With the 2023 general elections featuring a couple of politicians who consider the polls a last chance to realize their lifelong ambitions to be President, Nigerians should expect that between now and the polls proper, every trick in every book no matter how unpalatable would be employed to bring home the ultimate prize.
There would name calling and there would be no little theatrics as desperation is expected to mount as the elections crawl closer.
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Nigeria`s experience of leadership in the last few years offers a cautionary tale. Over the years, many men completely bankrupt of ideas and morals have stood before Nigerians to ask for votes. In the course of the last few years, Nigerians have been swayed by all manner considerations.
Some of these considerations have been pecuniary, while some have been ethnic. Some have been religious as Nigerians have had a horrid time deciding who to give or withhold their votes from during elections.
The reason many people think that politics is a dirty game in Nigeria is that they have become used to seeing all manner of tricks and theatrics go into politics in Nigeria.
Nigeria may have long left the days when assassination was not considered too reprehensible a treat for a political threats, but who says vote-buying and other forms of ballot fraud are not as equally reprehensible?
The PDP`s perilous path
For the Peoples Democratic Party, 2023 is a journey of redemption. Nigeria`s return to democracy in 1999 was heralded by the formation of the behemoth that the PDP has remained ever since. When it swept to victory in 1999,the party chieftain who had boasted that it could be in power for sixty years was obviously carried away by the sheer size and power of the party.
The PDP was to go on to enjoy power for sixteen years during which other political parties drummed at the door with little success. However, everything was to change in 2023 when a historic defeat at the hands of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) reversed the gains the PDP had made in sixteen years, and in the process sent the party to the aridity of the political wilderness
The party has not had it easy since. With a new political cycle about to be ushered in 2023, the PDP is hopeful that it can return to power. Carrying its hopes is seventy-five-year-old Atiku Abubakar, former Nigerian Vice president and a political veteran, who hopes that he would be lucky at the sixth time of asking.
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But elections in Nigeria have since stopped being a subject for luck. The recent surge of awareness and political consciousness across Nigeria has also ensured that the Nigerian electorate has become much harder to hoodwink.
With the odds stacked up against those who think that the 2023 elections would be business as usual, at a recent event, Mr. Atiku dug up a favourite tool of politicians in Nigeria: ethnicity.
During an appearance forum, Mr. Atiku who is from Adamawa State was said to have pointedly told Northerners that they did not need an Igbo or Yoruba person but someone like himself who hails from the North.
It was always going to come to this. With Mr. Peter Obi, an Igbo Christian from Anambra State leading a forceful charge at Nigeria`s presidency from within the Labour Party and Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Yoruba Muslim from Lagos State, flying the flag of the ruling All Progressives Congress, it was always thought that at some point, Mr. Atiku and those who support him would appeal to the religious and ethnic sensibilities of the predominantly Muslim North to secure key advantage in the elections.
However, that road of ethnicity and religion is one that must be taken with caution. The fact that Nigeria`s history is most brittle at the points where ethnicity and religion violently intersect demands that those who seek to lead Nigeria are people who are inclusive not just by words but by actions.
This necessarily means that Nigerians must be prepared to reject all those whose claim to the presidency of Nigeria is informed by nothing but ethnic and religious bigotry.
Kene Obiezu
keneobiezu@gmail.com
