Although a shocking event to elitist bookmakers, the defeat of incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan by Gen Muhammadu Buhari; the first ousting of a ruling party in a national election in Nigeria’s history, is a strong message about the need for a perceptive harmonization of the triad of governance, people and democracy. Besides the collateral damage to the ruling PDP, what was expressed by the choice of Buhari over Jonathan is a political maxim writ large: never take the people for granted. It is one lesson politicians should commit to heart, even as the word goes out to leaders across Africa that they take the people for granted only at their own peril.
Amidst security challenges, hitches and delays, the poll generally adjudged as credible and of comparatively higher standards than earlier elections, saw Buhari trouncing Jonathan by over 2.5 million votes. The defeat has generated a groundswell of scholarly discourse because Nigerians are so used to incumbents winning elections that Jonathan’s defeat needs some explaining. Five main issues -insecurity, corruption, the economy, INEC and a united opposition front – put Jonathan on the back foot.
Jonathan had his job well cut out: save Nigeria from terrorism, but he failed woefully. Against the background of the Boko Haram insurgency that has killed 20,000 people and displaced another three million, the crisis must of necessity boggle the mind, given the brazen attack on the Nigerian state and declaration of a caliphate in captured territories. Yet Jonathan failed to own the war. There was a leadership problem not only within the military operation, but also nationally. When the President and commander-in-chief of the armed forces appear so absent in the face of unprecedented security challenges, it is impossible to expect total loyalty and commitment from the troops, because no one knows who’s leading the war. While there seemed to be no end to the sorrow, tears and bloodletting, the international outrage that greeted graphic images of hurting and traumatized mothers on the streets, to protest the government’s failure to rescue 276 abducted school girls, and the deafening silence at the corridors of power that initially attended the tragedy proved costly. The recapture of areas controlled by Boko Haram came six weeks too late. The justifiable public anger and frustration was reflected in the results from the war-ravaged north-eastern states.
Besides, Jonathan largely paid lip service to the fight against corruption and even wittingly or unwittingly undermined anti-graft institutions. The fuel subsidy scandal and the controversial pardon he granted his political mentor, former Bayelsa State governor, DSP Alamieyeseigha; convicted for corruption was a collective insult to Nigerians and the triumph of impunity. Jonathan’s weakest link though, was the economy. The dreadful unemployment with its excruciating and biting presence has left nearly half of Nigerians below the poverty line. With current unemployment at 23.9% and unemployed youths at 20.3 million, this generation of Nigerians cannot dream of any future, thereby foreclosing same for future generations. Add fuel shortages and power cuts and many voters seem in no mood for four more years of Jonathan.
Another lesson of inescapable profundity for PDP chieftains is the wisdom in understanding that a democratic culture that excludes the people would be ruthlessly resisted by people power. The PDP from creation has remained a nondescript entity of strange bedfellows uniting northern elite and leading southern politicians, but that alliance broke up and the party thus became an unmanned monstrous truck rolling over the landscape, crushing anything in its path, with its first victims being its prominent members. The split that occurred exposed the PDP as nothing other than a special purpose vehicle for political contractors and sundry jobbers and predators for acquiring power for its own sake, amassing wealth via government as the biggest business, and mindlessly impoverishing the people. But as is always the case with all houses of cards, the PDP eventually, had to face its own demons. In a ludicrous sense, Jonathan was a victim of protest voting – an unkindly application of people power against those occupying executive positions at both the state and federal levels, who saw themselves as above the party that produced them.
As the PDP begins its sojourn in political wilderness for the first time since 1999, the party must ask itself why its locus of power is so contradictory. Between the party chairman, the chair of the Board of Trustees, the President and the Governors, it is not clear who is in charge of party affairs. The effect is that the party is enfeebled, existing not as a platform for nation-building ideas but as a vehicle to power and wealth, and therefore embroiled in endlessly simmering power tussles. Much of its governance output has been illiberal so much so that Nigerians were yearning for viable alternatives. The APC slogan of “change” created a groundswell of euphoria and hope and six more weeks of desperate and dirty campaigning was not enough to turn the tide.
It is also important to recognize the role of the electoral umpire INEC, and the resolve by its chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega to deliver free, fair and credible elections. Past elections have been marred by serious irregularities and rigging. This time INEC took more steps to prevent rigging, including new biometric voters cards and card readers. Having lost control of some key states with the defection of its governors and legislators, the PDP could neither control nor influence the electoral outcome in those states.
Notwithstanding, Jonathan’s “offence” may not be unconnected with a perceived elitism and cluelessness. The message here is that policies that transform a nation are not best envisioned by a band of technocrats and couched in grandiose grandiloquence and slogans. Rather, transformation emanates from actions not rhetoric. Jonathan’s transformation agenda seem too complicated for the man on the street; hence “continuity” was difficult for Nigerians to fathom. All in all, Jonathan might have identified the problems facing Nigeria, he might have had vision, but his modus operandi was out of step with the people’s aspirations. Governments are elected for the clear purpose of advancing the public interest. Once a government has shown its incapacity to do so, the logical consequence is a rejection at the next election.
Jonathan was acutely underperforming; the perception was that he enshrined mediocrity in his cabinet and the citizens’ yearning to have the right caliber of people in charge of affairs remained unrealized. Yet Nigerians are blessed with a vast array of highly competent, globally acknowledged distinguished professionals. There is, therefore, no reason the country cannot be governed with the best hands except for the wrong disposition of the appointer. Buhari must confront all the obstacles that make it impossible to appoint the right and best persons into offices. He must demonstrate a capacity and the will to break with the past. After many false starts, dashed hopes, and perennially low expectation, Nigeria needs to change direction. This can only be done by a new kind of leadership driven by a sense of urgency to infuse hope and purpose in the citizenry; a new culture of leadership that will galvanize the country in a totally new direction, with emphasis on the national interest, not temporary occupants of high office. As Nigerians continue to savor this historic moment, the hope is that the lesson would not be lost on the President-elect: power belongs to the people and the people freely repose it in trust in any government. Never take democracy for granted. Never take the people as fools.
