by Wilfred Okiche
We got a first-hand taste last year when Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) put an abrupt end to sixteen uninterrupted years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The PDP reign was meant to last at least 60 years and such an upset had never happened in Nigeria’s storied political history.
While a great number of Nigerians dared to hope for change, only a handful actually expected such dreams to come to fruition. The political realities and everything that had gone on before favoured a continuum, where the ruling party withholds power to itself and throws crumbs from their table for the opposition and the rest of us to pick.
But change did happen and the will of the people, aided by institutions determined to do a credible job prevailed. A much put upon populace disillusioned by years of waste and aborted potential did the unthinkable and formed a coalition to elect a former dictator, one who had been rejected at the polls at least 3 times previously to champion that process. Now the nature of this change is still unfolding before our eyes but come what may, it is a choice we have made for ourselves and it is up to us to continue to interrogate the process and perfect it.
By choosing Buhari, a man as far removed from the political establishment as one in his position could get, Nigerians were sending a resounding message, that it would no longer be business as usual and in a subtle, peaceful way, kept faith with the Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave of (non) violent demonstrations, protests and coups that played out in the Arab world years earlier.
Even the West, that great bastion of democracy as they would have us believe, was beginning to show serious signs of discontent. In the United States, there was the Occupy Wall Street movement- itself inspired by anti-austerity measures in Spain- kicking against economic inequality. There was also the rise of Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who came out of nowhere and nearly eclipsed the ascendancy of establishment madam, Hillary Clinton as she made yet another grab for the Democratic Party presidential ticket.
In England, panic and scaremongering led to a referendum that resulted in Britain’s exit from the European Union. Germany’s Angela Merkel and her right of centre Christian Democrats party took a blow at the state elections in March this year when the Alternative for Germany made impressive gains by riding on the strong wave of public resentment for Merkel’s pro-refugee policies. In France Marine Le Pen’s political profile remains on the rise, even as she is embraced for her radical anti-globalisation agenda.
But the biggest and deadliest blow to the establishment worldwide has come from the United States where Donald Trump, a billionaire business man who managed to campaign on a platform that spoke directly to and engaged white working class America, pulled off a shock upset of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State who brandished her impressive CV as the most qualified person- male or female- to ever run for president in God’s own country.
Now there will be many books and essays written as the world grapples with the results of this election and many factors will no doubt be thrown up as immediate and remote causes for Clinton’s loss but the real issue is that the world is dissatisfied with the old order, that arrangement where everyone knew their place and a privileged few ran the affairs of the majority the way they saw fit.
We watched the American old order collapse in just a few hours, along with several allied industries like the polling/prognostic and traditional media industry complex. Nothing is sacred anymore and people power means that no one should tell you what to do or who to vote for.
It is a beautiful thing watching the people take back their own but it is also a scary feeling too. A wise man once said the voice of the people is the voice of God but how much of that is true when the people can be easily manipulated and fed half-truths and conjecture, simply because that is what they want to hear? Social media has no doubt changed the world as we know it and even though it has its unifying powers, it has mostly made us divided, as we look for our own little niche spaces and respond only to interests that amplify them.
The New Yorker’s great editor David Remnick wrote a beautiful and moving essay that tried to capture what happened in America and while he yarns a good tale (as always) and makes a passionate argument, the fact remains that it is only the section of the population that agrees with Remnick already and know what he is saying to be true that will feel genuinely compelled to read or share the essay. Those who disagree with him have their own sources of information and the New Yorker, honoured as it is, isn’t the place for them. That is the reality of today’s world.
The world is changing, times are uncertain. It all feels exciting but it also feels sobering too. It is great to take back power but with that much power comes a great deal of responsibility. We owe it to ourselves now more than ever and the generations coming after to get educated, read widely, understand the issues, what is at stake so we can arrive at informed decisions.
Now more than ever, we need to stay woke.
Medic. Writer. Reader. Critic. Occasional ruffler of feathers. Works in a health centre in Lagos but manages to find the time to pursue other interests. His writing has appeared on various print and online platforms. He has provided editorial assistance to the UK Guardian and appears on the culture tv show, Africana Literati. He tweets @drwill20
