Three days before the presidential elections in Nigeria, the government closed the country’s borders amid security concerns. They are expected to remain closed until midnight on Saturday, the 28th, after the voting is over. The government is not alone in worrying about security. There hangs in the air a sense of unease.
My cousins, who live in Abuja, have left the capital for our home town, Osumenyi, in the eastern part of the country, where they intend to sit out the elections. They registered to vote, but they will not be voting.
This week a number of their southern colleagues have left Abuja and other northern states for “home”. The memory of the 2011 post-election violence is still fresh. After Major-General Muhammadu Buhari lost to President Goodluck Jonathan’s People’s Democratic party (PDP), Buhari’s followers took to the streets in protests that culminated in three days of riots and sectarian violence across 12 northern states. These left more than 800 dead and 65,000 displaced. This year Buhari, leading the All Progressives Congress party (APC), is again Jonathan’s strongest opponent.
Both party leaders recognise that security is a huge issue with voters. Boko Haram has come to represent the huge challenge Nigeria is facing. The terror group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened in a video posted on Twitter to disrupt the elections because “democracy is un-Islamic” and “Allah says authority (belongs) only to him”. The insurgency, despite the president’s assertions to the contrary, and despite the recent multinational joint-army operations against the group, does not seem to be waning (or if it is, only marginally so). Just this week, 500 civilians were kidnapped.
It has been almost a year since more than 200 girls were abducted from their school in Chibok. They have still not been rescued. In the south, although not quite on the scale of Boko Haram, kidnappings are rampant. Those who can afford to do so surround their families with armed guards. There is a generation of children for whom the reality of life is being escorted to school and birthday parties by police escorts.
Both Buhari and Jonathan have, in the past few months, made copious promises to oust Boko Haram once in power, each one presenting himself as the one upon whom rests either the fulfilment of the messianic hope of the country or its eschatological doom.
But while security dominates election discussions on social media and off it, it is by no means the only problem. The lack of reliable and constant electricity is a major issue. It is not just businesses that suffer from the capricious power supply, but individuals too. The drone of generators has become ubiquitous in our urban spaces, and is seen not as a luxury reserved for the wealthy but as a necessity. From the huge, almost silent ones that power entire homes to the two-kilowatt I Pass my Neighbour brand models, which can power an iron or charge a mobile phone, there is hardly a home or business without one. A friend in Surulere, in Lagos, who rents one of the six flats of a residential house, jokes that her nine-month-old’s lullaby is the combined whirring of her neighbours’ generators. “On the days that we have light, and the generators are off, I cannot get her to sleep!”
Fighting corruption is another top voter priority. It is widely recognised that Nigerian society is beleaguered by corruption from the top down, and both Jonathan and Buhari have laid out anti-corruption plans. But Jonathan’s years in power speak for (or rather against) him. His has been a mostly ineffectual administration, totally uncommitted to the transformational agenda it promised four years ago. However, the APC (and Buhari) lack the moral capital to criticise the government. The party is as corrupt as the PDP is.
As for Buhari, he governed Nigeria from 1983-85, as a military dictator, and his rule is often referred to as a reign of terror with good reason. His government was characterised by human rights violations, a clampdown on press freedom, secret tribunals, executions under retroactive decrees, and a “War against Indiscipline” which saw men and women whipped, slapped and humiliated.
The Nigerian economy has been weighed down by sinking oil prices, and a bad situation has become worse. So, while the presidential candidates speak of grandiose plans to transform the nation, “stomach infrastructure” has been added to the popular political lexicon, characterised by the two top parties giving out branded bread, rice, garri, peanuts and sugar, and bribing citizens with small sums of money to turn up for campaign rallies.
This is not new in Nigerian politics, but for the first time a sitting governor has appointed a stomach infrastructure adviser, perhaps acknowledging that the need for direct gratification has become greater as voters become more impoverished (and it has a much bigger impact than it previously did). One prospective voter was quoted as saying he would rather have food to eat – even if for a day – than a tarred road, asking: “Can I eat tarred road?”
The tragedy, bigger even than the fact that we have been so pauperised that some people are willing to sell their votes for a yam, is that 54 years after independence, of the 14 political parties in the race, the only two serious contenders are the PDP and APC. We are reduced to having to choose between a former dictator and an inept incumbent. Nigeria deserves better than either Rtd Major General Buhari or President Goodluck Jonathan. Whoever wins tomorrow, one thing is sure: I will not be celebrating.
