The recent 2023 presidential election has shown that Nigeria is now more divided than ever before. It is a major factor that undoubtedly threatens the emergence of a diverse but united Nigeria with full realisation of economic growth, human and natural resources.
An inciting video went viral on cyberspace where some so-called OBIdients were singing praise songs to their fellow Igbo while casting their votes portraying clear enmity to the other candidates contesting from various political parties.
One would wonder how on earth a particular person with a different candidate in mind will be allowed to vote otherwise amid those self-centered, tribalistic, and western-oriented population.
The election shows the above-mentioned population’s weakness and inability to allow justice and democratic process to prevail in their region and exposed their low population which signifies their ineptitude to rule Nigeria even in the future as far as the country continues to practice the democratic system of government.
With the great influence of Islamic clerics in the northern region, the Yoruba despite their historical intelligent quotient, know vividly how to pave the way for their candidate by maintaining unbreakable allegiance with the North which is the nerve center of Nigerian politics.
Consequently, they came out to massively vote for the son of the soil and making sure that the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, does not have a significant number which is part of the already existing strategy adopted by the ruling All Progressivey Congress, APC.
Some northerners believed in the promise of power shift immediately after President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years tenure as the Yoruba contributed immensely towards Buhari’s emergence as the two-term president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
It’s surprising how some Northern Christians chose to follow the bandwagon of aggrieved Obidient separatists and some northern Muslims followed the politically motivated Muslim-Muslim combination. No political movement has been successful in the history of Nigerian politics without the massive support of the northern elite and electorate. And this was obvious in the recently concluded presidential election.
The South-east dumped the leading candidate of the PDP Atiku Abubakar for Peter Obi, believing that a miracle will happen. Before the presidential election, many Igbo elders had warned their followers not to go against the North in politics, but many of them turned a deaf ear to that and went against it. Who among the politicians will ever trust a political partner from the South-east and the South-south? The young people in these zones should have a rethink.
Unfortunately, the Northeastern part has lost the rare opportunity to produce the first-ever president from the region. A great number of people that voted for Atiku Abubakar in the region have demonstrated their yearning to give him a chance to prove his claims to rekindle the hope and aspirations of many people especially the youth in the region and Nigeria at large. But the move was ruined in the North-west by so-called true northerners and southerners because of the religious, regional, and political inclinations associated with candidates from other political parties.
History has it that, since the inception of democracy in Nigeria the northern region has never lost a political battle due to its large population, which helped in deciding the outcome of every electoral process. As a result, the northern elite dictate to their population the underground strategy to win the election and a proper contingency plan if experienced otherwise. The last concluded polls were neither free nor fair because the idea of a true federal character failed to materialise. Instead, religion, region, and ethnic biases were the key factors that determined who to vote for and otherwise.
The task ahead of the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmad Tinubu, is tedious, inheriting a leadership full of political shenanigans and division alone of ethnic, religious, and regional inclinations. The president-elect should do everything humanly possible to prove the doubters wrong by the true culture of federalism and do away with sentiment and regional biases.
This can only be achieved when the warring parties are duly consulted to accept the outcome of the election and work together to move this country forward. Religious and traditional leaders should also bear in mind that the role they played before and during the election is just a segment of the challenge. And even now that the election is over they have a substantial part to cover by taking full responsibility for guiding those at the helm of affairs on the plight of the common man.
Mubarak Shuaybu Shelleng,
Maiduguri, Borno state
