Why Nigeria’s Elections Won’t Change Anything

[Toyin Falola]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/opinion/nigeria-elections-corruption-economy.html

Opinion

Why Nigeria’s Elections Won’t Change Anything

There is little difference between the country’s ruling party and the opposition.

By Elnathan John

Mr. John is a Nigerian novelist and satirist.

·         Feb. 22, 2019

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A campaign poster for President Muhammadu Buhari, who is running for re-election.CreditBen Curtis/Associated Press

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A campaign poster for President Muhammadu Buhari, who is running for re-election.CreditCreditBen Curtis/Associated Press

Nigeria has come a long way from 1999 when the army handed over power to a democratically elected government, but the bar must rise from simply conducting marginally free and fair elections and having scheduled transitions.

After being postponed for a week by the national electoral body for “logistics and operational problems,” national elections will be held in Nigeria on Saturday. President Muhammadu Buhari, 76, is vying for re-election as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Mr. Buhari, a former military dictator, refashioned himself as a reformed democrat and won the presidency in 2015 as the candidate of a grand opposition coalition. An insular and conservative politician, he has few personal friends or allies in politics or in the business community. But he has immense support among the impoverished masses across northern Nigeria, where he is perceived to be one of the least tainted politicians or former military officers.

His supporters saw his reputation as a ruthless former military dictator as an asset that would enable him to take on the political elite and end the grand banquets held at the expense of the Nigerian treasury. Mr. Buhari defeated President Goodluck Jonathan by promising to wipe out endemic corruption and defeat the Boko Haram extremists.

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But Mr. Buhari hasn’t succeeded in ending corruption, improving the economy or defeating Boko Haram. He faces his main challenge from Atiku Abubakar, a business tycoon, who is the candidate for the opposition People’s Democratic Party. Mr. Abubakar, who served as vice president from 1999 to 2007, has tried several times to get either the ruling or the opposition parties to nominate him as their candidate for president.

A billboard for an opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar.CreditSunday Alamba/Associated Press

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A billboard for an opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar.CreditSunday Alamba/Associated Press

The capricious workings of the Nigerian political space make it difficult to make distinctions among the contenders and their political entities. Neither the ruling party nor the opposition parties are rooted in any discernible political ideology.

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Almost every prominent politician supporting the opposition candidate has at some point been a member of the governing party. Quite a few government ministers and prominent politicians publicly supporting President Buhari were until recently members of the opposition. Switching political parties not only is simple but also often needs no justification. Political alliances are highly fluid and can sometimes change mere weeks before elections. 

In 2015 when Mr. Buhari took over as president, Nigeria had the third-largest number of extremely poor people; in 2018, Nigeria overtook India to become the country with the largest number of the extreme poor — a staggering 91 million living on less than $2 a day. 

Unemployment rates have risen from a little over 10 percent in 2016 to 23 percent in 2018. The stasis of the presidency was strikingly illustrated by Mr. Buhari’s taking six months to appoint government ministers and spending months away in London for medical treatment. His reluctance to speak to the people or to react in a timely manner to scandals in his government did not inspire confidence. Babachir Lawal, a former top official in Mr. Buhari’s government, was only recently charged for a 2016 corruption scandal.

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While not seen as personally corrupt, Mr. Buhari seems either powerless or unwilling to deal with corruption charges against some of his confidantes. In October, videos of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the governor of the Kano State, receiving wads of dollars from a government contractor — allegedly as kickbacks — were leaked and created a sensation in Nigeria. Mr. Buhari failed to make a clear statement, and a few weeks later, the president campaigned alongside the governor and endorsed his candidacy.

Another significant failure of Mr. Buhari has been improving the rule of law and civil liberties. In his administration, the police and the army have continued with, if not heightened, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions, executions and intimidation. Mr. Buhari has supported the army’s use of deadly force and used language promoting the heavy -handed violence of the state security forces, demonstrating that he is still very much a military dictator at heart.

