Nigeria is a land of contradiction, where euphemism and mitigation seem to reign supreme. I have heard people say, ‘The onset of madness is to do the same thing repeatedly and to expect a different result each time.’ Somebody else said, ‘If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten.’  The two above are the same and are a simple and logical philosophy. For us to have gotten, yet again, what we have always gotten; we must have done what we have always done. There is no other explanation. I am referring to the April 2007 general elections in Nigeria .

The next thing, if I may suggest, is to identify what we have always done that has always given us the same result. I have always believed that Nigeria is too sophisticated to allow violence to reign, but our shortcomings would only be addressed by strong arguments. I have put together what I think is responsible. I, therefore, urge the reader to search for a deeper cause of what is happening to us. So, what has been the constant over the years that we have always done? Elections in Nigeria in the past as indeed the April 2007 have been characterised by violent reactions; which seem to be ill-conceived considering all antecedents. This is a line I have chosen to argue on.

There are of course other possibilities. What ill-conceive means according to the dictionary is, “a process not based on good planning, especially not having an aim or goal that is likely to be successfully achieved. Yet again, things have resulted into that. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in April 2007 seemed to have demonstrated just that religiously. I am sorry if I offend anybody for rejecting the idea that we are all human as it is often stated; yet we do not ever miss our mouth when we want to put anything into our mouths even in the dark. That commission’s performance was below par in all areas on the day of the elections – that was documented. Polling started late, not because of the lateness of the voters but because of the commission. Electoral materials were below standard and insufficient – another fault of the commission and not of the voter’s.

When we thought that INEC had learnt a lesson from the first wave of elections – the Governorship and the States’ House of Assembly elections – the commission struck a masterpiece in fraud in subsequent elections. The presidential ballot papers were not numbered, for instance, giving room for manipulations. A primary school pupil would have known that. This was not the fault of the voters in any case but again the fault of the commission. Giving the possibilities of colour photocopying in an age of perfect photocopying, it was gross disregard to the sensibilities of most Nigerians. A single presidential ballot paper could easily be reproduced millions of times to perfection to rig the election. Perhaps in silliness, INEC had imbibed the philosophy of the ostrich. The ostrich buries its head in the sand thinking that nobody sees it. Meanwhile, the rest of his body is exposed to the world.   

Whilst the ruling party was unhampered to argue its case with the people (campaigns) in the run-up to the election, those the commission considered as threats to the ruling party were compelled, by the commission, to argue their own cases in courts and not with the people. The myriad of avoidable lapses by the commission portends a calculated insincerity. Unless we want, as usual, not to call a spade a spade or to euphemise or mitigate, Professor Maurice Iwu’s commission had presided over an ill-conceived election in April 2007 in Nigeria . That aside, the cost of violent reactions to the conduct and results of the election is unquantifiable as it involved loss of life. Somebody must be held responsible to the avoidable loss of life that trailed the election. We might have wasted, though unwittingly, the life of somebody that could be of great importance to Nigeria in future; just because of the carelessness of a professor; to put it mildly.

The ideal of pacifism is, however, needed after these elections to preserve lives and property, but then people react differently. We cannot always expect everybody to be a pacifist. This, the professor ought to know. Our society, however, rates a professor very high. This could be the reason why a professor is often appointed to the position of leadership in something as sensitive as an election. In that mental capacity, Iwu was expected to have considered the pros and cons of every action before embarking on it. I do not want to think that the professor is not a patriot. However, the road that leads to professorship in Nigeria has always been suspect. Was Professor Iwu brilliant but mischievous? The other possible defence one could give on behalf of Professor Iwu as regards the April 2007 election in Nigeria is that the process was not well thought of; which will be without adducing a cynical intent.

That being the case, there was no need to have appointed somebody with the calibre of a professor to head the electoral commission in the first place; they could as well have appointed ordinary person like me. Not that I would not have done a better job, but that society would not have put much premium on me. Disappointment often begets negative reactions. One thing is certain though in the last election as indeed in other past elections and that is the reaction of the people. Election has been likened to a game of sports and there is no better way to analyse the responses of the people than comparing it to the responses of fans in any sporting game.

Let us take the game of soccer for example. Football is supposed to be played according to certain rules, just like an election. Nonetheless, nothing stops any player from breaking those rules, just like nothing stops a party to embark on rigging. However, when a player breaks the rule, the referee is supposed to sanction the offender and bring anybody responsible to book. This is done in order to portray a sense of fairness in the game. The referee must be seen to be impartial. The referee could decide, innocently or with evil intent, not to punish a particular offence much to the dismay of the opposing side. If it was a happenstance, the opposition would, on most occasions accept such as a mistake.

