By Sufuyan Ojeifo<\/p>\n
By this time in 2015, the drums of war were sounding with much
\nferocity such that morbid fears were triggered in the polity.
\nNigerians of Igbo extraction, in the northern part of the country,
\nwere particularly gripped.\u00a0 Their peripatetic nature predisposes them
\nto such existential threats in periods of national anxiety and
\ncollective doubt about the harmony of our shared nationality.
\nFor instance, there is hardly any nook and cranny of Nigeria where
\nyou would not find an Igbo plying a trade or the other, no matter how
\ntitular. Therefore, the Igbo race always stands at the greatest risk
\nin any situation where imagined and real threats are bandied as
\narticles of faith in a nation that has lost its essence of humanity
\nand togetherness.
\nThe profiles of the candidates of the two leading parties-former
\nPresident Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and
\nGeneral Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – had
\nforcefully, geographically, pitted the south against the north.\u00a0 It
\nhad also largely, religiously, projected in the people\u2019s
\nconsciousness a contest between Christianity and Islamism as typified
\nby the religions of the two leading candidates.
\nAs it was in 2015 when the nation was handed a fait accompli of a
\ntwo-horse race, so it is in 2019 with the prospect of another
\ntwo-horse race despite the plurality or proliferation of political
\nparties and presidential candidates. But there is a tectonic shift in
\nthe dynamics of geography and religion that has now reduced the
\nbattle for the soul of Nigeria in the February 16 presidential
\nelection to the same northern matrix.
\nAnd this has largely defused tension and infused a measure of
\nliberality in a people that had hitherto demonstrated aggression in
\nthe matter of presidential power politics. This is quite
\nunderstandable.\u00a0 Head or tail, the north wins in 2019. APC\u2019s Buhari
\nand PDP\u2019s Atiku Abubakar share the same demographics of Fulani
\nethnicity and Islamic religion.
\nThis scenario, perhaps, explains the relaxed atmosphere and the
\nwin-win disposition that are noticeable in the northern part of the
\ncountry ahead of the crucial presidential election. The immediate
\nutilitarian benefit is the absence of tension and fear of potential
\ngenocidal attacks on the vulnerable communities of strangers that
\nconstitute largely the Igbo trading minorities in the northern region
\nof the country.
\nNevertheless, the emerging trend should not discount the pertinent
\nrole of the National Peace Committee under the very respected
\nleadership of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Alhaji
\nAbubakar (retd.). The exertion by the Committee in 2015 was
\nunderstandable against the backdrop of the soaking tension and
\nanxiety that charcterised social and political interactions in the
\nnorthern part.\u00a0 Expectedly, there was an exodus of Igbo and other
\nstrangers of north central extraction in the north down to the south
\nand to their various towns and villages in the north central zone.
\nThe fear of the unknown had a context to it. The outcome of the 2011
\npresidential election continues to resonate in our consciousness with
\nthe grimness of the killings of Nigerians, including some youth corps
\nmembers that officiated in the election, particularly in Bauchi
\nState.\u00a0 When that incident was added to the statement allegedly made
\nby Buhari prelude to the 2015 election that if what (alleged rigging)
\nhappened in the 2011 election repeated itself in the 2015 election,
\nthe dog and the baboon would be soaked in their blood.
\nIndeed, the General Abubakar-led National Peace Committee had worked
\nround the clock to instill confidence in the system and to douse
\ntension. It had specifically committed leaders of the political
\nparties as well as the presidential stakeholders and candidates to a
\npeaceful and successful process. Jonathan and Buhari were made to
\nsign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for peace. And the Committee
\nensured that that the candidates kept fidelity to the terms of the
\nMoU.