It forces one to ask: Will the election change anything? In a rent-seeking system sustained by patronage, fueled by corruption and perpetuated often by force and disregard of the rule of law, moving the country toward a more functional democracy will require much more than elections.

It would be naïve to expect that a new president in the person of Mr. Abubakar will radically reform Nigeria. Mr. Abubakar has a tainted reputation, having been accused of amassing great wealth through corruption, his primary accuser being no less than his former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo, who was the Nigerian president from 1999 to 2007.

In 2005, Mr. Abubakar was involved in an F.B.I. investigation of Representative William Jefferson. According to the F.B.I., Mr. Abubakar had sought bribes from Mr. Jefferson to help him win business contracts in Nigeria for a technology company controlled by Mr. Jefferson. In 2010, a United States Senate report accused Mr. Abubakar and Jennifer Douglas, his fourth wife, of laundering over $40 million in suspicious funds into the United States between 2000 and 2008. 

Mr. Obasanjo, the former president, described Mr. Abubakar as disloyal, incompetent and corrupt in several interviews and a book. In a shocking twist to the tale, Mr. Obasanjo is now backing Mr. Abubakar against Mr. Buhari.

Nigeria’s major business magnates have remained more or less the same regardless of the party in power. Nigerians will be dealing with similar political actors whether Mr. Buhari is re-elected or Mr. Abubakar replaces him.

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Corruption in Nigeria is not going anywhere anytime soon. All of the major players have either been seen to condone or directly participate in it. Many allies, supporters and funders of both leading presidential candidates are people with histories of crime and corruption — people whose support comes at a price. The businessmen enjoying government favors and monopolies and the political contractors who serve whoever is in power will be around.

For many Nigerians, even educated middle-class ones, being connected to the apron strings of government is important. Often a person is one government appointment or contract away from stupendous wealth, as well as one event — a major illness of themselves or their dependents, a fire or natural disaster, an accident — away from poverty.

This state of dysfunction discourages people from organizing in nonpartisan unpaid movements that challenge government impropriety or demand accountability or justice. This fear and vulnerability is effectively weaponized by politicians, and elections become a mere formality, putting a new coat of paint on the walls of corruption, disregard for the rule of law and denial of human rights.

It might be a tall order to expect consistent active engagement from people trying to survive, who groan under the weight of a dysfunctional, largely unsafe country. But there is no substitute for continuously demanding accountability, not just during elections but throughout the tenure of whoever wins. Because democracy is a continuous process and not an event.

Elnathan John, a Nigerian novelist and satirist, is the author, most recently, of “Becoming Nigerian: A Guide.”

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Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

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http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

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http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

"There is little difference between the country’s ruling party and the opposition."

The major difference is that the opposition candidate, if he wins, would not look the other way, while his cattle herders kinfolk kill other Nigerians for grazing land, he is a businessman with investments all over Nigeria.

CAO.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

well written but does not mention fulani herdsmen terrorism

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Oga Chidi,

What evidence has he given to support your assertions?

What has been his response to the fact that the Fulani herdsmen terrorist movement is openly run by Miyetti Allah, headed by Nigeria's most elite Fulani?

The best I have read him do is try to divert our attention from that fact by urging that we should not interpret the Fulani herdsmen's murderous actions as an ethnic initiative.

Has he demonstrated any leadership whatsoever on the subject, as one of the country's most prominent and most powerful Fulani?

Is this not the same man who threatened Nigeria with violent change bcs he was not made PDP 2011 Presidential  candidate?

                                                                            

                                                     

Terrorists are firmly in charge in  Nigeria. 

                                                                                       

                                                 

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

Toyin,
The last sentence in my comment which are referencing, was that; "......he is a businessman with investments all over Nigeria."

Does that sound like evidence to you in the context of this discourse?

CAO.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

its not evidence.

its supposition.

his extensive business interests  dont have to be negatively affected by the terrorist initiative.

have you observed any evidence that he considers the terrorist initiative any threat to his own interests?

toyin

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

Toyin,
Academic argument aside, do you think that a President Atiku would look the other way while Fulani herdsmen cause trouble in Onne, Rivers state, where he has multi billion dollars investment (Equity interest in "Intels Services Limited")?

