It will be also dangerous for their opponents to profile them as ethnic irredentists and campaign against them on that basis.
2023 election is not an interethnic power sport or a tribal game for power. The power contest is between registered political parties with members and sympathizers across geo-ethnic and religious divides. I don't know when Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo conducted a referendum to pick Tinubu, Atiku and Obi to represent them in the presidential election respectively and none of their parties, registered with INEC or declared in their constitution as ethnic parties. So why all this fraudulent overt and covert ethnic identity or profiling of these three candidates for support or hatred or both by their eccentric supporters?
Yes, the three presidential candidates have ethnic identities by birth and geography, but before the election, none of them ever pushed for ethnic nationalism, regionalism, resource control or raised the banner of any germane topical interest of their ethnic group. None of them earned, stole, looted or acquired their huge yet to be publicly disclosed wealth on behalf of their ethnic region. They are all rabid "gunpoint" nationalists by conduct publicly all this while.
Bola Tinubu completely ran away from the "Yoruba Nasion" agenda led by Sunday Igboho and abandoned his/his political group's over 30 years battle cry of restructuring, ethnic determination/nationalism the moment Buhari and APC came to power. Power opportunism!
Atiku Abubakar is a renowned soapbox "hush-hush" nationalist and has never carried Fulani ethnocentrism openly on his head like Buhari and always avoids taking a bold partisan position on Fulani interest although he may be a closet midnight Fulani interest defender he never displayed it.
Peter Obi is an Igboman but he has never openly supported the recurring popular agitation for Biafra actualization or ethnic nationalism, resource control by his act or principle. The feminal voice labour party candidate has been distancing himself from embarrassing IPOB just like Tinubu distanced himself from "Yoruba Nasion" popular agitation. Atiku never embraced Miyetti Allah and Buhari's search for imaginary grazing routes or courted Fulani Bandits and territorial fundamentalists as ethnic solidarity.
Since none of these candidates and others ever represented their ethnic interests but their personal, group, party and class interests, it would be foolish and fraudulent for their supporters, particularly their ethnic fellows, to project them as their representatives and campaign for them on that basis. It will be also dangerous for their opponents to profile them as ethnic irredentists and campaign against them on that basis. A united nation, if any at all, is lost in that process in the long run.
The first covenant between candidates and parties with the electorate is their manifestos on which they campaign boldly for votes for the electorate to decide where their votes go. None of these parties/candidates for 2023 has campaigned on any popular ethnic agenda all this while.
It would amount to voluntary victimhood on the parts of the electorate to just assume without basis or party/candidate's manifesto that he would vote for his choice because he's going to favour his ethnic interest. How? The unstated interest is often ambiguous, opaque and which many citizens and voters cannot even define.
No reasonable conscious voter assumes or goes into voluntary telepathy to decide his candidate on the basis of what his candidate did not promise to do. It's a sign of idiocy caused by undefined ethnic or tribal bigotry or even religious solidarity. Disappointment and regret await such citizens who go into voluntary victimhood to be scammed. That educated people or so-called are also trapped in this kind of ethnic web of clairvoyance of a better deal for their ethnic nationality makes it more ridiculous. They are gamblers with their fate.
Thank goodness there is social media now that reveals how this breed of yesterday's lousy nationalists are now somersaulting into ethnicism for political and personal reasons. The same "crime" of tribalism that this breed of educated people used to place at the doorsteps of the illiterate poor. We also have former ethnic political warlords now becoming latter-day nationalists for political reasons. All of them are a bunch of unprincipled human commodities available for political patronage. They were double-faced duplicitous moralists, gunpoint nationalists yesterday and unrepentant tribalists today, and vice versa.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against political parties floated on ethnic or religious even gender or special interests if that's permissible and if that is what people want, why not? But it's dangerous and deceptive to have national parties or so-called campaigns with tribalism and later after the election, the winner starts to preach "hot fried plantain in the mouth" nationalism in government. That's a farce and it won't work or appeal to many people, the fault lines would be wider.
What candidates do not say or campaign with should not be the basis for choosing a candidate to vote for because voters are not and should not be telepathic but factual. What candidates promised to do, they failed to do when they get to power not to talk of what they didn't promise but many funny voters think they would do.
Like some funny clairvoyant Yoruba voters think Tinubu would give them "Yoruba Nasion", many excited Igbo voters think Obi is for Biafra and some Hausa-Fulani would vote for Atiku because he would protect Fulani. Well, dreams and nightmares are also part of our rights as human beings and such dreams are common during elections to massage the ego of these pro-capitalist anti-poor candidates who are still going to unleash the same harsh neo-liberal economic policies on the masses.
The most meaningful things to consider before voting for candidates and parties are integrity, character, manifestos, vision, capacity, capability, educational background, and of course, health and physical ability to perform in office.
Public disclosure of assets and health status should be non-negotiable, even in the university when candidates are given admission or when people are employed in high profile corporate organizations, health status must be disclosed not to talk of the president of a nation or governor of a state. Most states indeed asked their workers for covid-19 clearance certificates, same with corporate organizations. Even individually partners do genotype tests to avoid AS getting married to AS so as not to produce sickle cell children.
People elect leaders by their choices, not by God. So, we must be ready for the good benefits or adverse consequences of our choices so that we don't become kurukere kurukere prayer warriors after making bad choices.
Voters are not telepathists or clairvoyants, make your free choice on what you see, hear and believe and not what you think your candidate would do when he gets to the office if he wins. What politicians promised to do, they failed to do not to talk of what they did not promise but you think they would do.
Adeola Soetan