21st November, 2012
By Tope Ojo
The American national elections might have come and gone with all the interest and anxiety generated, political permutations and projections, both within and outside the shores of the United States. The winner had emerged and the loser accepted the faith, but what are the lessons for African leaders and particularly Nigerian politicians, political parties, electorate, electoral umpire, security agencies, and indeed the media to learn from this world’s beacon of democracy?
Let us start from the emergence of candidates, particularly the Republican Party flagbearer Mitt Romney who emerged through rigorous and tedious party primaries. Immediately after he won the primary, every other aspirant queued behind him and gave him the needed support. It is instructive that none of them defected to any other political party in a desperate bid to seek nomination or to vent anger on the party. Same was applicable to the Democratic Party flag bearer, Barak Obama who emerged consensually without the power of incumbency playing any visible significant role. The influence of godfatherism, godmothersim or adoption had no place both in the selection and in the election processes.
The electioneering campaign itself was so interesting and enlightening, as it was issue driven. Candidates focus majorly on how to revamp the economy, tackle growing unemployment rate, strengthen the middle class, and improve foreign policy direction, among others. These are the fundamental and cardinal objectives on which the candidates canvassed to get Americans’ votes. There might be disagreement on the approach, the strategy and the methodology of achieving this, but it was clear from their passionate appeal to the electorate, that the love for service was paramount in their quest to rule the country.
This is contrary to what obtains in Nigeria where election campaign is far from being constructive. Contestants mount the podium to rain abuses on the oppositions and castigate one another relegating serious and fundamental issues to the background. It is difficult to recollect when elections and party politics in Nigeria were defined by ideology. Candidates who neither prepared intellectually nor have any concrete programme or definite manifestoes, are often drawn to contest elections just to serve the parochial interest of political leadership, ethnic consideration or balancing undemocratic zoning arrangement. What could citizens derive from such ill prepared candidates? Today, almost two years into the Jonathan presidency, the federal government is yet to grapple with the myriad of problems facing the country.
It is also quite instructive that the election in America was violent free. Most often, the two leading candidates; President Barrack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney campaign simultaneously in the same state or even in the same county without any eruption of violence. What a discipline party followership. This is the hallmark of civilised democracy. Unfortunately, violence has become an embodiment of electioneering campaigns in Nigeria, and indeed Africa. Here in Nigeria, political parties make provision for the funding of apparatus of violence in their budgetary allocation. A former president openly said while campaigning for his party flag bearer that particular election was ‘a do- or die affair’. And, indeed, it was!
It is equally interesting to note that even with the some of the challenges faced by the electoral body in some polling units in the American election; the electoral body was not castigated by the politicians to undermine the outcome of the election. There were polling units where election did not start on schedule because of lack of electricity to power the voting machines owing to the Storm Sandy that left many cities without electricity few days to the presidential elections. Voters waited patiently on a long queue to take their turns. Both the electorate and the candidates believed in the impartiality of the electoral body. There was no snatching of ballot boxes or other election materials, no reported case of collusion between the electoral bodies with any politician for electoral advantage. Their umpires conducted themselves impartially to win the confidence of the stakeholders.
The question is: when will INEC gain the sort of credibility that would earn it the trust and respect of Nigerians as a truly independent body? The journey is not far in this regards; if Professor Attairu Jega can continue in the way he has been going and avoid falling for the bait of politicians like his predecessors. It is only when the trust and confidence of the people is earned, that voters won’t think of protecting their votes, which often is an invitation to anarchy.
The media also has a role to play in this respect. First and foremost, the media has a sacred responsibility to inform, educate and enlighten the people, as guaranteed by the constitution. Hence, the media need to constantly remind political actors about the rules of the game and civilised ways of political conduct. In the just concluded Ondo State governorship election, some media houses were repeatedly warned by the regulatory body for violating the ethics of their profession. Sadly, state-owned media, funded by tax payers were guilty of biased coverage. If our democracy is to attain the height desirable by all, the media and indeed all stakeholders need to abide by the rules of the game.
Perhaps, the most amazing episode in the whole process of the American election was the manner the two principal candidates accepted the popular will of Americans. Mitt Romney in his concession speech said: “I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory. His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations.” Few minutes later, President Barak Obama said: “I just spoke with Gov. Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard fought campaign. We may have battled fiercely, it is only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly with its future…..in the weeks ahead I also look forward to sitting down with Gov. Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.” How fascinating!
Despite the fact that the result was still a forecast and projection from exit polls, the supposed loser had accepted defeat and winner accept victory. According to the American electoral system, the electoral college of 538 electors will be casting their vote on the Monday following second Wednesday of December to decide the President and Vice President. They are rest assured that the same result as projected would still be returned, because those electors would not cross carpet, be financially induced or bribed, kidnapped, intimidated or abstained to destroy the mandate given to them by the electorate. Here, it would have been the highest bidder, while the loser would find it difficult to respect the will of the people as expressed in a poll by congratulating the winner. Quite sadly too, in this clime, winners are not always magnanimous in victory.
All these are pointers to the fact that we still have a long way to go for our democracy to be firmly rooted. But we will get there if all the stakeholders in the Nigerian project decide to abide by the simple dictate of democracy and do things right all the time. Once upon a time, elections in this country is all about allocation of result in one corner of a room, but now some level of sanity and confidence is being built. Though, this is a sign of progress, but we need to do more.
•Ojo is of the PR Unit, Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Alausa, Ikeja.