Agency Reporter
Sanusi Goes perturbed
Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Muhammed Sanusi had cause last week to express concerns over the current state of affairs in the country. He had observed at an event in Lagos that Nigeria has never been this divided since the civil war of 1967-1970.
“I don’t think Nigeria has been in a place as difficult as this since the civil war. We have a challenge of nation building”, he told his audience. Sanusi lamented that because of elections, “the country has been divided dangerously along ethnic and religious lines”.
These challenges he said, have put the integrity of public institutions to question as people now have suspicion about policies, policing, judiciary and the electoral umpire. Sanusi’s observations are not entirely new. The divisions trailing the elections are just manifestations of the failure of the leadership to find enduring resolution to extant vexatious issues of our federal order.
Before now, many Nigerians had deprecated the inability of the leadership overtime, to properly harness and effectively manage the country’s diversities to unleash the creative energies of the constituents for rapid national development. In the absence of credible social re-engineering process, the country has had to contend with all manner of divisions as trust deficits in the capacity of the central authority to equitably disburse public goods and services to the constituents held sway.
The indifference in responding to the challenges of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and plural society was to become very manifest in the policies and programmes of the Buhari regime such that former president, Olusegun Obasanjo had to in an open letter draw attention to the dangerous slide. But nothing changed.
Scant attention was given to the balancing of the divergent orientations and persuasions of a mixed society with the regime seemingly placing higher premium on political expediency. Key appointments never reflected the federal character principle despite the copious constitutional provisions to guarantee balance and inclusiveness.
These skewed policy issues were being implemented in a country where rising agitations for true federalism through the devolution of powers to the component units has been quite rife.
Curiously, the reaction of the federal leadership to genuine feelings of alienation and mismanagement of our differences has been the parroting of such precepts as its commitment to the oneness and indivisibility of the country as if these will come under assault if an equitable, just and accommodating political system is instituted.
The leadership trudged on as if maximum force is all needed to secure the trust and loyalty of the disparate segments seeking genuine accommodation and safeguards. It is increasingly clear that non-kinetic approaches serve national integration better because of the social and psychological reorientation issues embedded in that process.
If the primacy of force could be rationalized during the foundation of modern states, its value diminishes as national integration takes the front stage. The recourse to the supremacy of force in procuring the loyalty of the citizenry 62 years after independence is a clear evidence of how low we are on the rungs of nation building. It is reflective of the failure to construct the Nigerian personality from the distinct and variegated nationalities that inhabit this geographical space.
The state has continued to fail the citizenry not only in its inability to live up to its statutory responsibilities but also in imbuing in them, a common sense of national belonging and shared identity. The evidence is glaring. It can be discerned from the plethora of security challenges constantly threatening the authority of the state. It is evident from agitations for self-determination and the phenomenon of non-state actors competing with the central authority for the allegiance of the citizens.
So, the divisions have been there long before the elections. The rhetoric of politicians; the ethnic persuasions of key contestants and their language of political discourse may have reinforced these differences.
If the conduct and outcome of the 2023 general elections reinforced extant suspicions and mistrust in the polity, it only reminds us of the herculean tasks facing the emerging leadership. It all goes to show that irrespective of who is eventually declared the overall winner by the court, how effective he is able to manage these diversities will determine the future direction and progress of this largest black African population. That is the daunting challenge.
There are genuine issues relating to INEC’s observance of its guidelines for the election; rigging and falsification of results. The integrity of certain arms of the security organization and INEC has also come under intense attack for allegedly compromising the collective will of the electorate. Though some of these allegations have been denied, reports from local and international observers speak of clear electoral malfeasance and violations in high and low places.
The INEC has declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu the president-elect having satisfied the constitutional requirements. But Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi who came second and third respectively in the race, are also laying claims to victory. They have gone to court to pursue their claims. And you ask: how possible it is for three contestants in the same election to emerge winners?
Those claims arise because they are questioning the process; the integrity of the elections and its umpire-the INEC. That should instruct that the process through which Nigerians choose their leaders must be more transparent.
The judiciary cues in appropriately here, because on its shoulders, rests squarely the resolution of all disputes arising from that election. Too often, the media have sought to extract from politicians and sundry citizens whether they have confidence in the judiciary. I think reporters are not being fair when they ask litigants such questions. Confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary as the last hope of the common man should be assumed.
Perhaps, those who pose such questions to litigants do so against the background of very questionable judgments coming from the same judiciary especially on election matters. There have been judgments awarding victory to people that never contested the primaries of their political parties. We have seen a candidate that placed fourth in a governorship election declared winner in circumstance that has remained very confounding.
All these do not imbue confidence in the independence of the judiciary which is key to any vibrant democracy especially in the resolution of election petitions. In verity, the task of sustaining the confidence of the people in the judiciary should be the responsibility of the judicial system.
Its officers have to demonstrate through the quality of their judgments that the people have every reason to trust them. They have to prove themselves by the quality of judgments they dispense in the avalanche of election petitions that will be brought before them. That is the challenge before them and the way they handle such petitions will be a measure of the trust they command.
There were 786 election petitions from the 2019 polls with Imo State recording the highest number of 76 even as Jigawa State had none. The figures for the last elections are yet to unfold. That should be a measure of the level of acceptance or otherwise of its outcome. The future of our democracy will depend on the way the judiciary handles elections petitions in the face of the bitter controversy trailing their outcome.
Source: The Nation
