While I would not hide my disappointment that fellow Nigerians did not vote for my candidate of choice, Mallam Ribadu, I congratulate the President for his victory and applaud his pronouncement to form an all-inclusive government.
While I would not hide my disappointment that fellow Nigerians did not vote for my candidate of choice, Mallam Ribadu, I congratulate the President for his victory and applaud his pronouncement to form an all-inclusive government.
If GEJ can indeed be true to his words, he can only build further on the foundations laid by the conduct of Jega's INEC since this would start the process of reassuring Nigerians that political elections should, and would no longer be zero - sum games with a winner take all mentality.
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At this stage of the elections and national development, President Jonathan must be seen as breaking the mould from the past as it appears that the majority of Nigerians have spoken and affirmed loudly that you do not need to belong to any of the three big ethnic groups in Nigeria before you can become President. His election would also appear to have broken the myth of an indivisible and monolithic Northern enclave and a subservient iconoclastic Southern bloc.
In many ramifications, the current elections have come to symbolize a lot of watersheds in the Nigerian context. These, are in the sense that Nigerians can now proudly say we have conducted an acceptable election, albeit with its minor flaws; we can also proudly say that the ethnic origins of a candidate for public elections are no longer the main considerations and that personal integrity is becoming more important to the Nigerian voters rather than parochial and primordial interests as it was in the past. Lastly, the Nigerian voters have used this elections (the first two so far) to demonstrate a level of sophistication that defies the instincts to run with the herd.
However, the positives that came out of these elections can only be sustained by the actions of the losers and the winners as well as their supporters.
Without doubt, it has been truly retrogressive and disappointing to note that the supporters of General M. Buhari have resorted to maiming, killing and burning members of the opposition parties, Christians and churches because their main man did not garner a national support base in the same vein he was supported in the Northern states of Nigeria. Even more disappointing is how long it took General Buhari to issue a lackluster statement not to condemn the violent reactions but to simply disown the protesters who were clearly his supporters.
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As an aspiring statesman, General Buhari, would be expected to have accepted the outcome of the election for present time and seek legal redress if he believed this was necessary rather than allow the situation to degenerate to the point where the lives of Nigerians are being lost to his cause. This was truly disappointing and in my opinion, means that he risks losing whatever form of acceptance he had been garnering among Southern Nigerians and members of the enlightened and educated class who wanted an end to the specter of corruption many feels that President Jonathan may be unable to tackle. The current state of unrest in Northern Nigeria fuelled by his supporters can only damage his hard earned reputation and mark him down as an ethnic irredentist.
On a worst case scenario, it could only reinforce the long held opinions of others that General Buhari was always a religious bigot, a tag he sought to dispel by adopting Pastor Tunde Bakare as his running mate. Well, he truly risks losing it all.
Conversely, I believe it is a much matured response from President Jonathan stating that he would seek to form an inclusive government for all Nigerians. Previously, I would have taken this pronouncement with a pinch of salt as he had not shown a penchant for decisive actions but a predilection for half-hearted measures such as when he dismissed Mr. Andoakaa from his cabinet even when it was glaring that a lot of Nigerians and his supporters were clamoring for more decisive action from him against other members of the cabinet that were perceived to have brought Nigeria to a Constitutional precipé.
It is sportsmanlike of President Jonathan to make this pronouncement even though he was clearly not under any pressure to do so nor was he truly obliged to do so. In order to take this spirit forward to the next stage, the President may wish to acknowledge that General Buhari has the trust of at least 10-12 million Nigerians and this should count for something. Ditto, both Mallam Shekarau and Ribadu had followings and respect from Nigerians and it would be a waste to ignore all these in the name of politics. Same applies to Mr. Pat Utomi, whom had clearly pulled out the race, but still garnered electoral votes for Nigerians.
General Buhari had shown in the past that he is patriotic enough to serve under another Nigerian ruler and I believe President GEJ can benefit from bringing him into the government to oversee a sensitive portfolio where integrity is of paramount importance. Similarly, Mallam Ribadu could be asked to serve a Nigerian government in an area that plays mostly to his strength and credentials. Likewise, Pat Utomi could offer a lot towards our economic revival. As for Mallam Shekarau, I do not believe it would be out of place to put him in charge of our educational system.
President GEJ, in seeking to break our yoke to the past can only hearken to the voice of reasoning by staying true to his words and letting all Nigerians know that the call to service should be just that; and not a call to consume the national cake or an open invitation to pilfer the Nigerian commonwealth.
The immediate days ahead of us would determine the direction of our future.
Once more, I congratulate the Nigerian masses for their choice, Prof. Jega’s INEC for the historic performance, the losing political gladiators for trying and President Jonathan for his election victory.
Long live Nigeria.
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