--Moses:
Only a small space is left for positive change; a smaller space for good governance; and no space at all for development.
TF
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA
From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of moses <meochonu@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, November 18, 2019 at 3:22 PM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Moving On Is The Nigerian Way
MOVING ON IS THE NIGERIAN WAY
by Moses E. Ochonu
We Nigerians have continued with our habit of "analyzing" and, through that "analysis," legitimizing electoral brigandage.
I'm now seeing people on my Facebook timeline "analyzing" why the PDP lost in Bayelsa, how the APC candidate was beloved, how the PDP candidate was imposed, how former president Jonathan surreptitiously backed the APC candidate, etc.
But on Saturday, before INEC pronounced the results and before it became clear that the official count favored the APC, we were all discussing the unprecedented violence, rigging, voter disenfranchisement, the questionable role of security agencies and INEC officials, and the massive manipulation that characterized the election.
That was the predominant narrative of the election on Saturday and part of Sunday. What happened between then and today to change the narrative from the debacle that was widely audio-visually documented to a coyly legitimizing narrative of "the PDP messed up" and "the APC played smart politics"?
In Kogi, we now have "analyses" of how Yahaha Bello was able to "win" despite owing salaries and performing woefully and how the PDP "lost" a winnable election. The premise of these "analyses" pretends that there was a credible election.
But on election day and part of yesterday, the narrative was totally different. The conversation was overwhelmingly about the well-documented violence, thuggery, shootings, ballot-snatching, and the complicity of security and electoral officials.
The conversation was about the N10 billion election slush fund released by Mr. Integrity to Governor Bello on the eve of the election and how that essentially funded the massive vote-buying, ballot-snatching, and intimidation campaigns of Governor Bello.
The conversation on Saturday and part of Sunday was about the fact that in Okene Local Government, Governor Bello is recorded as having scored 112,000 votes (90 percent of registered voters) to the PDP's less than 150!
The footnote to that narrative was how, in one local government in Okunland, Bello inexplicably scored a vote total that nearly equalled the number of accredited voters, and yet somehow INEC still allocated 8,000 votes to the PDP candidate!
On Saturday, the verdict seemed unanimous and unequivocal: the two gubernatorial elections were a complete disaster. On my Premium Times WhatsApp group, the discussion among intellectuals, journalists, and civil society groups in that ecosystem was damning: these were no elections and could not be conferred with any credibility or legitimacy.
In fact, the umbrella body of Nigerian civil society organizations called for the cancellation of the two elections.
Instead of persisting with this clear, substantive narrative of electoral sham and correctly advancing it to underscore the further deterioration of our already broken electoral system, some of us have shockingly, quickly moved on to a narrative that makes the "victories" of the APC in both elections plausible, thereby subtly, if unwittingly, legitimizing what we all described as as gun-backed heists less than 72 hours ago.
This tendency seems to be in our character. We are too quick to move on, and to normalize and thus regularize anomalies and perfidies. There is a pattern and a history to this behavior on our part.
We did it before when, in spite of the internationally condemned theft of the Osun gubernatorial election, we "analyzed" how Adeleke, the PDP candidate, might have "lost" and how Tinubu's cousin, Oyetola, the APC candidate might have "won." In other words, we privileged speculation on the might-have-beens and other counterfactuals of the election over the clear, tangible facts of electoral injustice staring us in the face. Because of this narrative acceptance of the Osun travesty, when the appeals and supreme courts upheld the election's dubious outcome, we yawned and moved on.
We did the same when Gandollar, with the help of security forces and compromised INEC officials, stole the Kano gubernatorial election from Abba, the PDP candidate. Despite the unanimity of our condemnation of the brazen electoral larceny, a few days after the tragic event, a counter-narrative of how Gandollar may have "won" and how Abba may have "lost" began to trickle out, gradually helping to normalize and legitimize the electoral robbery and Gandollar's "re-election."
We also did it in the immediate aftermath of the 2019 presidential election. We moved on quickly from a near-universal commentary on a heavily manipulated election marked by violent disfranchisement, manufactured numbers, and a predetermined outcome that gave Mr. Atiku, the PDP candidate, no chance. We move on to a new, sneaky rhetoric of what Atiku and the PDP did wrong, what was wrong with Atiku, how Atiku was a bad candidate that doomed the PDP, how Buhari's loyal following rained intact in the North, how Buhari, despite his record (or lack of it), found a way to "win," etc.
This narrative, promoted on social media and in the traditional press, helped normalize Buhari's "victory" and Atiku's "loss." It rendered the election's crooked outcome plausible and acceptable. In fact some people were urging Atiku to accept "defeat" and move on, that it was the will of God, that if Nigerians voted for Buhari then he deserved the "victory" and they his presidency. Some of the people who were saying this had a few days earlier declared that Buhari had lost the election soundly and had stolen his way back to power. But now, they were creating room for the plausibility of his "victory."
That is who we are. We move on too quickly from injustice; we're too accepting of cheating and manipulation because we tend to value a stable, predictable, but illegitimate status quo more than we do fighting for a legitimate political/electoral outcome and future. The politicians now know this and are counting on it.
The message we are sending to the politicians is clear: win the election at all costs, and by any means. Nothing will happen. After two days, people will move on with their lives and recognize your de facto, if not de jure, governorship/presidency.
And, as a bonus, the commentariat, journalists, and some intellectuals will even find specious analytical alibis and plausibilities for your "victory" and your opponent's "loss."
Again, there is a pre-APC, PDP history to this behavior. When the late Umaru Yar'Adua "won" the presidential election in 2007, the manipulations were so rife and so brazen that even he admitted that the election he had just "won" was marred by irregularities. He then promised to clean up Nigeria's electoral process through reforms to the electoral code.
While Yar'Adua was admitting the illegitimacy of his own victory, however, many compatriots argued that the focus on the electoral irregularities was misplaced, that it obscured the electoral realities of the country at the time, which they claimed favored Yar'Adua and the PDP, and that, with or without rigging, the PDP would have won. Their argument was that, given the PDP's national spread and Buhari/CPC's parochial base, Yar'Adua was poised for victory anyway.
I remember writing and publishing rejoinders and engaging people who insisted on this logic as a counterpoint to the narrative of electoral crisis. I would always remind them that 1) if Yar'Adua was already coasting to victory as they claimed, the PDP didn't need to rig the election, and 2) given the depth and breadth of the irregularities, we could never determine if he won or if he would have won had the contest been transparent and fair, and, finally, that the manipulations tainted and delegitimized his victory.
I am not sure I convinced many. I guess that's just we are as a people--blissfully accepting of an illegitimate present we're accustomed to rather than fight for a new, legitimate future.
--
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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