Bigotry and twists and turns of an election season, by IfeanyiChukwu Afuba – THISAGE

Too little zeal will kill a job; or leave it unfinished or messed up. But too much zeal can certainly create confusion; derail a task or rush it. With emotion dominating, the overzealous man tends to keep scratching the surface. Intolerance and a cavalier attitude are typical traits of overzealous people. It’s no wonder that overzealous people have a predilection for finding shortcuts to their intended destination. This tribe of extremists, we should watch with concern, is seriously at work ahead of the presidential elections in January 2027. Their stormy hands are already shaking both the system and the process.

As with football and religion, politics is plagued by fanaticism. How do you get a typical soccer fan to accept that there are other great sports besides playing on the round leather pitch?

And how, for example, can we make English fans understand that the English Premier League is not necessarily the best? might it not be superior to other federation tournaments? The same situation is in bad taste when we witness loud calls for the implementation of Sharia in a pluralistic and multicultural society like ours.

But as the presidential election approaches, aggressive politics is on the rise. Nothing better dramatizes the threat than the ongoing attempt to exclude the opposition from elections.

Last week, at the beginning of the third week of June, this desperate political conspiracy took on the wings of legalism. But in essence the action disguised as the legal invalidation of five opposition parties is political. It is crude and brazen politics with the singular goal of predetermining presidential elections. The target of the assault is the ADC with the clear intention of avoiding his formidable challenge. The script drips the ink of overzealous loyalists, fanatics and extremists in the ranks of the establishment. Moderates in the ruling circle must be embarrassed by this anti-democratic program that seeks to destroy the principle of choice of electoral voting rights.

The callousness in which this reckless agenda is woven is difficult to confront. Regime succession is an integral part of the Nigerian crisis. Consequently, anyone who embarks on a plot capable of destabilizing the political system should be considered irresponsible. The path to national pacification is political. It is a path that emphasizes inclusiveness, fairness and fairness. But extremism can prove so intoxicating that actors who should be aware of the lessons of history lose their sight. The feeling of where we come from gives an indication of where we are.

There is a link between the current dispensation and the yet to be born Third Republic. The crisis of June 12, 1993 was about the exclusion of power. And the eventual change was political, not legal. For the junta of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the solution was to provide a measure of accommodation to the injured part of the country. Retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was thought to be suited to the situation and was summarily released from prison. But before Obasanjo’s final coronation, a significant development occurred. The Alliance for Democracy, the south-west platform of the June 12 movement, failed to meet the prescribed spread for registration as a political party in the transition programme. The Abubakar junta did not insist on the legal disqualification of the CEO. He approved the registration of AD as a political party. And the rest of the country, for the sake of peace and progress, agreed to the indulgence. The CEO later became ACN. And the merger of ACN and CPC gave rise to the current APC. How ironic then that the primary beneficiary of deliberate national elasticity is the very same constituency working to block our electoral strait of Hormuz! Sad. Alas, this is the irrationality to be mustered when fundamentalists reign.

Nor is the malaise limited to the party in power. If they could, the Obidients would have criminalized dissent towards their hero’s presidential ambition throughout the Southeast. For daring to support his party, the APC, Joe Igbokwe was recently booed and jeered at Ladipo Market, Lagos. From creating social media punching bags of the Minister of Public Works, Dave Umahi, and the Governor of Anambra State, Charles Soludo, the group moved on to target Datti Ahmed, Peter Obi’s running mate in 2023. And for one incredible moment, the intergenerational vanguard directed its offensive prowess against Seriake Dickson, the same man in whose hands the fate of Obi’s party’s candidacy rested! Before the reconciliation of differences, Dickson had made it known that no presidential candidate was more qualified than he, a biting remark whose import was probably lost on the _Obidients._.

For their part, the intellectual wing of the movement engaged in revisionism. In the frantic deflection of the unjust charge of “tribalist support”, the wild claim of regional support for Obasanjo and other non-Igbo candidates in the past is flaunted. Indeed, this is half sophistry and half denial of APGA mandates stolen by the PDP. In 1999 there were two presidential candidates, both Yoruba.

Due to the singular fact of their shared ethnicity, it is intellectually dishonest to project a vote for either candidate as an example of ethnic and empty politics on the part of the South East. The only condition for establishing an ethnically isolated vote would be the existence of a candidate of Igbo lineage in the same election and who received fewer votes than those cast for a non-Igbo candidate in the region! This was not the case in 1999. In the 2003 and 2007 general elections, the APGA won a majority of the Southeast’s votes, including in the presidential contest. Only now is it convenient for some to forget that other results were subsequently produced to reward the victories of the PDP. In a July 2003 press release, the Justice, Development and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church in Anambra State described the PDP’s official victories as inconsistent with the monitored outcome of the poll.

Significantly, the Catholic priest of Abakaliki, Reverend Father John Odey, titled his book on the exercise: _This madness called 2003 election_. In Enugu State, Ugochukwu Agballa of APGA was on the verge of regaining his governorship when the stalwart tribunal handling the petition was suddenly dissolved. And the first task of the new court was to reject the damning documents admitted by the first court! There was a similar case of result falsification in the southeast of the country in 2007, when the Supreme Court split 4-3 on the legitimacy of the presidential election.

Party loyalty continues to dominate voting patterns across the country. Even in advanced democracies, the concept of party “stronghold” refers to voters’ tendency toward a political brand rather than candidate preference in elections. Given the context of APGA’s vitality in the South East, it follows that the region voted for APGA’s presidential candidate, Emeka Ojukwu, in authentic results. There is no reason to apologize for this. Ethnic identity is part of heritage, of our roots. It is a timeless educational theory that in exploring and understanding the world we move from the known to the unknown.

In any case, if Mohammadu Buhari, with a parochial mindset, could be president, why shouldn’t Ojukwu? And has it occurred to the Obidients that their propaganda of detribalized support for the PDP casts doubt on Obi’s governorship in Anambra State? Facts don’t stop being made because of the change of season. And coldness must not give way to fanaticism.

Afuba is from Governance and Development Forge, Awka.