Akin Osuntokun: Militarisation and other fallacies

by Akin Osuntokun

dsc_9698

I don’t know about others but in all the security encounters nobody asked me whether I was PDP or APC. It was a show of force befitting the strategy of psychologically overpowering any potential trouble maker and it was also apparent that Nigerian security forces can act professionally when they choose to do so.

There is the distinct possibility that social scientists may want to research and formulate hypothesis on the recently conducted governorship election in Ekiti state. It is ultimately in anticipation of this kind of attention that we resolve to cast as much light as we can on the event. There are not many issues on which partisans and opinion writers have taken liberty and license to dispense information regardless of factual contradictions. Development theorists will be excited to explore and maybe justify the theme of instant gratification that is been projected as explanation of the political behavior of the Ekiti state electorate. In that case they should be availed a wider field of the facts and divergent opinion.
Prior to the election, the American embassy in Nigeria declared itself as the leading interested third party in the event. A statement was issued to the effect that they view the election as a template of what is to come in the Nigerian general elections scheduled for early next year and that they intend to assume the role of a fastidious taskmaster in judging it. They served full notice of this intention when the American consul general took the diplomatically aggressive step of specifically condemning the behavior of a prominent stakeholder, the national leader of the APC, as unacceptable misconduct- as advertised in the ‘rig and roast’ incitement to violent engagement.
They do not come more unbiased, objective and interested as the Americans and to put their money on what they say the American observer team in the election numbered in the 30s. Two days after the election the embassy issued the following categorical statement.
“We congratulate the many electoral stakeholders for the successful conduct of the June 21 Ekiti gubernatorial election. The Nigerian Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) oversaw a credible, efficient process, and by all accounts the result reflected the will of Ekiti’s voters.  The security forces collaborated effectively and provided a safe and secure environment free of major incidents.

The parties and their supporters acted responsibly during and after the election, and the magnanimity exhibited by all candidates afterwards speaks highly of them and the people of Ekiti.  That more than fifty percent of registered voters turned out to make their voices heard bodes well for the future of Nigeria’s democracy”.
As it were, the statement anticipated all the twists, distortions and fallacies that were to follow. It is difficult to understand the basis of the argument of the critics of the conduct of the governorship election in Ekiti state three weeks ago. That is-other than the partisan obligation of the defeated party to find fault and seek a therapeutic valve to vent frustration and disappointment. It is also understandable that the outcome is made the more unpalatable by the quite improbable figure of the David that put the incumbent goliath to the sword.
Elections have become peculiar events in Nigeria and the peculiarity has become intensified. It is characterized by the tendency to render Nigeria prone to uncontainable and large scale breakdown of law and order; and the predisposition to internal violation of territorial sovereignty. It is the tipping point for political stability and the more politics (or the struggle for power) is defined by the syndrome of winner takes all and loser loses all (zero sum game) the greater the potential for descent into anarchy.
Presently we can all agree that Nigeria is in a dire precarious political situation appropriately symbolized in the jeopardy of the Boko-Haram insurgency crisis. And if there is one indulgence Nigerians should be willing to grant the government, it should be oversensitivity to security. Indeed given our circumstances the government should be deemed defective and derelict of responsibility if overt signs of extra vigilance are not perceptible.
On my way to participate in the ekiti governorship election I was struck and inconvenienced by the rigor and saturation of the security blanket. Within the state, journeys of 20 minutes were elongated and drawn out by additional half hour on account of repeated security check points. If one could momentarily put up with the irritation, the observation was inescapable that any mission directed at undermining the integrity of the election-that requires motion and movement, is headed for serious headwinds and barricade.
I don’t know about others but in all the security encounters nobody asked me whether I was PDP or APC. It was a show of force befitting the strategy of psychologically overpowering any potential trouble maker and it was also apparent that Nigerian security forces can act professionally when they choose to do so.
The fear I entertained that the security saturation may discourage voter turnout turned to be unfounded largely because the uniformed men were neither intrusive nor threatening. They were mostly motorized and responded only to specific reports of confirmed or budding situations of degenerating conflict. Yet the complaint of militarization persists and has been elevated to the pedestal of a new theory of what constitutes free and fair election.
How does the obvious and noble role of securing the integrity of the elections amount to the subversive intent of militarization? Were the Americans speaking of the same issue whey they observed that ‘the security forces collaborated effectively and provided a safe and secure environment free of major incidents’? By what standard does the high degree of voter turn-out of over fifty percent amount to constraining and precluding voters from coming out to exercise their free will?

