2023 Presidential Election highlights crucial of Energy Rotation

The previous presidential election dramatizes the abiding fragility of Nigeria and the crucial to tweak our democratic practices in response to this truth.

When most individuals vote, they don’t vote as people. They don’t even vote as individuals. They usually vote as members of a collective identification. I’m not saying that that is the case for each voter. There are definitely exceptions. However it’s the case that voting behaviors are sometimes patterned alongside notions of the pursuits of collective identities.

This isn’t, by any means, distinctive to Nigeria. It’s a characteristic of all trendy consultant democracies, together with in america, which sees itself, and is seen by others, because the patron saint of democracy.

Right here in america, political events have devolved into kind of rigid tribal groupings the place advantage is the very last thing individuals contemplate when voting for political candidates. Id is essentially the most salient consideration in voting choices.

In states the place Republicans dominate, as I identified final week, literal canine that run as Republicans have 100% increased possibilities of being elected to political positions than the neatest Democratic candidates. The reverse can also be true of states dominated by Democrats. Exceptions could be present in so-called battle-ground states the place Democratic and Republican candidates have equal possibilities of profitable statewide electoral contests. Such states are only a handful of America’s 50 states, usually not more than 10 in a era.

In Nigeria, the embeddedness of identification in electoral politics is difficult by the truth that our political divisions are fashioned round invariable attributes comparable to ethnicity and close to invariable classes comparable to faith. A Democrat can change to a Republican, however an Ijaw man, for instance, can’t change to a Berom man.

Even when he does culturally, linguistically, and by motive of geographic presence, he’ll all the time be reminded of his “outsider” ancestral origins by individuals who contemplate themselves “indigenes.” We’ve seen examples of that this 12 months even in ethnically homogenous states, significantly within the South the place ethnic identification tends to be stronger than non secular identification.

This fixity of our identification classes makes political rivalries constructed round them intensely emotional and susceptible to rhetorical and bodily violence. In democracy, sadly, the tip justifies the means. The tip is to win elections and the means is usually to mobilize the feelings of collective identities in a sure path.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu selected a northern Muslim operating mate regardless that he’s additionally a Muslim not as a result of he hates Christians (his spouse is a pastor, and all his kids are Christians) however as a result of it was the surest means to actualize his finish. He had a alternative between doing the “proper” factor and “dropping” and doing the “incorrect” factor and “profitable.” Like all politicians, he selected the choice that got here with “profitable.”

Within the Southwest, furthermore, he galvanized the assist of individuals, irrespective of non secular affiliation, by interesting to the frequent ethnic origins he shares with the individuals there. In the meantime, amongst northern Muslims, he performed up his Muslim identification to realize identification with that voting bloc.

Atiku Abubakar tried to blunt Tinubu’s northern Muslim enchantment by calling consideration to the frequent ethnic and regional identification he shares with northern voters. His electoral battle cry within the North was “naka sai naka,” which interprets as “yours is yours.” That’s a direct problem to Tinubu who, though a Muslim, isn’t a northerner. That is regardless of Atiku’s popularity as a tolerant, broadminded, cosmopolitan politician who isn’t beholden to slender ethnic, regional, and non secular loyalties.

Within the South, in the meantime, Atiku sought to enchantment to the feelings of the individuals of the Southeast by saying he has all the time been an unwavering good friend of theirs and that he’s the surest and shortest path to an Igbo presidency. Each single operating mate he has had since he began operating for president, he identified, has been an Igbo man, even when his newest operating mate, Ifeanyichukwu Okowa, is a Midwestern Igbo whose individuals have traditionally disavowed affiliation with Southeastern Igbos.

Peter Obi, for his half, cashed in on the Muslim identities of Tinubu and Atiku to rally Nigerian Christians to vote for him. In perceptual phrases, he began off as an Igbo candidate who took benefit of the justified sentiment that an Igbo individual has by no means been elected president. He later expanded his electoral base to turn out to be the southern Christian candidate. He in the end emerged and campaigned because the all-Nigerian Christian candidate and deserted makes an attempt to transcend this confine as a result of he knew he didn’t stand an opportunity in opposition to Tinubu and Atiku outdoors this.

Proper from the demographic profiles of the individuals who constituted his presidential marketing campaign council to his hopping from church to church in the hunt for votes (even going as far as to say to Taraba Christian leaders, “Please church, get up, take again your nation”), to isolating Christian communities in predominantly Muslim Northern states for focused campaigns and even making his post-election authorized workforce an all-Christian and principally Igbo affair, he has left nobody unsure that he’s using on the crest of the wave of Christian resentment in opposition to the 2 main political events, on one in every of whose platforms he was a operating mate in 2019 and a short-lived presidential contender in 2022, for fielding Muslims as their candidates.

But, Obi might be a secular one that isn’t wedded to faith, however he wanted to mobilize the Christian vote as a result of it was his solely technique to have a preventing probability.

This form of divisiveness isn’t wholesome or sustainable for a fractious, fissiparous nation like Nigeria. That’s the reason we have to constitutionalize energy rotation between areas. We have to keep away from a repeat of what occurred this 12 months the place collective identities squared off in opposition to one another and raised the nationwide emotional temperature to fever pitch. Its price to nationwide cohesion isn’t definitely worth the bother.

Given our peculiarities, systematizing energy rotation between the areas at nationwide, state, and native ranges is the best way to go. I do know this shall be resisted by politicians who will see this suggestion because the indefinite deferment of their political aspirations, nevertheless it’s one of the best ways to make sure tranquil co-existence.

The structure ought to draw up a schedule of energy rotation so that each area and sub-region of the nation can have an opportunity to be president, vp, governor, deputy governor, member of the Home of Representatives, senator, home of meeting member, and native authorities chairman. All registered political events ought to be required to appoint their candidates (and operating mates within the case of presidential and governorship elections) from one area for eight years after which one other area can have a shot.

This can eradicate ethnoreligious rigidity and promote advantage in management choice. If all of the presidential contenders in 2023 have been, by legislation, from the Southeast and their operating mates have been from the Northeast, as an illustration, appeals to spiritual and ethnic solidarity could be pointless.

Voters would deal with the pedigree and applications of candidates, and solely one of the best from the areas which can be scheduled to provide candidates would emerge since nobody can mobilize the feelings of collective identities to win elections.