The much anticipated presidential election has come and gone and left us with a lot of fences to mend. From mosques to churches, bars to tea joints, households to work places the election affected many relationships and left them scarred if not severed.
Although having different opinion in politics is healthy and an important driver for a society’s prosperity, it can only be fruitful if the situation is handled logically. As the result had been announced and the winner declared, there must be a call for retrospection from those who don’t look at the whole scenario from the prisms of personality or party but a channel through which any developed society must pass through.
No doubt the campaigns and, subsequently, the election were marred by so many issues and there is a cause for concern on how we practice and participate in politics. The serious challenge we must first tackle in this country is the involvement of religious leaders in partisan politics. I believe no single individual is apolitical as person.
However, when that person is shouldered with the responsibility of leading a people as their spiritual leader, then his leadership responsibility must outweigh his personal political preference. This is simply because the people he leads are not robot whose remote control of their actions he holds. He must acknowledge and respect the fact that they all have their respective political choices.
A religious is thus supposed to guide people on how to identify a good leader or representative instead of doing so for them. When clerics’ pulpits are reduced to mere campaign podia for identified parties or individuals, the result will always be what we have seen recently. We hope that never happens in the future.
Another cause for concern is the promotion of thuggery, as we have seen, by politicians especially during campaigns. Yes the conduct of the election was generally peacefully save for pockets of unfortunate incidents. But, the way politicians encourage and empower the youth who, proverbially, are “the leaders of tomorrow”, no engage in criminal activities is not only worrisome but condemnable.
Every well meaning Nigerian must let their voice heard in decrying this menace that will one day consume us all, if not addressed. Politicians must look beyond the goodies of the office they want to occupy and realise that occupying that office is only possible when the land is peaceful. I am sure the reminiscence of how Boko Haram has started is the best example here.
Despite all these concerns however, I believe the positives we can derive from the process surpass, by far, the negatives. For the first time we have issue-based political arguments away from the usual ethno-religious ones we are used to.
Although it might sound bizarre, but that single issue of selling NNPC by Atiku and the counteractions from Buhari camp has displayed the electorates’ shift from Nigeria’s traditional politics to a more mature one. The issue of integrity of a person also played a role in the political arguments of the just concluded presidential election.
These and a little few might appear insignificant but in reality they are not. People will begin to realise that political arguments can only be productive when they address issues rather than personalities, class, religions, race or geography. This way, people will begin to probe the performances of their leaders based on their ability to address these issues rather than dwelling in trivialities.
Another fundamental development we have witnessed in this election was the voting process. I have heard many commentators complaining that the number of people who vote keeps on decreasing which for me is not the case, per se. For me this is the clear and actual representation of the voters. Before, we were used to seeing cooked up figures not the actual figures. With the deployment of technology in the voting process, that has reduced significantly hence the figures we see. These I believe represent the actual figures of those who vote.
Another development I have noticed is the spread of votes across the country. When compared to 2015 presidential election, we can notice that there was improvement on how electorates voted. We have seen how the incumbent president was able to get more votes in the south-south and south-east. Although he lost significant number of votes in some parts of south-west and north-central, the distribution has indicated that he is being accepted in some places while becoming less popular in other places. This is good for a country that wants to thrive on the rhetoric of “unity”.
So, generally we can say this election is an indication that democracy is entrenching its roots in Nigeria and the progress is visible. What we will wait and watch is how the reelected president will translate the goodwill and confidence of people in him into a feasibly sustainable progress of a country bedeviled by problems too numerous to mention.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Idris Hamza Yana writes from Exter, United Kingdom and can be reached via [email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’
Comment: indeed you said it all sir.