Barring any major surprises, the 2015 presidential elections will be an obnoxious reminder of the 2011 poll when incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan roundly defeated former military leader, General Muhammad Buhari from a motley of candidates. Three years later, in an escalating sequence of entropic political monstrosity, elite in both the ruling PDP and the main opposition APC parties have hijacked the democratic process; turning power, incumbency, and money into instruments of statecraft, to the forfeiture of character and moral probity. The result is an unacceptable perversion of democracy as two inept, even confused leaders, are foisted on a country cowed to submission by the pauperizing antiques of the ruling elite. By electing to remain silent in the face of this decadence, the Nigerian people seemed to have surrendered to this tragic mix of authoritarianism and kleptocracy. For all the grandiloquent rhetoric about democracy, Nigeria is a democracy without democrats. What a shame!
It is indeed, a very sad commentary, that 15 years after the return to democracy in 1999, Nigerian politicians have continued to increase the democratic deficit in the country. After undemocratically imposing Jonathan as the sole PDP candidate for the 2015 presidential election, PDP political jobbers want to create the impression that Jonathan is under pressure, and facing a situational call from the Nigerian people to seek reelection. “Jonathan is receiving calls from every angle pressuring him to go ahead and contest. It is like all Nigerians have called on him,” said Haliru Bello, chairman of the so-called “presidential declaration committee” charged with preparing Jonathan’s re-election announcement. “It is our honest hope that he will come out and say yes to the demand of Nigerians,” Haliru added. All these sinister machinations come after Buhari, at a high profile event at the Eagle Square, announced his intention to contest the 2015 election on the platform of the APC. With the endorsement of Tinubu, it is obvious that Buhari will win the APC ticket to contest the presidency for the fourth time.
The imposition of Jonathan and Buhari on the two main parties has set the stage for a rematch of the 2011 presidential election. Since the 2011 poll, which Jonathan won with a clear mandate, it is not as if the incumbent has introduced any new governance ideas or formulate a new policy framework for socio-economic development; neither is it that a new roadmap for industrialization has been drawn. What Nigerians have witnessed in the last three years of the much-trumpeted “transformation agenda” is an administration that specializes in the intentional mismanagement of the resources of the country and a deliberate dehumanization of the people through abuse of tax-payers’ money. That is what Jonathan has been good for. It then beats the imagination what he can really offer Nigerians apart from just wanting power for its sake. For Buhari, the creation of the opposition APC merger has given him a broader platform to challenge the ruling party, but vanity, egomania and indiscernible ideas continue to characterize the opposition. Buhari is tested and discredited and has nothing new to offer Nigerians.
All these raise the question: what is the character of these two men? What, in their thinking, is the whole purpose of public office and political power? At a time when the nation’s political experience needs sound footing in democratic governance, this absence of internal democracy testifies to the lack of character in all the parties. The result of this forfeiture of character is the inability to build strong institutions. In the continuing sequence of this entropic trend, the political party has become a mere special purpose vehicle for gluttonous accumulation of wealth and self-centered pedestrianism. The Nigerian situation is an all-comers affair of political contractors, opportunists, hangers-on and sundry jobbers, with no knowledge of governance. If this odious political state is not a reflection of the way Nigeria is, then, one wonders what is.
It is pertinent to note that Nigerian democracy is not just under assault, it is now being put to the kind of shame that threatens its existence. This perversion has been further accentuated by outgoing incumbents hand-picking their successors instead of allowing the internal dynamics of party democracy to play out in the eventual choice of party candidates for electoral contest. Already, in a number of states, “anointed” candidates are being foisted. Enugu Governor Sullivan Chime decreed Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi as sole PDP candidate. Ebonyi governor, Martin Elechi followed suit to endorse Onyebuchi Chukwu as his successor. Godswill Akpabio arm-twisted the Akwa Ibom State government machinery to enthrone the Secretary to the State Government, Udom Emmanuel as his successor. More incumbents are likely to follow this bad precedent. Before them, President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed Yar’Adua as his successor while in Lagos, Tinubu hand-picked Babatunde Fashola as his successor. Similarly, Orji Kalu hand-picked Ted Orji in Abia and most recently in Anambra, Gov. Peter Obi handpicked Willy Obiano.
At 54, Nigeria is still struggling to combat self-inflicted problems of leadership because the process of leadership recruitment and succession is an edifice built on corruption. Some have argued that hand-picking successors builds consensus and maintains party discipline. This argument is, of course, self-serving because internal party democracy tugs at the soul of the party and should therefore inform the choice of candidates for election based on their electability. Democracy thrives on freedom of choice, freedom of expression, freedom to vote and be voted for, freedom to dissent and free and fair periodic elections. Owing to the absence of any identifiable ideology within Nigerian political parties, the wind of undemocratic imposition currently blowing across the country has the capacity to destroy Nigerian democracy. Nigerian politicians say thoughtlessly that power belongs to the people; indeed it does! If Nigerian politicians really believe as they profess that Nigeria is democracy, then the people should at all times have the ultimate say over who governs them. This is the majesty of democracy.