what kind of politics do we play in Nigeria?

THE USE OF THREAT IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

YOU KNOW ME? (photo from web)

Though the 2015 elections has come and gone, yet some of the issues, particularly moral issues, raised by the election have not been critically examined by political commentators and analysts. Before the2015 elections, in a brief with some defunct CPC members who paid him a courtesy call in Kaduna, General Buhari was reported to have said that if what happened in 2011 happened again in 2015 that the Baboons and dogs would be soaked in blood. After that inglorious statement ( yes it was inglorious because the people he actually referred to as baboons and dogs were not the politicians but rather the poor and hapless people in the streets) several other threats were issued by both the PDPs and non-PDPs, warning the presidents not to contest else violence was going to be on the sprawl. The effect of those threats was underestimated until the ex- militants from the Niger Delta began to issue like threats that the nation would know no peace if their kinsman was chicken out of Aso Rock. Throughout the presidential campaign period, political opponents where in flagrant and indiscriminate use of threats and counter threats. The reports of threat SMS messages in some part of the North either threatening voters to stay away from the election or to vote for a particular candidate or party at which violation such people would be severely dealt with, are still fresh in our memories. Being abreast of the post election violence of 2011, several eligible voters moved away in droves from their places of residents to their villages and cities. Those who managed to stay behind completely stayed away from the polling boots. It worked. Mallam el-Rufai corroborated this when he alleged after casting his vote during the April 11^th governorship election that the threat of the PDP was responsible for the voter’s apathy experienced in Kaduna that day. If threat was working during the governorship election as El-Rufai alleged, then it worked during the presidency.

This could be what the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu wanted to leverage on when he reportedly told Ibo elders to risk being drown in the Lagoon by voting against his anointed candidate, Mr. Ambode of the APC. And on 13^th April 2015, Mr. Ambode was declared winner of the April 11^th governorship election in Lagos state. The rest is history.  

Also, before the rescheduled governorship election in Abia State, the national dailies inundated us with the shameful display of coffin in the streets of Abia where voters were told to vote against Okezie Ikpeazu of the PDP and die. And I don’t know how many people actually risked the death threat.

Based on the Nigerian political topography, ideological and superstitious believes we cannot wish away the effects these crude actions would have on the outcome of elections in Nigeria. For instance, the average Nigerian sees the politicians as demonic blood suckers who would ride on their blood at any giving time for political gains; the average Nigerian believe in the divinity of the Obas in spites of how much the royal thrones have been desecrated by the politicians; the average Nigerian is politically apartheid, and more so when their lives is said to be at risk while performing this ritual that have not in any way better their lives. It is needful to make appropriate legislations banning the use of threat or hate-speech for political gains.

OHIMAI DANIEL, LAGOS