Adaobi Nwaubani takes you through the different sets of Nigerians who will vote for GEJ or GMB – and why

by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

 

Occupy_Nigeria_rally_in_Ojota_TemiThere are those who will vote for Buhari simply because he is not Jonathan. For them, change is the word of the hour, and they would happily exchange Jonathan for a Halloween pumpkin if that were the only alternative available.

Sixteen years after the end of military rule, many Nigerians are looking forward to the February 14th elections, which will extend their country’s longest stretch of uninterrupted democracy. But the prospect of violence tinges the anticipation, and for some people both candidates are deeply worrisome. “This is the most confusing juncture in Nigeria’s history,” my friend Ojiugo said.

Do we cast our ballots for an incumbent whose five years at the top have been characterized by the inability to combat Boko Haram, the bungling of the Chibok girls’ rescue, and a failure to take action against people and corporations accused of widespread corruption? Or do we vote for a former military general whose twenty-month rule was infamous for a clampdown on freedom of speech and other gross human-rights violations?

President Goodluck Jonathan, of the People’s Democratic Party, and General Muhammadu Buhari, of the All Progressives Congress, are the main contenders. Jonathan, who rose to power after the death of President Umaru Yar’adua, in 2010, is a career politician from the conservative P.D.P., and the first President to come from a minority tribe. He defeated Buhari in the 2011 election, which was described as the country’s freest and fairest since its return to democracy in 1999. Back in 1983, Buhari brought Nigeria’s then fledgling democracy to an abrupt end via a military coup. Less than two years later, his government was toppled in another coup. A survey conducted by Nigeria’s ANAP Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes good governance, shows that the two men are currently running neck and neck.

“This election will be decided by swing voters,” Atedo Peterside, the president and founder of ANAP Foundation, wrote in a January ThisDay article. Many of these voters are upset, he noted. “They feel that our two major political parties have ‘cheated’ them by forcing them to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

But there are many other Nigerians who know exactly for whom they will vote. Another survey, conducted by Afrobarometer, a pan-African non-partisan research network, shows that forty-two per cent of Nigerians say that they will definitely vote for Jonathan, while another forty-two per cent say that they are firmly for Buhari. Their choice of candidate probably has little to do with track records or antecedent.

There are those who will vote for Buhari simply because he is not Jonathan. For them, change is the word of the hour, and they would happily exchange Jonathan for a Halloween pumpkin if that were the only alternative available. “Anybody but Jonathan” has become a popular refrain in conversations about the election.

There are those who will vote for Jonathan because they have benefitted from his government. Their very subsistence depends on his remaining in power. I have yet to meet a single person with close relatives or other strong connections at the top who thinks that Nigeria needs anything other than a Jonathan Presidency. “He’s doing a lot of good work,” they insist, as the national wealth trickles in their direction. They are not particularly concerned with how everyone else is faring and, as they might say, they have no guarantee that a different President would make things better for everyone. “Goodluck Nigeria!” some of their advertorials in the daily newspapers read.

There are those who will vote for Buhari because they consider him more capable of handling Boko Haram. Not only has Jonathan demonstrated a frightening ineptitude at containing the terrorist group over the past four years but Buhari has a military background. “Buhari will personally lead the fight against Boko Haram,” Yemi Osinbajo, a law professor and Buhari’s running mate, said recently. The retired general led Nigerian troops against seceding Biafra during the civil war of 1967 to 1970, and against the Maitatsine religious insurgents in parts of northern Nigeria in the early nineteen-eighties. Buhari himself is from the north, where every domestic Boko Haram attack has taken place, and is unlikely to be apathetic about the fate of the region. During a media event in January, 2014, President Jonathan boasted that his government had pushed Boko Haram to the “fringes” of Nigeria. “Are the people of the northeast prepared to accept that they have been abandoned by their leaders, and therefore need to wake up and take their destiny in their hands?” Garba Shehu, a political analyst, wrote in a November, 2014, Premium Times column.

There are those who will vote for Jonathan precisely because of his struggle to manage the Boko Haram crisis. They believe the conspiracy theory, popular in certain ethnic circles, that the insecurity in Nigeria is orchestrated by forces determined to make the country ungovernable for its first minority President. By voting for Jonathan, they hope to show the unknown forces that their evil machinations have come to naught. “Boko Haram is the handiwork of those who promised to make the country ungovernable if Jonathan dared to compete in the election,” they say, referring to the displeasure expressed by certain northern politicians in 2012, when Jonathan broke a gentlemen’s agreement not to run for a second term and to hand over party leadership to the north.

There are those who will vote based on clan sentiments. In the three previous Presidential elections, all of which Buhari lost, he gained the greatest number of votes in his native northwest region. Crowds of fervent supporters in that part of the country have jammed stadiums and spilled into nearby streets at his rallies. The same goes for Jonathan in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. Many there would rather see their “brother” at the top than anyone else. After all, the crude oil that lubricates the national treasury “belongs” to them. “If they take power, we will demand for all the years of their benefitting from oil,” Victor Ben, an ex-militant, said during a meeting of Niger Delta youth on January 25th.

These clan loyalists are often willing not only to cast ballots but also to shed blood. “You don’t have any valid visa on your passport?” some of my loved ones have exclaimed, concerned that I won’t be able to flee to the West if violence erupts after February 14th. About eight hundred Nigerians lost their lives in the wake of the 2011 elections, when riots broke out in the north following Buhari’s loss to Jonathan. Last week, at the Niger Delta youth meeting, some ex-militants declared that they would “go to war” if Jonathan’s reëlection bid fails. “Every Niger Delta youth should go and prepare!” Asari Dokubo, an ex-militant, said. A friend who is travelling to the United States to give birth to her first child has decided to take an earlier leave from work and depart Nigeria two days before the elections. “In case they close all the airports afterwards,” she said.
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Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is the author of the novel “I Do Not Come to You by Chance.”

 

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

One comment

  1. If Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba are the only major tribes then GEJ is not the only President from Minority tribe. Check the background of Balewa, Gowon, Murtala, Babangida, Abacha and Abdulsalam.

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