Three months to the cliff

One of weeklies last Sunday screamed, ‘Its total war!’ It was announcing the signal for the commencement of the Presidential and Legislative elections campaigns as prescribed by law. The campaigns had started a long while ago, but INEC still has to say go. ‘War’ is a thoroughly worn-out word used by Nigerians to describe our elections, perhaps only because we cannot find an appropriate word to describe anything as frightening, more expensive and all-consuming as this ritual we go through every four years. This is the final stage of contests that have already registered many casualties, the stage that fills the nation with noise, heat, hate, apprehension, blood and of loot in US Dollars. Contestants will go into frenzy to change and influence minds of voters, enlist muscles, create new ways to demonize opponents and generally create the impression that the world will end if they lose the elections.

A veteran of our bruising and poisonous campaigns and chief security officer of the nation, President Muhammadu Buhari, lent credence to ominous signs that we are at war when he warned politicians recently not to set the country on fire.

While war will describe our approaches to elections in every sense, including actual human casualties and the levels of violence deployed to gain victory by all means necessary, it will be a mistake to think all wars and elections are the same. Every election has its basic peculiarities and defining characters, combining the key elements of region and religion, massive fortunes and multiple successful and foiled frauds in an explosive mix that always brings the nation to brinks or to periods of great tragedy. This one has all the trademarks of being historic, whether it gives Buhari and his party a second term, or it results in their defeat.

The series of elections that will produce new leaders in 2019 will bear striking resemblances to previous elections. Incumbents will reel out padded and thoroughly fictitious achievements, while challengers will attempt to shoot them down, and put in their place outlandish and poorly-conceived plans they will regret doing later. Contestants for legislative positions are under less pressure to put out plans and promises. Most of those who want to be legislators the do not know what the job entails, so they will make the same promises to provide jobs and infrastructure to constituents. They have spent huge amounts get to the actual elections, investments they and constituents know are only meant to make them very rich. Those that want to come back know that what they spend on getting elected is the only thing that counts, since constituents care little about records of legislators.

Contestants will hope to change minds long made up by voters. Powers of incumbency will be used to improve images of achievements, but Nigerians are now wise to election projects. There will be ‘battle grounds’, those parts of the constituency or nation that appear to journalists and fixers as being loosely available and susceptible to influence and manipulation. These areas will be saturated with money, promises and all manner of powerful influences to lean one way or the other, including the manipulation of violence and actual intimidation. In those areas considered safe, communities will be heavily policed to prevent penetration by opposition interests. Massive rallies will be held to scare the opposition, and armed gangs will tear down campaign billboards and posters of the opposition. There will be vast areas where putting up campaign materials will be suicidal. Violent clashes will be pronounced in communities that are fairly divided between contestants. Fights will not be separated by the police. Many lives and limbs will be lost in fights that will stop only when one party shows a clear superiority in the use of violence. They will resurface with greater intensity if the outcome of the elections is disputed.

INEC will be watched with unprecedented intensity by candidates, parties, the global community and campaign managers. All parties will seek to subvert the election processes, while agonizing between strong support for INEC and its scathing condemnation as partisan, incompetent and corrupt. INEC itself will worry over the degree to which its preparations are already compromised, or their vulnerability to highly-paid subversives who will promise politicians complete knowledge of the election systems and processes, intimate relations with INEC leaders and key personnel. Key components such as the voters register, card reader, unclaimed PVCs, production and distribution of sensitive materials, results transmission mechanisms, disposition and distribution of security agents and recruitment of ad-hoc staff will be subjects of intense scrutiny and arguments, and INEC will be hard pressed to keep a level head.

It will be very important for Nigerians and the world to remember that the 2015 elections were successful as much because INEC conducted an election in which there was the appearance of a clear winner, as it was the result of willingness of the defeated party to allow the process to reach a position where it was relatively easier to accept the result. Neither was easy, and the two were intimately linked. If the voting, counting and collation stages had been widely subverted, or tampered with on a scale sufficient to prevent the emergence of a clear winner, the grounds for disputing the results would have been firmer, and the circumstances more suitable for post-election violence. The political environment will therefore be a major determinant of the types of influences that will determine the nature of the elections and its outcome.

In 2015, arrogant complacency cost the PDP very dearly. APC’s asset was a candidate that appealed to popular desire for cleaner governance, security and decent lives for the poor. This time round, both parties will be more desperate to win. PDP will tap into widespread frustrations with failures of the Buhari administration to deliver on promises; the bitterness of elite that never liked Buhari; and the fear of worse fortunes under another four years of Buhari. APC will be desperate to avoid a vengeful PDP; the evaporation of a party that had actually only been the dressing for Buhari’s personal image and ambition; and a handful of beneficiaries in closed circles around Buhari will do everything not to answer to a post-APC government. Social media, Mosques and Churches will fuel hate and passions to boiling points. Vote-buying and improved methods of voter intimidation will push the nation nearer the cliff because they will be triggers to violence. The miracle that will dwarf the peaceful transition in 2015 will be a repeat in 2019. It is not impossible, but no one should assume that the nation will survive the cliff of 2019 because it did the same thing in 2015. Jamila Abubakar wrote this piece from Abuja