When the system condones rascality and institutions falter in their duty to enforce laws of the state without prejudice or bias, we create a nation where lawlessness and impunity become the norm.
In Nigeria, politics and politicking are the opium of the ruling class. People get easily intoxicated by power. Politicians are always in perpetual election mode. They start preparing for the next election the moment one is concluded and the winners are announced and sworn into office. Governance is usually treated as an afterthought and the people are merely expendable pawns in the vicious and ruthless struggle for power. Due to this inordinate perennial quest for power, politicians and their hirelings usually resort to all manner of political gamesmanship and shenanigans to win elections and stay in power.
As the 2027 general elections draw close, we have started witnessing these reckless, dangerous and undemocratic antics again. From staunch and popular supporters of the ruling party threatening to kill voters who will not vote for their party to leading political figures and public office holders indulging in actions and practices that undermine our democracy and erode public confidence in the electoral process.
Early this month, the chairman of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Lagos, Alhaji Mustapha Adekunle, popularly known as Sego, summoned members of the association in the Ajeromi/Ifelodun local government area of the state to a meeting. At the rendezvous, Sego made a frightful remark that gives people a glimpse of what to expect in 2027. He said that anyone who plans to vote for another party aside from the APC risks losing their lives. He stated that APC is the only political party in Lagos and they don’t joke with the party. He also placed a curse on people whom he perceived to be political rivals and enemies of President Bola Tinubu. To cap it all, he stated that what happened in 2023 will not be allowed to repeat itself in 2023.
Sego’s repulsive rhetoric isn’t the first time that a helmsman of the NURTW has issued a foreboding admonition to voters. In 2023, in the build-up to the general election, Musiliu Akinsanyo, better known as MC Oluomo, who was the chairman of the NURTW at the time, in a not too subtle manner, warned Igbos to stay away from the polling station if they were not going to vote for APC. His warning sparked outrage but the police downplayed the severity of his incendiary and provocative remark, calling it a joke. But the worst is yet to come.
Matters came to a head after the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, defeated President Bola Tinubu in Lagos. MC Oluomo made a public announcement where he threatened to violently attack and unleash terror on those planning to vote for another party during the gubernatorial election that took place two weeks after the presidential election. This time around, he was not bluffing. He followed through with his threat. During the governorship election, the pocket of skirmishes and attacks on voters during the presidential election snowballed into a full-blown violent onslaught on the electorate during the governorship polls. Many voters were assaulted and disenfranchised by thugs loyal to the APC. Many of the attacked voters were hospitalised. The targets of these attacks are mostly Igbos. Nigerians of other ethnic stock, especially Yoruba, were also dehumanised and viciously attacked.
Sego vowed to be more vicious and ruthless than Oluomo when dealing with those deemed electoral enemies who are disloyal to the APC. He may have set in motion plans that will cause more carnage and destruction than we saw in 2023.
In the same vein, Abia State governor, Alex Otti, on Thursday, declared that anyone planning to rig the state gubernatorial election in 2027 by writing results and subverting the people’s will must also write their will. Otti’s statement followed the criticism of his government by the deputy of the House of Representatives, Ben Kalu, who represents the Bende federal constituency of Abia State in the lower chamber of the National Assembly.
Last week, Kalu, while addressing members of the Renewed Hope Partners (RHP) in Umuahia on Sunday, declared that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was on course to take over power in Abia State in 2027. Kalu said the performance of Otti since 2023 has been woeful and abysmal, noting that the increase in federal allocation to the state has not translated to any meaningful development. He accused Otti of a lack of accountability and transparency, adding that the governor is using publicity and propaganda to mask his incompetence and corruption. One does not have to be a genius to know that Kalu’s criticism has less to do with the actual performance of the governor but more about his own political ambition of being the state governor in 2027.
Both unsettling statements have sparked varying degrees of reactions, with Sego’s remark eliciting outrage and condemnation, while Otti’s statement has been castigated in some quarters; it has received applause among certain individuals. It is, however, instructive to juxtapose and situate both statements, however toxic and dangerous they are, in the context in which they are made by the guilty parties.
For Sego, and Oluomo before him, these are non-state actors who do not have the right to threaten fellow Nigerians and those who will likely participate in the nation’s general elections no matter what intentions they have for doing so. But in their own case, they are not even making a case against undemocratic conduct or dangerous political manoeuvrings that could destroy our democracy; instead, they are indulging in wilful and deliberate acts of persecution, ethnic dogwhistling, intimidation and voter suppression. It is also important to note that over the years, the NURTW has become an institution that has ditched its pressure group objective for distasteful politicking. They have become an institution tethered to a perilous slab of politics and the largely dirty and inordinate ambitions of politicians.
In Otti’s case, his jarring admonition is no less reckless than the fatwa of Sego and Oluomo, but as a state actor and an elected executive head of a subnational who doubles as the chief security officer of his state, he has the duty of protecting his enclave from political hawks who may want to destabilise it. Otti’s stern warning may have been spurred by the tone of Kalu’s speech and the confidence he exuded during the public outing where he decried the governor’s performance. He may have concluded that Kalu’s body language and bold claims are not emblematic of a character who is banking on the people’s vote to become governor.
Also, Otti may have reckoned that the pattern of the recently conducted highly controversial gubernatorial election in Edo State, which was marred by voter suppression, rigging, and violence, is what Kalu and his backers plan to replicate in Abia to realise his ambition of governing the state, hence forcing him to issue the troubling admonition.
Having said that, any objective and dispassionate observer and analyst of both Sego’s and Otti’s statements knows which one undermines our electoral process and weakens our democracy, and which strengthens them. While Sego is threatening voters and opposition, especially those belonging to a particular ethnic group, Otti is warning those who plan to rig elections in his state to think twice.
It must also be stated here and now that the frightening resort to self-help by both Sego and Otti further underscores the weakness of our institutions which are now nothing more than political tools used by politicians to achieve their sinister goals. In a working nation where institutions of the state are independent and apolitical, politicians and their hirelings cannot be found churning out abhorrent rhetoric that could breach public peace and destabilise the nation.
Sego and Otti are not really the problem here; Sego, particularly, has the confidence and latitude to embark on such a diabolical, criminal and undemocratic expedition because the system and institutions of the state allowed it. After all, he has the ears of the president who sees nothing wrong in undermining democracy and subverting the will of the people.
We need a system that makes it impossible for people to become law unto themselves and engage in activities that threaten the peace and stability of the country. We need strong and impartial institutions that place national interest above tribal consideration and dangerous politicking. This is the only way to halt the wave of disconcerting public rhetoric that undermines cohesion, unity and stability of the nation. When the system condones rascality and institutions falter in their duty to enforce laws of the state without prejudice or bias, we create a nation where lawlessness and impunity become the norm.
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