Election palaver

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Election palaver

ACHO ORABUCHI

Dallas, Texas

Sunday, May 27, 2007

“An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names, but are as alike in their principals and aims as two peas in the same pod.”

–Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) Thirty-second President of the USA.

As I ruminate about the just concluded elections in Nigeria the question that constantly comes to mind is: What is the difference between PDP and these other parties? Obviously, the parties have different names and that is where the difference ends. Substantively speaking, there seems to be no iota of difference between them, particularly in ideology.

If the political parties are congruent, carping about the party that emerged victorious in April polls is inconsequential. Nevertheless, the outcome and the culminating activities of the electoral body have dominated the public and private discourse. Similarly, much has been written in the media about elections with great indignation and for the most part, a feeling of disappointment concerning PDP’s victories and perceived notion of INEC’s culpability. On the other hand, while some people are incensed about the outcome, others undeniably welcome the results by derisively rejecting the notion that PDP’s victories were as a result of electoral fraud.

Granted that corruption has permeated the fabric of the society and there may be some electoral glitches, coupled with the fact that no one has the necromancy of the activities of the political parties and the candidates, are the other political parties—opposition parties, I should say—not the offshoots of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? Ironically, most members of these parties came from PDP and they may likely go back to PDP in the future. However, whether their departure from the party was self-pruning or not is subject to various interpretations.

Interestingly, that is a salient point echoed by Nze Ben Nnawuihe, a resident of Dallas, Texas, when he said, “Who else or which other political party would have won this election that is not PDP in nature? Looking at the pictures of all would have been president, they all fled PDP to either form or join other parties for selfish aims—to continue the loots. For eight years they did not see anything wrong with PDP but found things wrong with the party at the last minute. I was one of those very critical of the past selection exercise by the party. I felt they should have allowed the people to decide. But, come to think about it today, our people love money and would have voted for the crooks (the money-bags and big names) to continue. So, PDP as a party did us a big favor in weeding out some of these elements except in one or two states. We can only hope for the best. And I’m very optimistic that we will get better.”

Nigerians are truly hopeful! Galaxies of hope still abound in the midst of cynicism. However, hope alone would not save the country’s democracy. Courage is critical as the process of winnowing the crowd of politicians continues. Conceivably, one of the silver-linings in the April polls is the courage exhibited by some credible candidates to challenge some unscrupulous candidates whose zest for politics is driven by selfish interests. In some instances, the April polls produced the fall of some prominent politicians.

Perhaps INEC unwittingly stymied the cupidity of those who now claim that PDP lies fallow in principle. Mordantly, they were all along members of the PDP until their hiatus due to political fissure. What defines a party is ideology and it’s inexplicably understood that the political parties in Nigeria have no ideological differences. This is precisely why opposition is always in higgledy-piggledy since there is an absence of distinguishing ideological differences between the parties. Similarly, politicians operate without ideological parameters. The brutal truth is that when individuals are also devoid of ideology, they are amenable and susceptible to lures. This phenomenon further demonstrates the back and fort exodus from one party to other.

In an environment like the above, a well-established party with structures to reach the grassroots seems to have enormous edge. Ordinarily, voters are prone to choose a party with name recognition over obscured parties without track records. The seminal issue here is Nigeria’s socio-political environment is harbinger for electoral confusion; the environment allows for a party like PDP to always win whether the elections are free or not. It is essentially important for pundits, especially those in the Diaspora, to understand that asceticism is contrary to Nigeria’s political environment. The complexity in the system requires one to evaluate the electoral process through different lenses.

In any case, politicians and political parties employ various tactics to suppress opponents’ votes and utilize available contraption to mobilize votes for an eventual victory. This is why established machinery at the grassroots level is inevitable if a candidate or a party is to be taken seriously. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that as long as no laws are broken.

Another significant fact about April polls is that progress was made. It is important for us to celebrate our success and work on our failures. Nigerians should learn to accentuate the positive and work on correcting the negative. We should never allow our weakness to define us as a people. The elections were conducted and there were some glitches that need to be fixed. It is incumbent on the new administration to adequately address those problems in order for our democracy to continuously improve. The fulcrum of a country’s democracy lies in its electoral institution. As a result, INEC would continue to improve for the survival of Nigeria’s democracy.

Most importantly, there would be a successful hand over of government—a milestone to be celebrated—from one democratically elected civilian to another. This smooth transition on May 29, 2007 would be a historical moment and many Nigerians pray that this period in our history would not be punctuate with incendiary actions that have the potential to create permanent division in the country.