However, the incessancy of oversights by a referee, particularly as it tilts towards favouring the other side, could easily be misread as a biased situation. Such situation often draws the wrath of the opposition and in most cases result into taking the laws into their hands. We are witnessing a similar reaction by those who consider INEC as unfair. Interestingly, I do not think it is unfairness of the process that irked the people; rather it is how INEC is seen by the voters. Just like in football, it is not the election malpractices that bother people that much but the multiple oversights by the umpire (INEC), which in this case were perceived by the people as unfair.

The reverse was the case in June 1993. The result of the election that has come to be accepted as the most well planned in the history of Nigeria was not designed to be successful in the first place, and when it did, it was subsequently annulled by the power-that-be. Those who paid the piper had expected a different result. This conclusion was arrived at with hindsight. The professor that supervised that election was, just as the results were being released, abducted; drugged; and has remained gagged till this day. Professor Iwu would not have forgotten what happened to Professor Nwosu.

Maurice Iwu does not appear like a fool to me. He knows that in Nigeria , fame and tragedy thus fade very fast, at least in the minds of most Nigerians. Nigerians, if you remember, did not lift a finger to save Professor Nwosu from his ordeal and this was not lost to Iwu. Instead of coming to the aid of Professor Nwosu, we all concentrated our energies on Abiola and his perceived stolen mandate. If we had, maybe Iwu would have had the courage to be on the side fairness. It was, however, part of our growing process. So, ‘…Even if it is the last thing I do, I’ll conduct a credible election,’ has turned out to be an empty boast meant to psyche only Iwu.

The lack of meticulousness of any electoral commission sure will impact, unequally, on the contestants and that wittingly or unwittingly will favour one contestant against the other. That is enough grounds for complaints of unfairness. Put strongly, there was no level playing field. What, however, is responsible for the lack of level playing fields in our community? It is growing and a country rated as the most religious in the world as become an embarrassment to the great religions that preach fairness. The biblical saying of “You cannot reap where you do not sow,” is the best I can think of to explain this phenomenon.

I could be quoting out of context, but we should think about what Jesus Christ said. The Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 7:12 said, ‘Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you; do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.’  He said it is the law and my limited understanding of a law is that it is beyond the level of a theory. Unless we are able to sow the seeds of fairness in our daily lives, we will not be able to reap the fruits of fairness according to the Law. It is the law of God as well as the law of nature and Nigerians cannot change it. If you examine that phrase properly, Jesus did not talk about goodness or evil to other people but that what one desires from people; one should expect others to desire the same from the person. In short he was talking about fairness, which is equity.

Until our society starts to take the issue of fairness and unfairness seriously, we should not expect fairness, for instance, in only two days of the election when in the other three hundred and sixty three days of the year we did not take fairness seriously. I am not saying that we do not talk or think about fairness or unfairness in our daily lives, we do. What I am saying is that we have not started taking it seriously, such that it will be the platform for all of our activities. The platform of fairness seems to be invincible to our senses. We are not conscious of it. As people, we either see Nigeria for all or for nobody at all.  

Needless to say that we deliberately threat fairness with levity; I believe it is a culture thing. It was what was responsible for selling our brothers into slavery. I remember a personal experience in the mid seventies in Oxford , England . It was at a Tesco Supermarket. I had carted a trolley full of shopping straight to the cashier, only to be sent back to the beginning of the queue. In all sincerity on that day, I did not notice that people were in the queue until I was rejected by the cashier. The queue was invincible to me, so to speak. You could pardon me because of the culture I was coming from. I had just been in England for only a week. The people in the queue, however, did not say a word to me because of their confidence in the system. They knew I would not be attended to. Subsequently, I always have sympathy for people in Nigeria when they walk up to the head of a line, ignoring the queue. The line could have been invincible to them too, just like it did to me so many years ago.

The courts are our last hope for justice and they have lived up to their responsibility, no doubt. However, a society that has a high rate of people or organisations rushing to the courts for recourse to justice has to examine itself. It is a serious development. It is an aberration to always only get fairness in the courts because if you had had fairness in the streets, you would not have had to go to the courts in the first place. In any case, what you get out of the court is justice of the rule of the law and not fairness. This is because in the law court, cases are judged on technicalities and not necessarily on truth or fairness. Our system has once again called for the need to rush to the courts. It sure is an aberration.

I do not think we should be satisfied that the courts are doing their part, we should do ours and ours is to demand for justice in the street. The ruling party has urged us yet again to go to the courts. That of course we will. A recent example of where you get justice and not fairness is the case of Atiku. Atiku until 5 days before the presidential election had to argue, as necessitated by the umpire (INEC), his case in the law courts, instead of with the voters. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that it was illegal to stop him from running for the presidential race in April 2007. It, however, provided an excuse for INEC to mask its inadequacies but it also confirmed the ill-conceived nature by the commission. Meanwhile, one of Atiku’s main competitors, Yar’adua, had unfettered arguments with the voters.

