in Nigeria. Inciting hate is a deadly thing for Nigerians.
“We must look into the future with great optimism. INEC must ensure that no Nigerian is disenfranchised by not getting the Permanent Voters Card (PVC). Nigeria is a democracy in which the rule of law and sanctity of the vote are paramount. Electoral contest should not be a life-or-death matter.”
KOK urged Nigerians to resist any attempt by the politicians to make the election violent. “They have been the greatest beneficiaries of the Nigeria project.”
He tasked the media to monitor those that would be running away before the election and even at the eve of the election.
“They should not continue to deceive us. We must resist any attempt to drag us into any election violence. How many of the children of these politicians are in the country? I challenge journalists to keep an eye on our airports and monitor all those that will be running away after stoking the violence.
“Nigerians should vote in love, not hate. We have no other country we can call our own. As a young boy of seven years during the Nigeria-Biafra war, I can recall the agony, anguish, hunger and death that reduced the people into moving corpses. Nobody who has witnessed war will desire it again in life. I saw university professors that were in refugee camps. War is terrible,” the movie star added.
The Nollywood artistes, including movie producers, who spoke one after another during the media parley, all had one message: vote not hate. They contended that “Nigeria should be paramount in our hearts; rather than divided by the antics of politicians who are ruled by greed and deception.”
Some political commentators, who spoke with TheNiche, agree that both the PDP and the APC are “two factions of the same party”, just as they warned Nigerians to vote according to their consciences, rather than pander to religion or ethnic cleavages and at last produce an incompetent leader without the requisite capacity to take the country to a higher level in development.