Nigerian poll: will it matter at the end?

Election officials count ballots papers at the end of voting in one of the polling stations in Yola, Nigeria. Picture: Sunday Alamba

Election officials count ballots papers at the end of voting in one of the polling stations in Yola, Nigeria. Picture: Sunday Alamba

Published Mar 30, 2015

Share

Most commentators think that this election is really only about changing the snouts at the trough, says Peter Fabricius.

Pretoria - The main problem with African democracy is that the main issue in elections is still whether they can be conducted without rigging and violence rather than whether they will make any real difference in the lives of ordinary people.

Take the weekend election in Nigeria which has received large attention both on the continent and beyond.

Not surprisingly, really, since that is now the biggest economy in Africa.

This contest pits incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, leader of the PDP which has governed the country since the return to democracy in 1999, against Mohammadu Buhari, a retreaded former military dictator and now leader of the recently-formed ACP coalition which offered the greatest challenge to the PDP so far.

At time of writing, voting, which was due to be have been started and completed on Saturday, had been extended until Sunday because of the failure of some electronic voter card readers.

Results were trickling in though the final result was not expected until Tuesday.

There had been reports of sporadic violence and of the violent Islamist group Boko Haram chasing away voters from some polling stations in the north-east.

But generally, and certainly by the standard of previous elections, these ones seemed to be going fairly well. Although of course the big test always comes when the results are all in. And someone has lost.

Christian Purefoy, a reporter of the Nigerian online political and entertainment journal AMEBO, won plaudits from other commentators for summing up the situation succinctly in a tweet on Sundaythat “Nigeria’s 2015 election is not about whether Nigeria can hold an election, but can it hold a very “close” election.

“We’re about to find out.”

In other words, this is about elections as an end in themselves, not about elections as a means to an end, the greater good of the country.

Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society in London, who is one of the best commentators on African affairs, wrote in AfricanArguments on Friday, under the headline “Why Nigeria’s election really MATTERS” that “This week’s election in Nigeria is the most important African event of the decade.

The “Africa Rising” story can only continue if the continent’s biggest economy is stable and its rulers can transform the lives of its 174 million people, as well as the region and the entire continent.

“The choice is stark.”

This is all surely true. But the problem is that Dowden did not say which candidate he thought would be most likely to bring Nigeria the stability, good leadership and governance that he said it so desperately needs to fulfil its and the continent’s potential.

What then is the stark choice?

And how then could these elections be the most important African event of the decade?

There has generally been a dearth of discussion about the merits of the candidates, the parties and their policies.

That should be worrying.

It implies that most commentators just think that this election, like past ones, is really only about changing the snouts at the trough.

Jonathan is a Christian Southerner, Buhari a Muslim Northerner.

In the unwritten rule of Nigerian politics, power is supposed to oscillate between the South and the North.

That’s supposed to establish a regional, religious and ethnic balance so that no-one feels left out.

But it just reinforces the notion that elections are about rotating the snouts at the trough, rather than about choosing a leader and a ruling party who will govern for the good of all.

Admittedly this is probably a very naive argument since the same applies just about everywhere across the continent.

The rallying cry in so many elections, spoken or unspoken, is: “It’s our turn to eat.”

Ask for an analysis of the policies – let alone ideologies – of electoral candidates and you will generally be greeted with derisive laughter.

“This is about personalities, not policies,” will be the invariable dismissive reply.

But should we just accept that?

* Peter Fabricius is Independent Media’s foreign editor.

Pretoria News

Related Topics: