In this interview with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI, Jideofor Adibe, a professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi speaks on politics and politicking in Nigeria ahead of 2023 general election.
How will you rate the recent convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in terms of its ability to finally bury the internal crisis that has gripped the party over the years?
The first thing is that you have to give them credit, because the convention was largely rancor-free. It is very commendable, because in contrast, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not been able to conduct a rancor-free state congress. So you have to give the PDP credit. But on the other hand, there are some observations. It is true that the party zoned some offices: positions that were in the North were swapped with those in the South. My personal opinion is that given our current environment and scenario in the country in which in the last few years there has been extra concern about managing ethnic and religious diversities, the party would have taken a step further by making sure that things are done more properly, because, for instance, both the elected chairman and secretary of the party now are Christians, though there is nothing wrong with the development, because the zones that produce the two of them are predominantly Christians. So the chances of a Christian emerging is very high. It is the same thing for positions zoned to the South-East. Maybe if they had done a little tweaking, they would have had a bragging right to claim that they are going to unify the country. And then, they could have also gone further by having slots for the physically-challenged, because when you talk about diversities, it is not just about ethnicity, religion or regionalism. There are also other elements. For the young people, they did well, through which a 25-year-old man emerged as the National Youth Leader. And apart from the National Women Leader position, the rest went largely to the male folks, making seems as if the party is a men’s club. So they could have gone that extra mile to include a good number of women, including people with physical disability. So had they done that, they could as well point to the composition of their National Working Committee as a bragging right to tell Nigerians that they would do better in the politics of inclusion if given the opportunity in the next election.
But based on the performance of the APC government, do you believe the PDP has any chance of regaining power in 2023?
Well, what you call performance is relative. There is no government that has not done one thing or the other positively or negatively. So if you ask a supporter of the government, they will tell you look at the number of infrastructure. But if you ask a critic of the government, they will refer you to the level of insecurity and high level of hardship and indebtedness in the country. So what you call performance is usually subjective. It often depends on who you are asking. And also, don’t forget that across the world, emotions drive elections. So we don’t know the emotions that will be at the forefront in driving the elections when the time comes. In 2015, there were talks of corruption in Jonathan government and other issues. But that election was won and lost on the basis of the 2011 zoning controversy, when the North said that Jonathan is contesting the election that year meant that their region was being shortchanged. So that was the shadow on which the election was fought.
But some observers have argued that based on the current insecurity plaguing the country and general hardship, Nigerians might not entrust their mandate to the APC government again in 2023. What do you make of this?
That is what I am explaining. If you understand the concept of identity construction, you will know that the outcome of an election depends on the identities that are at play. If the people feel that a government is performing, even when there are no objective cases on ground to back it up, we say that such perception is salutary to development. But for someone who believes that power for an instance should shift to the South on the basis of equity and justice, such a person will not hesitate to vote for someone from the South. But when talking about performance, some opposition may talk about the high rate of poverty using statistics from the World Bank and the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), but the government can also at the same time say look at what we have done in the area of rice production even though the price of a bag of rice keeps skyrocketing.
The point I am just trying to make is that elections are not driven on the basis of stomach infrastructure or people’s living condition, but on emotional ground. Right now, emotions are down, but you never can tell the one that will play out when election approaches. Though performance is an issue, I really don’t think it is the only variable that determines the outcome of an election. It has to interact with other variables, like ethnicity, religion, regionalism, palpable dispensation of justice and fair play, because a person from the North, who believes the South already has economic power and that the North uses political power as a lever will not understand the argument as to why power must move to the South. He will argue that talking about justice and fair play, the South has taken the country’s economic power, while the North has taken its political power. But someone from the South will not see it that way. He or she will say look, you have had eight years, let power go the other way. So whichever way you want to look at it, the issue of performance is subjective.
But even before the PDP had its convention, there were talks as to where the party would zone its presidential candidacy. Some people have said going by the development that played out at its convention, the party might go the way of the South-West governors and field a southern presidential candidate in 2023 or zone the office to the North. What is your take on this?