Having expressed myself in one or two essays, I was really not of any mind to further join issues on the debate especially when many commentators seemed to have foreclosed on allowing facts and objectivity get in the way of their convenient narrative of what took place in Ekiti state on that unique Saturday. And then I came upon a piece written by Adewale Maja Pearce for the New York Times.
I fully understand that writing for foreign (Western) publications comes with the obligation-no matter how thinly disguised, to assume a condescending posture and backward stereotype of Africa; and the better that the condescension echoes the native metropolitan intelligentsia.
After regurgitating the tale of how the Ekiti electorate were beguiled by a food-dispensing criminal and barely educated populist into rejecting a near perfect and proven hands-on development expert as governor, he concluded thus “If the able Mr. Fayemi had had the common sense to make a show of channeling more state resources to the local level, he would not have enabled the triumph of a so-called friend of the people, who will continue to pursue his own interests. Sadly, Ekiti State is now destined for another four years of underdevelopment under the guidance of the people’s choice.”
There you have it-the writer turned seer and prophet! I think the sadness really is for Mr Pearce who has exposed himself as incapable of undertaking a non-tasking research on which an informed and factual extrapolation might be made on his inherited prejudice.
You can accuse Mr Ayodele Fayoshe of many character flaws and shortcomings but one inadequacy you cannot successfully foist on Fayoshe is underdevelopment of Ekiti state. You cannot do this simply because the records would prove you ignorant-at least relative to all other office holders who had enjoyed the privilege of governing the state.
What can be more development oriented than education? Would Mr Pearce believe it if I tell him that in one of the most critical index of assessing government performance in education, the superiority of Fayoshe over Fayemi is in the proportions of his landslide victory at the governorship polls? Under the former, Ekiti state was adjudged the 7th best performer in West African School certificate examination in Nigeria and the third worst (34 out of 36) under Fayemi. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo could not go on state visit to Ekiti state all of the four years of Fayoshe’s predecessor for two reasons. The state had no place to accommodate a visiting President and there were no projects to commission.
To put it mildly Obasanjo is not a fan of Fayoshe but that was not always the case and definitely not on account of incapacity to bring development to Ekiti state. On his last state visit to the state Obasanjo had no reason to publicly bear effusive witness to Fayoshe’s accomplishments if he was not so impressed at the quality and volume of projects, including a befitting Presidential guest house he commissioned.
It was in the same breadth that the former President appointed the former governor the chairman of the Presidential search committee to screen and recommend potential successors for him. How fayoshe squandered this considerable goodwill and esteem is a testimony to his self-destructive streak.
The fountain hotel complex, the governor’s office and a number of government house complex reception halls, guest chalets and adjunct offices bear testimony to his eyes for quality and value for money. Similar projects embarked upon by his successor compare very poorly in quality and good finishing and they are all there for all to see and assess. He did all these with a relatively very low budget profile and yet at the time of his unceremonious departure in 2006 he left 10 billion naira in the kitty-where others would leave a huge debt portfolio.
Am in no position to contest the charge of corruption against him-but you can give a similar thumbs down for nearly all his colleagues. No less authority than the renowned former chairman of the Economic and Financial crimes commission, EFCC, Mr Nuhu Ribadu is on record as having told the National Assembly that upwards of 34 state governors were answerable on corruption charges in 2006.
It may not fit the accustomed portraiture of the Ekiti election but one or two instances of leadership-followership exemplification should not go unremarked. In a strategic display of extracting true followership commitment, Fayoshe’s campaign souvenirs including tee shirts, face caps and others were sold, not given free, to the teeming masses of supporters and fans. On top of this they were individually taxed of 500 naira contribution per head-which tokens added up to the tidy sum of 45 million naira campaign fund. Any wonder then why these voters didn’t waver on D Day?

 

————————–

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

 

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail