Dousing Political Tension In The Land

Elections everywhere tend to be divisive. This is because mobilization of support hinges on a successful creation of a simplistic binary of ‘we-versus-them’ dichotomy, which is then nourished by all manner of scaremongering. This is why political campaigns are often likened to wars without weapons. In Africa, it is even more so where politicians seem to have taken literally the exultations by Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering pan-Africanist and Ghana’s independence leader (1957-1966), to seek first the political kingdom and everything else would be added unto them.

In Africa, the allure of political office is exceeding high. Apart from being perhaps the quickest means to personal material accumulation, there is a pervasive fear that the group that captures state power could use it to privilege its in-group and disadvantage others. For these, electoral competitions tend to be especially anarchic, deepening existing fault lines and even creating new ones. In countries like ours where the basis of nationhood remains highly contested, and where several groups have institutionalized memories of hurt, electoral contests often re-open old wounds that raise doubts about the basis of togetherness. This therefore makes it imperative that the task of healing and reconciliation is prioritised after each election.

After the just concluded or presidential election that, on the positive side, witnessed some upsets across several states of the federation, the governors, who reign like emperors in their respective states, seemed to have quickly returned to the drawing board.

In some states across the country, there were snatching of ballot boxes by thugs, alteration of figures recorded at the polling units, voter suppression and intimidation and the weaponization of ethnicity. Amid the tensions came the allegations that some people were plotting to foist an interim government on the country.

Even if people actually canvassed for an interim government it would be an expression of opinion. It was the American jurist Wendell Holmes who declared in a famous judgement, (Gitlow v New York, 1925) that “Every idea is an incitement… The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the results”.

For interim government, not only is it not in our constitution, such a contraption cannot happen without the active connivance of the President and the National legislature.

Recently, Nigeria’s two most renowned living writers – Professor Wole Soyinka and Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie – got into the fray, apparently on opposite sides of the divide. While Chimamanda wrote an open letter to President Joe Biden urging him not to congratulate Tinubu who was declared the President elect by INEC, the Nobel Laureate picked on both the Obidient Movement and Dr Datti Baba Ahmed, describing them as ‘fascists’. With the involvement of Soyinka and Chimamanda whose voices re-echo powerfully on the international arena, we await how their conflicting interventions will shape the responses from the international community.

It is obvious that many people are getting fatigued by the elections and their aftermaths and would like the country to find a way of moving on. I however don’t think it would be wise to just move on – as we are won’t to do in situations like this. I feel that we must seek to understand what happened, give justice to victims of what happened and punish those who helped to sabotage the processes.

– Adibe is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Nasarawa State University, Keffi.