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Do you remember Ola Rotimi? He was the literary genius who masterfully adapted Sophocles’ story Oedipus the King in one of the greatest literary Magnum Opus in living memory.
His version is The Gods are not to blame. Beyond the motif of predestination, the text uses the artistic merit of proverbs as an inexorable code of cultural communication in Africa. In the text, in a fit of anger, King Odewale asked Aderopo, “Are you not a Yoruba man? Must proverbs be explained to you after they are said”? It simply means that every African is expected to understand the proverbs with little or no effort.
Strengthening the communicative potential of proverbs, the African literary deity Chinua Achebe states in his seminal novel Things fall apart, “Proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.” There are other contributions in many parts of Africa that highlight the importance of proverbs and their meanings.
In assessing Nigeria’s current political trajectory, a specific proverb of King Odewale demands our urgent attention: “To resign yourself to fate is to be quickly paralyzed.” The depth of this statement is staggering, yet its reality is unfolding before our eyes.
The collective attitude of Nigerians towards recent political developments suggests that, without a doubt, citizens have resigned themselves to fate and are rapidly becoming paralyzed as a result. The painful truth is that the average Nigerian seems to have turned a new leaf, caring less about what politicians do with the fate of the nation. The political class has recognized this growing apathy.
Emboldened by our silence, they shamelessly bared their fangs for the whole world to see. Normally, if Nigerians had retained the fiery civic spirit of yore, the blatant anomalies observed in Ekiti and Enugu states would have provoked mass public contempt. This outrage should have reverberated not only within these two states but directly into the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abuja.
The main issue is no longer that the country continues to slide into democratic ignominy during each election cycle. The deepest and most terrifying issue is the brazen process of legitimation, in which state-backed acts of criminality and electoral compromise are carried out in full view of the public. No one, not even the celestial host, can convince an objective observer that what happened in Ekiti and Enugu states resembled an election.
We must carefully study the events that transpired in Ekiti State, which elected Biodun Oyebanji of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as governor.
After careful study we must give it a name. Of course, this was nothing like an election. For lack of a better term, let’s call it a travesty of democratic practice or a homegrown farce that insults Nigeria’s claim to democratic credentials.
Nigerians have passively witnessed the systematic murder of democracy. Bread and other edible items were openly shared in exchange for votes. Videos trending on social media showing a bizarre syndicate where political supporters, corrupt INEC officials and men in uniform were actively handing out voter cards to people, instructing them to vote in a particular way.
Another video showed a lady flaunting 1,000 naira notes, totaling fifteen thousand naira, as a gift for voting for the ruling party. While some people openly received various sums of money, others received pasta, food and other edible items. In the past, these types of criminal election interventions were conducted clandestinely under the cover of darkness. But nowadays they are legitimized and carried out openly while the cameras film them. No shame, no honor. In Enugu the story was the same. Video evidence showed people lining up in broad daylight, receiving sums of money to vote, while journalists and other content creators recorded the event with shameless gusto. In the end, Ikeje Asogwa, the APC candidate, won.
Besides the brief angst on social media over the election, Nigerians have moved on and every family is thinking about the next meal. The winners of the farce are currently enjoying their spoils and life is going smoothly for them. We have all resigned ourselves to fate and as a result we are all rapidly paralyzed.
Elections in Nigeria have become a ritual of shaming, cheating, theft and all sorts of underhanded practices. Yet, we blithely claim to practice democracy in this country. The results of these developments are now upon us. Crushing economic hardship, rampant inflation and pervasive insecurity roam unhindered in our social fabric because incompetent people have control of the levers of power in the country.
Little by little, we have all resigned ourselves to fate, admitting electoral criminality into our existential arsenal. It has become an aspect of our culture, it is normal. Because Nigerians have resigned themselves to fate, they no longer care about the elections or the results. They accept, without a word, that the system is compromised.
There must be something fundamentally flawed in our collective psychological response to various forms of electoral crime. Afrobeat legend Fela provides an answer: we always have reason to fear, we don’t want to die, we don’t want injuries, we don’t want to become extinct, we don’t want to go! Our love for an imaginary tomorrow is the reason we have resigned ourselves to fate. The ruling class exploits our primitive submission and poverty to steal the country’s future. While there are die-hard supporters of systemic rot and institutionalized forms of structural manipulation, feeble resistance to these ugly developments ultimately ensures that our country will go to the highest bidders.
Where is the tomorrow we so cowardly try to protect when no one is sure of its safety, given the insecurity of the country? Where is the tomorrow we timidly try to protect when inflation has everyone by the jugular and we reconcile ourselves to these oddities? A 12.5kg cooking gas now costs 25,000 naira, depending on where you live. Where exactly is the future when the naira continues to lose value, becoming almost worthless, while the political class goes on a rampage? Perhaps we are all waiting, marking time, for it to be our turn to also extend the frontiers of crime, plundering the collective heritage.
The concluded elections in Enugu and Ekiti states convey a potentially unsettling political atmosphere heading into the 2027 elections. From all indications it appears that the elections will take place without genuine citizen participation, given the role played by security personnel and election umpires in the recently concluded Ekiti and Enugu processions. The greatest tragedy is that Nigerians are gambling their future with religion as the 2027 elections approach. I fully understand the power of God to intervene in the political chessboard of Nigeria as He did when Sani Abacha turned into a demigod in the country. But God acted according to the power that operated collectively in Nigerians: everyone rose up against Abacha in defiance and God aligned himself with the people’s resistance, saving them from disaster.
In the current situation, Nigerians are struck by silent paralysis as we daily swallow the tasteless crumbs from the tables of the ruling class. The situation will extend after 2027 if people maintain their current lazy attitude. The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has been kicked out – credit to the people, but the current political demagogue will not go away unless the people decide to drive him out through the ballot box.
One would expect the opposition to use these by-elections and off-cycle elections to test their opposition machinery and prevent electoral criminals from having fun. But from every indication it seems that the opposition has resigned itself to fate. Indeed, most opposition political parties had no candidates in the just concluded elections. What would be the opposition’s response to planned massive vote-rigging, open vote-buying and voter intimidation on election day? How does the opposition hope to respond effectively to INEC shenanigans when electoral hardware is malfunctioning? The discontent and desperation in the country are palpable.
Evidently Nigerians are suffering and gnashing their teeth. Unfortunately, these conditions will continue beyond 2027 if Nigerians do not collectively reclaim their country from political predators and plunderers. The Enugu and Ekiti elections represent a fatalistic prognosis towards the 2027 elections. If Nigerians do not move, if the opposition does not respond with determination and conviction, worse days lie ahead for Nigerian democracy.
As the 2027 elections approach, concrete and determined efforts are needed to prevent the exercise from being hijacked. To successfully neutralize planned vote-rigging, open vote-buying and targeted voter intimidation, the opposition must move from reactive complaints to proactive and structured resistance. It is essential to establish independent data centers to collect, digitize and track polling unit results (EC8A forms) in real time via decentralized mobile applications, before manual manipulation during collection can occur. The opposition must ensure that every single party agent receives a clear, stamped and signed physical copy of the result sheet immediately after the counting, immediately cross-referencing it with the uploaded digital data to trap algorithmic manipulation. Policy change is often the product of sustained organizational efforts rather than individual sentiment. Strengthening democratic resilience involves moving from reactive concerns to structured civic participation.
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