AU should urge Nigeria’s leaders to postpone polls to avert looming crisis

Saturday, January 31, 2015

A supporter wearing a mask representing Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan attends a campaign meeting of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta region on January 28, 2015. PHOTO | PIUS UTOMI EKPEI |  AFP

In Summary

• Well-armed militants in the Delta region, which is a PDP stronghold, say they will only accept one outcome.
• The African Union should get off the fence and play a more proactive role in seeing how the train wreck can be stopped.

By MURITHI MUTIGA
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Depending on who you ask, the Nigerian election, which is two weeks away, will either be a total disaster or a mild one.

The country is on edge mainly because the election is proving closer than previous ones where the ruling party enjoyed a commanding advantage.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has not lost a presidential election since the end of military rule in 1999.

A string of defections and growing disillusionment with the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan’s handling of the economy, combined with the Boko Haram crisis, mean that the wind seems in his challenger Muhammadu Buhari’s sails.

The problem is that, as in many sharply divided countries, all those issues are not as important as the question of identity.

Northern Muslims feel it is their turn to rule. The Nigerian elite have an unwritten rule that the presidency should be rotated between Muslims and Christians as, incidentally, does Tanzania which has rotated the presidency along religious lines in each round of succession after the Nyerere years.

Muslims in Nigeria feel hard done by because when Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, was supposed to hand over power in 2007, he decided to campaign for a third term rather than endorse his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim.

Abubakar decided to campaign hard to defeat Obasanjo’s third term bid. Obasanjo, in turn, blocked Abubakar’s path to the presidency and handpicked a weak and ailing governor, Musa Yar’Adua, as the next President.

Yar’adua took the Muslims turn in power and died after just over two years in office meaning that a Christian, Goodluck Jonathan, ascended to the presidency and has held it since.

Muslims feel that Jonathan should not stand in this election. But he is determined to serve another term, and with the PDP’s influence and experience at winning elections one way or the other, he can’t be counted out.

Add to this volatile mix the fact that Nigeria is one of the countries in Africa where armed groups can defy state security forces in significant portions of its territory and you can see why so many are sounding the alarm.

TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE

Well-armed militants in the Delta region, which is a PDP stronghold, say they will only accept one outcome.

“2015 Goodluck Jonathan will win, in whatever way they want him he will win,” Alhaji Asari Dokubo, the leader of an outfit known as the Niger Delta People’s Salvation and Volunteer Front, was quoted as saying. “I am not afraid of anybody. My confidence is that he has already won.”

The northeast of the country, of course, has already been swallowed by the Boko Haram menace, and there are fears the crazed militants will try to take advantage of the election to sow chaos.

One hopes all the pessimistic predictions are proved wrong as they were in Kenya in 2013. But Kenya is different because post-2007, the country engaged in a wave of reforms unseen in any post-conflict situation in Africa.

These were supported by an aggressive civil society, a political and leadership class that was shocked by the near-descent into civil war last time, engaged international partners and the media.

In Nigeria, the circumstances are different. The press seems happy to go along with politicians spouting venomous hate speech, making a volatile situation worse.

In these circumstances, it is worth considering the appeal made in the last few days by Princeton Lyman, the respected former American ambassador to Nigeria, that the election should be postponed.

Lyman proposes that the poll should be pushed forward by a year and suggests the formation of a government of national unity to allow the electoral commission to prepare properly for the election and to build national consensus on how to confront the insurgency in the northeast and ensure voters there can take part in the election.

Some will say this is not a democratic approach and that the election should go forward in line with the constitution. But is it really worth running the risk of potential catastrophe in Africa’s most populous nation simply to tick the boxes of electoral rules?

The African Union should get off the fence and play a more proactive role in seeing how the train wreck, which most observers suggest the election on Valentine’s Day will be, can be stopped.

mutiganews@gmail.com