CAO.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

I will tell you what I expect Atiku/Obi to do if they win and what they will do if they do not win and why I think so.

We can measure that against the outcomes we shall observe in the next one to four years. Based on developments so far, I expect the following outcomes or a variant of them. 

If Atiku/Obi Win

If they win, I expect Atiku will revert to the standard operating system of the terrorist movement to which he and Buhari belong, the movement that has given Nigeria both of them as the primary contenders in yesterday's Presidential election.

That strategy is to apply pressure on the polity through the simultaneous use of  chaos and shock by consistent but largely unanticipated mass, individual and smaller group murders and political manipulation, a method that has worked with Boko Haram and which they are struggling to work with in the use of Fulani herdsmen militia.

I expect Atiku's strategy will be to urge Nigeria to adopt a rebranded version of the cattle colonies colonization strategy that Buhari has struggled to impose on Nigeria.

I expect him to to try to sell the idea using the smokescreen of his credentials a successful businessman, a central selling point of his image making in the just concluded Presidential campaign. I expect the technocratic image of Peter Obi to also be deployed in this task.

The strategy I expect him to use is to try to cajole Nigerians to accept the location of Fulani herdsmen cattle colonies across Nigeria as sound business strategy that will alleviate the rigours of the life of the nomadic Fulani, eliminate conflict with farmers over cattle routes and provide jobs covering the entire scale of the commercial significance of cattle.

Why not the millionaire owners of the cattle use their huge resources, resources currently employed in arming, training and recruiting a vicious militia, as well as in sustaining a propaganda machine, as was employed in the attack on Apostle Suleiman, the first and perhaps the only Christian minister who took the fight to them, though at the level of rhetoric,  in building these ranches in their own territory and ferrying the cattle across the country in trucks, thereby obviating the fears of Nigerians about the deadly reputation Fulani herdsmen have cultivated in the last ten years, escalating with Buhari's 2015 ascension?

That approach will not be considered because it presupposes that other Nigerians exist on the same level as the scions of Usman Dan Fodio, the subjugator of nations, the ideological descendant of Muhammad, the latter last of the prophets, the former the creator of the feudal headship of the Fulani over the Hausa kingdoms, establishing an Emirate as far as  Illorin, initiatives achieved through force of arms, and in the Hausa kingdoms, complemented by   the claim of offering a superior existence while in fact the movement was motivated largely by the vision of feudal domination in which a puristic, intolerant form of Islam was a primary construct of the self identity of the colonizer and his method of subjugating the natives.

Approaches that place the burden of responsibility on keeping the Fulani herdsmen centred in their current geographical centres in the Muslim North while using the more effective method of movement in trucks in transporting their cattle will also not be considered or if claimed to be considered will not be adopted because it places the burden of change on the Fulani, both nomadic and settled, to restructure the centuries old lifestyle of the nomadic Fulani in a manner that negates the dominant perception of ethnic superiority projected by their leadership and suggested by a broad rage of Fulani at various social levels, a style of thinking in which others bear the responsibility for contradictions emerging from your way of life, not yourself,  contradictions demonstrated in the incompatibility of the idea of extensive roaming with growing urbanization and population expansion, hence the cry over cattle routes which Buhari tried to mobilize in the current struggle and the claim of a couple of Hausa-Fulani academics I spoke to who argued that it is the responsibility of the Benue govt to provide alternatives for the Fulani herdsmen before creating the anti-open grazing law created to protect the state against their ongoing colonization through massacre as well as Miyetti Allah, an organisation headed by the Sultan of Sokoto and the Emir of Kano,  threatening to continue business as usual in the state in spite of the law and their launching a massacre after the law was promulgated and the Emir of Kano calling attention to an alleged but disputed massacre of Fulani elsewhere in the Middle Belt as a counterweight to that massacre by Miyetti Allah troops in Benue.