Sure, Atiku got fairness in the courts eventually. He, however, was denied enough time to convince the voters in the streets like his competitors had. That in itself is unfair. It is the voters that count in an election and not the courts - more so, when Atiku’s fettering was occasioned by the umpire, The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC). I am bringing this up because Obasanjo was quoted as saying that his party faired better because it argued its case with the people. The only State that his party was compelled to argue its case in the courts instead of with the voters (Imo), the party readily conceded defeat even before the election.

If I may, I think there is enough of heap of blames on the umpire (INEC). INEC is not from Ghana or from outside of our shores. It is a Nigerian thing. However, ordinary people’s inability to take the issue of fairness seriously in all the things we do everyday of our lives, to my mind, is the big issue. At a point, I began to think that I am one of a few that could connect the issue of unfairness to the general underdevelopment in our society. I thought I sounded like a broken record. Somebody, I am familiar with, even told me that I was becoming boring on the issue. Surprisingly, after the recent elections, most of the fellow’s complaints were inundated with the word fair or unfair. I seized the opportunity to remind him and it was only then that the fellow started seeing what I had often written about, repeatedly.

Fairness is not about good or bad, but about giving onto others what you want them to give onto you. Of course we desire what is good. Jesus said it is the Law and the Prophet. I hope many more Nigerians will start taking the issue of fairness and justice more seriously if they ever expect fairness in an issue as important as an election. With this faith, come 29 May 2007, we could start demanding for fairness for every person in Nigeria no matter how remote and not only when we are directly affected. When we do that, Nigerians from the remotest corners of Nigeria will stand up for the rights of the people of Niger Delta for example and of course many other areas. It could be a conscious effort initially, but with time it will become our second nature.

When people do not want to stand up for others they manufacture all sorts of excuses. It is always common to hear people say, ‘…We are not the same people. We should go our different ways.’ It is an unintelligent excuse to avoid standing up for fairness. I will like to leave that as a topic for another day. Nothing demonstrates the effects of insensitivity of a society to the injustice of others than the accounts of a holocaust survivor – a priest. I had produced this before in an earlier article. I, therefore, repeat what the priest said of Nazism, ‘First, they came for the communists, but because we were not communists; we did not talk. Next, they came for the Jews, but we were not Jews; so we did not talk. Then, they came for non-Jews that did not share their dreams, but because we were priests; we did not talk. Finally, they came for us, the priests, by this time it was too late; there was nobody to talk to.’ 

If we talked and acted against injustices to others that were remotely connected to us, we would have been sowing the seeds of fairness. Only then we could reap the fruits of fairness. Any injustice in Sokoto for instance should bring out in me the same reaction as if it happened in Lagos or Calabar. Let us, if we can, step back from the dark shadows of individualism and seek a conscious reasoning of seeing every other Nigerian as an extension of self. Be as it may, the power-that-be in Nigeria understands our individualism. They know that isolated injustices are often not challenged collectively by the people, so they do it piecemeal - waiting at the end to unleash, an unsuspected big hammer on all of us.

The impediments to having a fair election were started during the run-up to the April 2007 election in piecemeal. Like the Nazis, the ruling party and INEC did not swoop on the opposition at a go; they did it systematically. The passivity of the populace to the blatant injustices and unfairness to individuals fuelled their desire to graduate each time to a higher notch. We have all witnessed to what they have done and I hope Nigerians have learnt a lesson. The only weapon we have as people is to fight for any injustice meted to any Nigerian or group of Nigerians in any village in Nigeria irrespective or tribe, colour or area or status every day and not only during elections. If we could close shop for hike in fuel prices, we can fight injustice by closing shops.

I, as an individual, will accept whatever this election produced with my sight focused on 2011, isha Allah (God willing). But, I promise to join other Nigerians to demand for justice and fairness wherever it maybe, not violently but by arguments. It is attainable. The German writer, Johann Wolfang Von Goethe, whose standing in German literature is comparable to that of Shakespeare, thus recorded, “Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth - that the moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too.”  We have to commit ourselves to a just cause before God will help us. Call me a pacifist and a dreamer if you may. The fight for fairness in the 2011 elections ought to start today. It is a glorious day. Long live Nigeria .

Samuel Akinyele Caulcrick, the author of The Devil must Be Laughing.

ISBN: 1-4241-2196-5.

Robot  # 1 | 23.04.2007 07:51

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