By Bayo Olupohunda
The
February 2015 general election shift had all the trappings of a
well-organised plot. The time line and intrigues leading to the
announcement seemed precise like clockwork. The speculations that the
February 14 date for the presidential election could be changed had
dominated political discourse but no one could tell specifically that it
will be postponed as widely being speculated. While the argument and
debate raged on, Nigerians tore themselves apart and the opposition
party, the All Progressives Congress, fumed and threatened that the
elections must go on. The man at the centre of it all, President
Goodluck Jonathan, kept a calm demeanour. He never gave a hint beyond
the usual talk that the handover date of May 29 was sacrosanct.
When specific questions bordering on the
proposed shift in the elections were thrown at him, the President kept
repeating the same line he had used since the idea of the shift in date
was mooted in London by his National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki. But
Jonathan, whom many of his critics have described as “clueless” seems
to have something up his sleeve. Meanwhile, he continued his
multi-faceted political campaign surreptitiously. In Lagos, he attended
the Holy Ghost Night of the Redeemed Christian Church of God on Friday
night.
On Saturday, he proceeded to the Lord’s
Chosen Church in Lagos where he also displayed “humility” before the
Lord and delivered a homily about the plan of Boko Haram to proclaim a
Caliphate in Nigeria. The faithful gasped in horror. In an election
time, the “revelation” of a life under a Boko Haram caliphate reinforces
a campaign already polarised along religious lines. It was
scaremongering at its best. As the President was concluding his “ward
round” of churches, Nigerians waited with baited breath as the
Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Attahiru Jega, ran
from pillar to post “consulting” his commissioners and other
stakeholders about the planned extension of the elections.
Then, the bombshell came late in the
night on Saturday. After weeks of intrigues and speculations, Jega
announced the shift in elections to March and April putting an end to
one of the much talked about issues in the run-up to an election that is
poised to be a watershed in Nigeria’s history. With the extension in
the date of the election, President Jonathan has pulled a fast one on
the opposition and Nigerians in general. Many Nigerians have referred to
the extension as a democratic coup against the constitution. The shift
in the elections was bound to create a controversy and heat up the
polity to a boiling point but it appeared the Jonathan Presidency was
prepared for the backlash, a decision which makes the entire episode a
defining moment of the 2015 elections.
First, many Nigerians consider the reason
given for the shift in the date of the elections suspicious. Even the
timeline leading to the weekend announcement seemed to me like a well
choreographed plot. Let us look at the timeline. Like a bolt out of the
blue, the National Security Adviser appeared in London where he read a
speech advising INEC to consider the shift in poll date so that the
electoral body could have more time to distribute the Permanent Voter
Cards which until that time had been haphazardly distributed. Many
Nigerians were finding it hard to collect their PVCs, some were told to
go to other places to get their cards. But in spite of INEC
difficulties, it was still believed that the challenge of logistics
would be rectified and the elections could go on according to the old
timetable.
But like everything Nigerian, other reasons why the elections
may not take place began to spread among Nigerians. There was a widely
held belief that there could be other “hidden agenda” that may force the
powers-that-be to shift the elections. Even while the reason existed in
the realm of conspiracy theory, it soon became the main reason. Given
what many thought to be the desperation of President Jonathan to secure a
re-election by all means, it was thought that the President’s camp was
becoming jittery because of the widespread support being enjoyed by the
All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.
The evidence had become clear to the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the massive turnout at Buhari’s
campaigns, the campaign rhetoric of “Change” that seems to be sweeping
across the country. Given all of these reasons, it was thought that the
President had become jittery that if the elections were to have held on
the former dates, he might as well be preparing his handover note. This
line of thought seemed an enough reason to have the elections shifted.
Indeed, never for once since the PDP has dominated power at the centre
has it been confronted with the possibility of losing a presidential
election to a once disparate opposition now coalesced under one sweeping
broom known as the APC.
Unlike before, the PDP looks genuinely
worried that it may lose the Presidency. For one, the general
disenchantment with the Jonathan administration’s handling of
corruption, insecurity, unemployment and especially the missing Chibok
girls is likely to haunt the President at the polls. More importantly,
the political climate that has seen more Nigerians coming out to welcome
Buhari in his campaigns seems to be a real concern for the President.
Only recently, the naira is on a free fall due to the slump in oil
prices. The growing poverty among Nigerians and the President’s
pronouncements when he denied the existence of corruption and cited a
few Nigerians who own private jets as evidence of growth had angered a
majority of Nigerians.
Not even the trumpeted achievements of
Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa has cut a dice among Nigerians.
Opinions are divided as to the achievements of President Jonathan.
While many of his supporters believe he has performed to deserve a
second term, the opposition and many Nigerians think he should not spend
another night at the Villa after May 29, 2015. As the government denied
it had no plan to postpone the elections, it had become glaring that
the shift was inevitable given the flurry of meetings by Jega with INEC
commissioners and the 28 political parties. What many Nigerians could
not come to terms with was the later reason given by security chiefs
that the armed forces could not guarantee the safety of INEC officials
if the elections were to be held as scheduled.
The security chiefs were said to have
threatened that they would not provide security for INEC staff if it
decided to go ahead with the elections leaving Jega with no option but
to shift the elections. The reasons given by the military raised some
questions. Why did it choose the former date of election to begin a
military onslaught on Boko Haram? How does the military hope to defeat
an insurgency it had not defeated in five years? Certainly, there is
something more sinister than what Nigerians have been told was the
reason for shifting the elections. The whole drama seems to me to be the
biblical hand of Esau and voice of Jacob scenario. Is Jonathan truly
afraid of losing and had to perform another Maradona “hand of God”? Even
Nigeria’s last known Maradona, former military dictator Ibrahim
Babangida, will be green with envy.
- Follow me on twitter: @bayoolupohunda
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