It is another election season in Nigeria. In less than 5 months, Nigerians will vote to either retain or sack Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President. What concerns some watchers, however, is the resurgence of hate campaigns. Instead of focusing on issues of facts and ideology, sentiments of hate are especially prevalent in Northern Nigeria and are creeping fast to the rest of the polity. This may define the outcome of the Presidential elections. The same pattern emerged in 2015, when Goodluck Jonathan sought re-election as President.
Ask many Nigerians why they disliked President Jonathan so much and voted against him. It would not be because of policy issues such as education, for which his administration achieved an unprecedented milestone in establishing Almajiri Schools in Northern Nigeria to address the phantom of out-of-school children who could turn out to be terrorists or social burdens in the future. Like that policy, the Jonathan administration achieved so much.
Constantly fed with a singsong of hateful propaganda against Jonathan, Nigerians in 2015 transferred every one of their personal frustrations and anger onto him. They viciously attacked anyone who tried to speak reasonably about the achievements of the Jonathan administration and why it should be reelected. It got to the point that even some members of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Jonathan's own party, including cabinet members and plain beneficiaries of his administration, were too ashamed to defend his achievements but chose the path of least resistance and turned against him, secretly and openly, before the elections.
Two years into the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari, many Nigerians, especially of Southern extraction, felt they must have been under a spell to have rejected Jonathan in exchange for Buhari, whose nepotism was so brazen that it threatened national cohesion only next to pre-civil war sentiments. The insecurity excuse used to chase away Jonathan became more widespread under Buhari. Corruption in subsidies, contract scams, disregard for the rule of law and institutional dysfunction reached unprecedented levels of national embarrassment. Despite the Buhari administration's forlornness, it got reelected because of the unwritten zoning formula that kept the presidency in the North for its full 8 years.
One thing to remember, and perhaps to commend Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, who is now in detention, is that he, as governor of Kaduna State in 2023, staunchly declared that Nigeria's presidency was zoned to the South. He was so unmistakably reassuring at a time when Buhari vacillated in his fidelity to Bola Tinubu, who had earlier helped him become president.
Now, again, in the coming 2027 Presidential election, in another Buhari-styled desperation of an unending marathon of contesting to become president, Atiku Abubakar thinks we should have another one-term Southern President. Therefore, the same diversionary tactics used against Jonathan, of exalting irrelevant and disconnected issues to generate a basis to vote him out, have now been employed. Whereas Atiku is failing to run an issue-based campaign using economic and social indicators, he has instead focused on Tinubu's character. It is as if, when his own character as a public servant and ultimately Vice President is made an issue, he would survive it.
Atiku Abubakar does not respect Nigeria's unity and diversity. Neither does he think like a statesman. Or else, how would he think that after 8 years of the presidency of a Northern Fulani Muslim in the person of Buhari, another Northern Fulani Moslem in himself should become president after just a 4-year tenure of a Southern presidency? Ideally, by our historical arrangements, the 2027 Presidential election should be an entirely Southern affair, maybe between President Tinubu, Peter Obi and Omoyele Sowore. And the campaigns should focus on economics, social development, and security. It would be deceptive for any candidate to exalt the issue of character when all of them, including Peter Obi except Sowore, are in serious shortage of same.
In this age, when the world has embraced performance-based politics, being a good person matters less than being a person of fidelity. Political leaders are now being measured by the principle of "promises made; promises kept". This is the reason why a convicted felon, in the person of Donald Trump, is today the President of the United States, the world's most powerful country. Yet in Nigeria, somebody wants a presidential election decided on whether one of the candidates in his youth forfeited money in a non-conviction drug-related proceeding or had a university certificate properly issued to him. Atiku Abubakar should cut the chase, change the music, and focus on more serious campaign issues.
President Tinubu should be judged on what he promised and what he has done. And even if Nigerians reject him, they should not replace him with Atiku Abubakar. The memories of the era from 2015 to 2023, when a once-touted messiah was president, are still too fresh to be repeated quickly.
Electioneering campaigns should be issue-based, not driven mainly by hate and anger. Be wise!
Frank Tietie, Esq
Nigerian Lawyer and Public Affairs Analyst, writing from Abuja