Nigeria and shaku shaku dance

In many recurring scenes during the preparations towards the 2015 elections, and some after that, our presidential and governorship candidates danced to popular and trending Nigerian music. If you have forgotten those scenes, never mind, you will soon find our aspirants near you in the coming months. This time, they will be dancing shaku shaku.

The party has started and it will be with us for the next 8 months. It will also be boosted by the emergence of who is likely to provide the most challenge to President Muhammadu Buhari’s quest for “progress” when the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) selects its flag bearer in a few months time.

Already, the chronicles are well choreographed. In the last six months, we have seen the first chronicle – strategic meetings between the President and the largely previously ignored Asiwaju, visits to different parts of the country, the President being honoured by foreign bodies, known and unknown, the scuttling of the plan to have an isolated presidential election, the political masterstroke of acknowledging the sins of June 12, and the culmination of the former governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomole, as the chairman to lead the party into the 2019 election. Unlike his predecessor, Adams Oshiomole has the confidence of Asiwaju and he is a combatant politician, key attributes the party will need ahead of the 2019 elections.

However, before we start to see the second chronicle and the real Shaku Shaku dance, some stubborn issues are reminding us all that all is not well.

Last week, the Brookings Institution released a damning poverty report that now suggests that the number of people living in extreme poverty in the country is higher than those in India. Context matters. For a very long time, the fraction of people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria has been higher than those in India, but the news that Nigeria now has the highest number of people in absolute numbers must be a very uncomfortable truth for President Muhammadu Buhari and his spin doctors. It is no wonder that the response provided by the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment is that poverty will vanish when infrastructure projects are completed by the administration. All I did was wondered when the Minister joined the league of the Minister for Information. So, what I believe the government find most disturbing ahead of the elections is that these “disrespectful” foreign think tanks are providing a different narrative than that they would like us to believe. Remember the narrative provided by Transparency International, suggesting that corruption is on the up.

From above, we have now been told that poverty and corruption are all worsening. That is neither the story, nor the change that Nigerian wanted. But, as important as those are, the narrative that hurts the most is the one contrary to that which says that Nigerians have hired a strong man to deal with Nigeria’s escalating security challenges experienced in the last administration.

Just as the Shaku Shaku procession ended, Nigeria witnessed the most atrocious, horrific, brutal, barbaric, wicked, merciless, murderous, repugnant and despicable herdsmen attacks in Plateau State. While some Nigerians were still mourning, two front-page photos showed Mr. President meeting diaspora Nigerians on the front page of ThisDay and the front page Guardian showed him meeting the delegation of traditional rulers from Urhobo land. Those two photos after the incident in Plateau demonstrated, more than anything, that we have a most insensitive president. To add insult to injury, the Presidency suggests we should blame the opposition. Worse still, the government continued to see this as clashes and reprisals between herdsmen and farmers.

Oh my God, how did we arrive here? The lives of Nigerians have never been this cheap and worthless. The lives of Nigerians have never in the history of this country been equated to that of a cow, and never in the history of Nigeria has the government become the spokes entity for killers. It has been so bad that, if we had been declaring three days mourning after each attack, we would never leave the state of mourning.

Now, speaking to a friend last week, he said he wished the military would come back. I disagreed. I have always been a believer in government by consent and agreement. What differentiates democracy from other forms of governance is that consent that is given through the ballot box for a person or a group of people to manage our resources and do the best for the country based on the electorate’s assessment of their abilities and character, and the strength and feasibility of their campaign promises and ideas.

In all these parameters, there is no doubt that there has been little progress with our politics in almost twenty years of party politics. Nigerian politics since 1999 has been characterized by three important disconnects between political campaigns and governance. First, there is a disconnect between the promises and ideas shared during campaign and what gets implemented after the election. Second, there is adisconnect between the abilities and characters displayed during the election and the behaviour of politicians after elections (think of an administration which has a SAN as its Vice President disobeying court orders). And, perhaps, most importantly in the case of Nigeria, there is obviously the disconnect between the national interest which politicians are elected to serve and the personal, ethnic and religious interests they often serve while in power.

Even if we accept that these things are a feature of politics in Nigeria, there is a minimum expectation that there are some aspects of governance, which should not be coloured by personal, ethnic and religious considerations. And that minimum expectation is in relation to lives. In the last three years, we have certainly entered a new low where the lives of Nigerians do not matter anymore, such that those in government are now dancing shaku shaku on their corpses.

I thank you.