A professor of Political Institution and Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science, Usman Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto, Yahaya. T. Baba, speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on how the widespread poverty affects the Nigerian democratic and political system, among others.
THE level of poverty in Nigeria has worsened despite different reforms from the government. At the same time, elections in the country have been fraught with various incidents of vote-buying. Against this backdrop, some observers have said Nigerian politicians are deliberately weaponising the widespread poverty for selfish interests. How true can this be?
That is not far from the truth, because it is evident that the politicians have been taking advantage of the prevailing poverty. This is because there are limits to which elections can be rigged in the country nowadays. Before the introduction of technology and other transformations to the electoral system, it was easier for the political class to manipulate elections in all kinds of ways. So the only available option for the ruling class now is to monetarily influence the voters by dolling out certain sums of money to them. And because the vast majority of the people are poor, the politicians keep having their way. For instance, the minimum wage even among the working class is quite distant from a living wage, while their take-home pay can’t also take them home.
Also, people who engage in different kinds of businesses, both small and medium-scale enterprises, are dejected, because their businesses are collapsing. The government has made the economic environment very depleting for businesses. There is also no basic infrastructure such as power and even passable roads. Consequently, millions of Nigerians are languishing below the poverty line. But the poverty situation is somehow helping politicians. They have decided that if they cannot snatch ballot boxes and write election results, they should simply move to buy off the electorate. And they have desperately employed this tactic to perpetuate themselves in power and cruelly subvert the Nigerian democratic process. The ill has sunk deeply into our electoral system such that there is hardly any election cycle that there won’t be blatant incidents of vote-trading and monetary inducements.
The previous government even tried to somehow prevent the anomaly from rearing its ugly head during the 2023 elections by redesigning the Nigerian currency with the hope that, if succeeded, the move would limit the capacity of the politicians to induce the voters. However, the measure didn’t produce any substantial effect, because before the election, the politicians had already stocked their homes with naira notes. The situation got to its peak last year as some politicians used dollars to buy votes, which began the crisis and massive collapse of the Nigerian currency in the forex window. Now, it is biting hard and undermining the country’s economy, which has been exposed to hyperinflation and is metamorphosing into a national disaster. As it is now, the economy is aching, which, unfortunately, spells doom for the country.
In 2018, the Chatham House Africa programme conducted a survey revealing that most Nigerians are against the scourge of vote-buying. But why do we still see these same Nigerians collecting money in exchange for their votes on election days?
Yes, it is because the people have no option. Imagine you have not received money for months and you now suddenly have an opportunity to get a large sum of money, let’s say for an average Nigerian worker, who collects between N35,000 and N50,000 monthly, and has a family. But on election day, he got an opportunity to make between N70,000 and even N100,000 for a vote. If he mobilizes his family members: his wife and children to the same polling units, he could make up to N200,000 just on the election day, after which he can set up a small business to feed his family and solve his pressing problems, what do you think he will do? Even if he knows that doing such is not good as it would further bring the politician into power, the stark realities of hunger and dejection staring him in the face will not allow him to think otherwise.
Moreso, he believes that even if he does not collect money from the politicians, he will still have little or no control over what they do when they eventually get into office. This is because the mechanism and institutional framework that exists in the country to check the excesses of the politicians is in the favour of the elite. You talk of those in the National and state assemblies, have you forgotten that these are people who are also elected and there is little to what they can do because both they and the executive are on the same page in terms of primitive and criminal accumulation of national resources? Even the judiciary is not left out as the judges take advantage of the constitutional provisions in terms of election petition hearings, tribunals, and appeals to also conspire with the politicians shortchanging the people. Even the security operatives and anti-corruption agencies have also become tools in the hands of politicians. So, every institution that exists in the country and designed by law to hold the government accountable by ensuring that transparency, accountability, and probity are entrenched in the political system has also become complicit in the exploitation agenda. So an average voter will then feel that the election period is the only chance he has to take his share of the so-called national cake from the politicians. So he has no faith and hope that even if he didn’t collect the money, the political class would still not do the right thing.
But how do you think it is affecting the electoral and political system?
Well, the electoral system is being damaged by this rapacious act. It is no longer about whether there is an institutional capacity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deliver a credible poll; it is more now on the psyche of the people themselves. So the electoral system is being undermined, not only by the politicians but also by the people collectively. Going forward, what will happen is that the political class degenerates into mere draconic warlords that will only be chiefly interested in accumulating the greatest chunk of the national treasury without any concern for how to make tangible imparts in the country or to leave a legacy to the people. The political class believes that truly in whatever they have done for the people, if they do not have the money to buy votes during elections, their impacts will be of no meaningful importance as far as their political career is concerned. I fear that what former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said about the country may soon come to be seen as the reality of Nigeria’s democracy.
Some observers have said the only way for Nigerians to liberate themselves from the claws of the oppressive political class is to rise and challenge the misrule collectively. Do you think this is achievable, even with the widening ethnic and religious fault lines of the people?
I think it is achievable only if we have very efficient and nationally conscious civil society groups in the country. Instead of being ethnic platforms that will be campaigning for regional preservation and advantages, the civil society groups can start embarking on intensive mobilisation and campaign against monetary inducements to ideologically empower the masses to understand their electoral power and how not to abuse it to their detriment.
and then