\nSignificantly, the success of the 2015 presidential election and the
\nconsiderations that motivated former president, Goodluck Jonathan, to
\naccept the outcome of the election derived, somewhat, from the work
\nof the committee of eminent Nigerians, including among others, John
\nCardinal Onaiyekan, Primate Nicholas Okoh, Matthew Hassan Kukah,
\nCommodore Ebitu Ukiwe, Aliko Dangote, Mrs. Priscilla Kuye and
\nProfessor Ibrahim Gambari.
\nThe Committee has already kicked in to rein in presidential
\ncandidates in the 2019 election in the much-revered tradition of
\npeaceful poll reminiscent of the advance democracies and following
\nback-to-back on the heels of the peaceful conduct and outcome of the
\n2015 presidential election. There have been reasonable expectations
\nthat the exercise would be violence-free.
\nAnd there had been no cause for doubt, until that expectation was
\nupended by the direct threat issued by the governor of Kaduna State,
\nMalam Nasir el-Rufai when he featured on NTA Tuesday Live programme
\non February 5, 2019 to the extent that foreigners who interfered in
\nthe nation\u2019s electoral process would be returned to their countries
\nin body bags. That threat has since cast a pall of doubt on the
\nassured success of the assignment of the National Peace Committee.
\nel-Rufai\u2019s statement was much more than a Freudian slip.\u00a0 It was as
\nunguarded as it was unconscionable and insensitive. One could see the
\nseriousness and passion he invested in the articulation of the
\nmisguided verbal shot. One could see the expression of outright
\nrevulsion on the face of the programme\u2019s anchor, Cyril Stober, at the
\ngovernor’s statement.
\nThat self l-indictment should ordinarily nudge the Abdulsalami
\ncommittee into some new realities about other influencers below the
\npresidential candidates whose overzealousness and misconstruction of
\nthe disposition and body language of their presidential candidates
\ncan wrongly or even deliberately ignite electoral violence in the
\nface of anxieties precipitated by the prospects of a looming defeat.
\nGeneral Abubakar and his committee members are on the cusp of making
\nanother history-the history of intervening in critical electoral
\nprocess to achieve peaceful outcome. They have a date with destiny,
\nso to speak,\u00a0 to preserve the collective destiny of the Nigerian
\nnation. Abubakar and his members have the gravitas, the global and
\nnational respectability, and all that it takes to deliver on their
\nassignment. They must double down on the task before them.
\nWhat is paramount is the successful transition of democratic power on
\nMay 29, this year, through a peaceful process that begins on February
\n16 and terminates on March 2. The flip side of the expected peaceful
\nelectoral process and outcome is a potential chaos that may put
\nNigeria on the road to the oddities in Venezuela and some other
\nsimilar climes, if some power mongers succeed in having their way in
\nspite of the popular verdict.
\nThe greatest fear is that the furtherance and preservation of
\ncliquish political agenda may put Nigeria on the road to Kigali or
\nthose other territories where electoral propriety had been sacrificed
\non the altar of unconscionable manipulation of the people\u2019s will,
\nbrazen abridgment of the freedom of electoral choices and subjugation
\nof the people\u2019s sacred mandate freely given but wickedly hijacked and
\ndiverted.
\nNow that el-Rufai has played his hand early in the day ahead of the
\nelection, the General Abubakar-led National Peace Committee must now
\nact proactively in concert with the members of the international
\ncommunity to ensure that potential flashpoints are nipped in the bud.
\nThe Committee must deploy the magnitude of the character, influence
\nand connections of its members in reenacting the kind of mechanism,
\nthis time round, that culminated in the peaceful outcome of the 2015
\npresidential election.
\nThe best way for the General Abubakar-led National Peace Committee to
\ndefine its eon in the evolution of a pragmatic, peaceful and
\nnon-mechanistic power distribution process is to bequeath a tradition
\nof negotiated orderly conduct and transfer of power in the nation\u2019s
\npresidential politics in the years ahead. The legacy will, over time,
\nbecome entrenched and internalized such that it becomes a normative
\norder- a part and parcel of our enviable democratic tradition as a
\nnation.<\/p>\n