Cattle centred nomadism is central to the identity of the nomadic Fulani. It is reflected in their mythology, where in one version, the primal substance of existence is the central nourishing product of the cow, 'In the beginning, there was a huge drop of milk' ( the "Fulani Creation Story" readily accessible online and beautifully analysed in K.E.Senanu and T.E. Vincent's African Poetry) while  a version of the Fulani cosmogonic picture places the man,  the woman and the cow as a unified progression ( as depicted at  webPulaaku, an encyclopedic Fulani cultural site) while a particular Fulani initiation system describes the cosmos in terms of a system of relationships derived from the patterns formed by the coats of cattle ( "Peul Pastoral Initiation" by Germaine Dieterlen in African Systems of Thought  edited by Meyer Fortes and Dieterlen and Koumen: An Initiation Text of the Peul Pastoral Fulani retold by Dieterlen and Ahmadou Hampate Ba).

The nomadic  Fulani are facing a cultural crisis. The nomadic life is becoming increasingly problematic, and possibly unviable. They need leadership to forge a new cultural identity.

I also get the impression that Fulani migrants want to establish a stronger presence in some places they are now settled in, particularly the Mddle Belt,  but are being resisted for various reasons, resistance in the South being caused by a reputation for deadly anti-social behavior. The situation requites serious bridge building and cultivation of goodwill and alleviation of fears of those previously on the land. 

The central Fulani leadership, however, is having none of such weak looking approaches particularly since with Buhari, they control the central govt, with the Fulani herdsmen's militia, they have a standing army and with Miyetti Allah who openly coordinate the terrorist army and not only are never questioned by the govt but declare that they have no business with being investigated by the police, they have what they are projecting as an invincible pressure group.  

What the Fulani have as their most influential leaders  are people like Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, and such figures as the Fulani professor who declared that Benue belongs to the Fulani by right pf conquest, rich settled Fulani and employers of the nomadic Fulani, who are drunk on the ethno-centric sense of superiority emerging from their ancestry of conquest, amplified by a sense of Islamic exceptionalism made stronger by the fact that Islam has not suffered the kinds of upheavals that Judaism and Christianity suffered and which compelled foundational internal reform in those other cultures, figures who insist that the Fulani do not negotiate, they take,  leaders for whom long range cunning and destruction are primary tools of dominance, the only relationship they seem to believe they can have in the long run with fellow Nigerians.

The one Fulani leader whom I understand as putting in some effort to develop a self assessing stance among his people is senator Shehu Sani but even he is careful to restrict his actions severely. A person who has the potential to make a difference is the Emir of Kano, internationally applauded ex-central bank governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Islamic scholar, critic of the backward feudalisms evident in Northern Nigerian Islam  and potentially rugged political fighter as shown by his going toe to toe with immediate ex-president GEJ, but he is trapped in a contradiction represented by his self identification with the Emirship that means so much to him and the wide ranging threats across social levels in the Muslim North to discipline him through investigations and possible dethronement   if he persisted in his spectacular challenges to the destructive archaisms of the region, seen by the status quo as central to its identity, a situation made more jarring by his conducting his critique in public, thereby disrupting regional identity in relation to the rest of Nigeria, as one view goes. The threats of investigation and possible dethronement have been dropped, most likely in the face of an agreement with Sanusi. He has since become quiet on the reformist  front and is now a spokesman for Miyetti Allah terrorist colonization initiatives.

If Atiku/Obi Do Not Win

If Atiku/Obi do not win, Atiku will pretend not to notice the ongoing colonization efforts of his fellow right wing  Fulani, that approach being his central strategy before having to say something as the election cycle heated up in 2019. If he is compelled to speak, he will struggle to dethnicise the narrative and project the script the movement is working with-Nigerians must accept cattle colonies for the carnage to stop.

I expect nothing of substance from Peter Obi on this subject. Any Southern politician who teams up with a Buhari or an Atiku is a lost case.

thanks

toyin

I have neither  listened to nor read his comments on the subject even though the reports I came across bear out my anticipation. Although I have read a campaign banner coming from the duo which promises an end to the crisis. I am not taking much interest in anything they are promising because I have no hope in them.