Why politicians are not worth dying for!

This Friday, August 17, 2018, the Independent National Electoral Commission will be issuing a Notice of Election in accordance with Section 30 (1) of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended. This will in effect signal the commencement of party primaries and nomination of candidates which are to begin the following day. According to INEC’s timetable and schedule of activities for the 2019 general election, “party primaries for the presidential, governorship, federal and state elections would begin on August 18 to end on October 7, 2018, while that of the Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections will commence on September 4 to end on October 27, 2018.”

Meanwhile, for those who have turned 18 years and above and are willing to vote in 2019, the time left to register is two weeks as the Continuous Voter Registration which has been on for some time now will be suspended on August 31, 2018 in order to pave the way for the processing of the Permanent Voter Cards of those recently registered.

As I write this, two critical issues that could negatively impact on the forthcoming elections have not been addressed. The first is the funding for the elections which the President is seeking virement from the National Assembly on. The second is the 2018 Electoral Act Amendment Bill which has been with President Muhammadu Buhari since Monday, June 25, 2018 and which he has neither assented to nor vetoed  as he did earlier  in the year.

Like they say in theatre productions, the show must go on! Preparations for the elections cannot be halted for all the nuts and bolts to be fixed. INEC therefore is soldiering on with the preparations for the elections. But, as we enter the main electioneering period from this month, I want to appeal to fellow compatriots to “shine their eyes” and not to allow politicians to use them as cannon fodders in fighting their electoral battles.

As has been noticed in the recent past, particularly since the beginning of the year, there have been alignment and realignment of political forces. Remember that early in the year, there was the Coalition for New Nigeria by 30 registered political parties; there was also the Nigeria Intervention Movement led by Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, the Red Card Movement led by Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo led Coalition for Nigeria Movement. There was so much furore about the ‘Third Force’. The Social Democratic Party was initially touted as the ‘Third Force’, only for the African Democratic Party to be so named after Obasanjo’s CNM dissolved into the party. From the ashes of the New-PDP also rose the Reformed All Progressives Congress, better known as r-APC.

All of those political alignments were to later give way for the emergence of the Coalition of United Political Parties when 39 political parties and associations on Monday, July 9, 2018 signed a Memorandum of Understanding to field a single presidential candidate in 2019. They also agreed to work together in all elections that would come up during the 2019 general election. While different political structures are being formed, a gale of defections later ensued particularly from Tuesday, July 24, when over 50 lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives defected from the ruling APC to other political parties.

Is there any moral lesson for members of the public on these political developments? Yes, indeed! On and off social media, on television and radio phone-in programmes, there are sharp divisions and vitriolic attacks being traded among Nigerians who have sympathy for different political camps. They are not necessarily members of any of the 91 registered political parties. There are those who are tagged ‘wailers’ and those labelled ‘hailers’. There are the pro-Buhari and anti-Buhari camps. There are pro-APC and anti-PDP.

While we take these positions, are we very discerning? Are the wreckers of this country not in all political parties? When we say glibly that the PDP “destroyed” Nigeria for 16 years, are we not guilty of fallacy of overgeneralisation? Is it not the members, rather than the party, that are responsible for the underdevelopment of this country? In states controlled by different political parties, are they faring any better? Does a party one belongs to automatically confer an ideology on the member? I mean, are all members of the APC truly and really progressives?

Who would have thought that Senator Musiliu Obanikoro would leave the PDP for the APC? Who would have thought that Segun Oni and Dr. Kayode Fayemi would sheathe their political swords and become members of the same political family – the APC? The former having been elected Ekiti State Governor under the PDP. Brig.-Gen. Olagunsoye Oyinlola (retd.) was the Osun State Governor under the PDP; he later defected to the APC and is now a chieftain of the ADC and CUPP. Senator Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso was a Kano State governor under the PDP but the APC senator recently retraced his steps back to the PDP after some years. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has twice left the PDP to foray into the Action Congress of Nigeria in 2007 and the APC in 2014. He later went back to the PDP in December 2017. Former Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State was in the Alliance for Democracy, the PDP and later contested and won governorship election under the Labour Party. He later defected to the PDP and is now back to the LP. Incumbent Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal was in the PDP when he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011, but he defected to the APC in 2015 and just recently went back to the PDP. The latest is Senator Godswill Akpabio who for 18 years was in the PDP as commissioner, governor and senator in Akwa Ibom State under the party only to defect to the APC last week.

The point being made is that Nigerians should be less emotive about politics because the players in the game are amoral.  In politics, we are told, there are no permanent friends, nor permanent enemies. There is only permanent interest. This being so, why then are we allowing people who are feathering their own nests to divide us with their shenanigans? Why are the ordinary citizens enemies of themselves over political support? Why are we dying for politicians whose children are in Ivy League schools abroad and who, in spite of their political differences, dine and wine together? Have we not seen how the children of these political heavyweights intermarry?

I call for politics without bitterness. We can disagree without being disagreeable. Politicians are birds of a feather, flocking together in order to preserve their self-interests. They are part of the close circle of the elite who do not want any new entrant in their privileged rank. If any politician will arm you with drugs and weapons to fight his cause this season, ask for their children to lead the assault. If their children won’t be part of the thuggery, then, take no part if you’re wise. Otherwise, if you should get caught, you’re On Your Own, as they say. As the African proverb says, whoever head is used to break coconut will not live to eat out of it.