If there is any comfort to draw from the political development in the country, it is probably that elections have been conclusively held in five states in recent months, and each of them tended to appear better than the previous one, while the ruling People’s Democratic Party has been unable to dominate all the polls. President Goodluck Jonathan may claim credit for this state of affairs, but he should also recognize that this has come at a huge cost, with the massive deployment of the military, police, state security and civil defence outfits, among others. In each state, it looked as if the country was preparing for war and not election.
It may be argued, of course, that security units are needed to avert crisis, and that they have always been part of Nigeria’s elections. But the expectation at this stage is that elections should be dominated by civil authorities and not the military whose presence tends to convey more fear and less confidence to the electorate.
Dealing with such issues are more important than the repeated assurances of a free and fair election by politicians, including President Jonathan, as in one breath, such assurances are both comforting and distressing. The hope is that Nigeria would get to such a stage of development as would make democracy assume its true meaning with elections as its most potent tool.
The other day, in a gathering of members of the diplomatic corps, senators and leading lights of the country, President Jonathan made a submission of assurance that the 2015 elections would be free, fair and transparent, as though a free and fair election should not be a given but a favour to be dispensed.
The President was quoted as saying: “…let me use this unique opportunity to assure you and I’m conveying this to my brothers, your heads of government, that our elections next year will be free and fair.” He added: “It will be very peaceful in nature that will even surprise the whole world.”
Judging by the antecedents of this administration, such statements add little value to the national dialogue, let alone, by themselves, put the nation in better international standing. Why need Nigerians be gratified by the assertion that the world would marvel at the conduct of elections? A certain self-indictment in such assertions is bad enough, situations in reality do not seem to portend such optimism.
Even as the President assured his audience of favourable expectations at the conduct of the 2015 elections, impediments to their actualization are everywhere for all to see. With only a few months to 2015, the heightened insecurity, occasioned by a barrage of hostilities, destabilizing forces, rising carnage and utter state of perplexity, has not yet abated. Besides, the besieged states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and Gombe are still smouldering under insane bloodletting and violence. Will the election be said to be free and fair if a portion of the country in which the president claims leadership is disenfranchised? Perhaps it is to forestall an escalation of discontent into violence, that heavily armed security personnel are deployed at election venues.
True, Nigeria is witnessing an unprecedented state of insecurity, but that does not mean that every state of the federation is in crisis. That this government would deploy soldiers to places that are relatively peaceful does not augur well for the health of democracy. In a democracy, free, fair and regular elections are the means by which the citizens express their most essential political right, namely the right to elect their representatives and to order their political destiny. However, as inviolable as an election is to democracy, it is not an end in itself, and therefore insufficient to sustain democracy. Other factors are precursors to the quality of an election. Manifestoes that publicly declare the ideology, aims, objectives and programmes of a party; convincing campaigns that explain how the manifestoes solve the everyday problems of the people and plan for their temporal existence, qualitative debates and powerful lobbying that subject party programmes to ideological and common sense scrutiny are avenues that position citizens for proper exercise of their reasoned decision at elections.
Sadly, since the onset of civil rule in 1999, that fundamental aspect of the democratic process has been fossilized. Compared to the healthy rivalry that existed between political parties of yesteryear, when debates were based on the ideological soundness and pragmatic footing of party programmes, today’s parties seem to be, in the true sense of the word, partying. The present political parties seem bereft of intellectual foundation and ideological roadmap. Being mere associations formed along ethnic affiliations and primordial interests, it is not surprising that they cannot forge any enduring socio-economic and political superstructure for this nation beyond addressing issues that are basically municipal and infrastructural.
Rather than dishing out words of assurance that are contradicted by the state of affairs in the country, the President and his administration should create an environment that would cause free, fair, transparent and credible elections in all parts of the country.
If democracy is to be viewed as the most viable system of organising society in the present world order, and if the consent of the governed is the unambiguous representation of that system, then the sanctity of free and fair elections as means of achieving this political ideal would be greatly appreciated and respected.
The credibility of any democratic government is adjudged by the rational and free exercise of the will of the individual through the election of its public officers. An exercise so sacred, it is an intrinsic value of democracy and non-negotiable. It is not endowed by any government or any of its organs.
It is for this reason that President Jonathan’s assertion that the 2015 elections would be free and fair is superfluous. In which case, the real cry is: Let action speak louder than the words!