Well, it all depends on if there are no cracks within the ranks of the Southern governors, which will leave the North with no option. But, on the other hand, remember this is politics and it entails bargaining. As it stands now, even some people from the South are already saying let it go to the North. I guess it may be because they are eyeing other certain positions like the Chief of Staff and so on. But as the South-East, South-South and South-West have collectively come together to agree on a position for the first time, I believe that there will be some suspicion, as each of the zones will be looking whether it will just be used and dumped by the others if the power was to come to the South for the sake of equity and fair play. For instance, [Olusegun] Obasanjo from the South-West spent eight years. And then [Yemi] Osinbajo from the same region has spent six years as vice-president. And so, if the South-West again clamours that power should come to its region this time, other parts of the region will think the South-West is trying to use them. So the region would have to find another argument other than equity. Same is applicable to the people of Benue State, which we normally call the Middle Belt that are regarded as North only when it is time for election.
Meanwhile, let me also say that, most times, when people complain about the Fulani herdsmen or fulanisation, I think they sometime give them the powers they don’t have. They make the group more mythical than it really is. Any group that is able to display three critical features: cohesive, cautious and conspiratorial… But if other regions have been able to break their ranks, the group won’t be as big as it appears now. But had each of the other ethnic groups been able to keep its own angle cohesive and manage its internal contradictions well, it won’t need to worry about people you call cabal or Fulani group, because in reality, no part of this country can win election without the other groups. The North has about 19 states. But despite this and as popular as Buhari was, he needed the cooperation of the like of Bola Tinubu from the South-West and other people from the remaining regions to be able to become president in 2015. Same thing he did in 2019. So, if you maintain your internal contradictions well and clear out every suspicion within your ranks, you can have a positive influence.
People from different regions in the country, especially from the South have talked so much about power rotation, which I believe is good. But go to senatorial zones and circles for the selection of candidates for the governorship election across the states in the region, you will hear some politicians telling you that there is nothing like zoning or power rotation. So, there is a lot of hypocrisy that has been threatening the idea of equity and fair play in the states. And then for those people complaining about fulanisation agenda, I believe they should come up with a counter plan like Christianisation instead of lamenting and giving the group undue popularity.
But I think what has been eliciting the fulanisation claim from the people in the South is the lopsided appointments by the MuhammaduBuhari administration, which favours a particular ethnic group.
I agree that the present government has not managed our diversity well. There is no doubt about it. The government can do much better. Besides, what you call fulanisation does not have one way. But you can do better in your own enclave. And I am not defending this government, because it has made quite a lot of mistakes, but what you should show is you can be better. And that is what I have with the PDP. As bragging rights, they should have told the people that look, you can see we had a very successful convention; we have people with this kind of competence; we are sensitive to religious diversity and so on. As such, that gives them a moral right. But you can’t be complaining every time about fulanisation, because the ruling government has mismanaged our diversity, while you are not telling the people the solutions you have to counter the fulanisation agenda if voted into power. I see this as hypocrisy and it is part of the problems we have. And I can understand where it is coming from and where it is going.
And as a matter of fact, that is also part of the problems we have with the South-East and South-West separatist agitations, which has been the politics of spikes. In every marginalization, what the people will generally believe is the politics of spike and that is why they will push back. And then, rightly or wrongly, there has been perception that the herdsmen crisis was not managed well, because most of them are Fulani and the president is also a Fulani. And I think the government did not want to apply tough laws, so its actions make the people believe that it was treating the herdsmen with kid gloves, which was what led to their push back and give legitimacy to non-state actors like NnamdiKalu and [Sunday] Igboho, who gave the people an impression that they can stand up against the herdsmen. But I don’t believe that non-state actors are the solutions, because sooner than later the consequences of transferring legitimacy to them will show up. Already, we have been seeing some of them in the South-East and had Igboho remained in the South-West, who knows whether he too would have done the same in the region. So the politics of spikes and what-can-you-do has been the undertone to some of the agitations you see.
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