Our image and APC’s primaries

The primary elections recently concluded by the All Progressives Congress (APC) have brought new and interesting dimensions to the colours of the Nigerian brand of democracy. The phase the primary election has led us into is such that has ignited a discussion on the trajectory of the Nigerian brand of democracy: Are we heading north or plunging southwards? It has moved us from the phase of excusing anything through ‘nascent democracy’ to the phase of ‘composite democracy’ – a complex, home-grown phenomenon. Our brand of democracy seems to confound even the best of the social crusaders among the citizenry. Or should we just agree that our brand of democracy has not only confounded our social crusaders, but it has also completely consumed them? 

Leo Tolstoy, the legendary Russian who reigned in and ruled the intellectual world and also exercised intellectual power, held choices through elections in so much contempt, believing that politicians are simply tricksters. He wrote extensively on the ruthlessness of politicians – especially those powerful ones who use the hands of power to feather their nests as much as possible, and in some cases, those of their children and (trusted) acolytes. He loathed politicians because of their hypocrisy and coercion, some of the most subtle ways through which they push their usually selfish agenda. They wrap their real intentions in dollops of good governance and people would swallow with good intentions.

From the same Russia came Joseph Stalin. He was a politician and thus understands exactly what is done on the field as much as possible. His famous advice to Nigerians who usually go out to vote with high hopes will come handy in order to understand what the APC did in its primary elections. Among other things, Stalin is of the strong conviction that the voter is not usually as crucial in the electoral process as the man who is going to count the ballots, collate and announce the outcome of the votes.

In October 2018, Lasisi Olagunju wrote, ‘Indeed, you won the elections but I won the count’. He said in the essay, through which he appraised the governorship election that took place in Osun State that year, that elections are not won and lost because of the number of people you might have seen trooping out to cast their ballots. Elections, or put properly, electoral battles are decided by the obviously fewer individuals in whom the responsibility to count those ballots is vested. He was echoing Stalin and succinctly brought the Stalinic philosophy home in what happened in Osun State of Nigeria.

Olagungu wrote, “Foolish politicians court voters; wise politicians count the votes. The 2019 elections will further prove this thesis. Could it be that the opposition never heard of this other famous quote: “It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. The APC did – and uses Stalin as its motivator in its engagement of power politics and the politics of power. It uses politics wantonly to domesticate power. PDP is too dumb to know how to count anything or make anything count.”

While ruminating over the above, try to bring the primary elections conducted by the APC into focus. Then, narrow your thoughts further to the party’s presidential primary election. Did you see the videos of the counting of the party’s primary election votes? The videos are found all over the internet, and the party has not said anywhere that those videos were not of their primary elections or that they were doctored videos or as is now common with politicians, they were generated through artificial intelligence (AI). What that proposes and already brings to the table is that Nigeria has a busy season ahead. So, is Olagunju not spot on with his 2018 supposition?

READ ALSO: Perspective on Lagos APC primaries

A school of thought has, however, defended that APC charade of primary elections as not being the worst the eyes have seen. The argument was strong and the proponents were very vehement and also tenacious. They even brought the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into the argument, citing what they said the PDP could have done during its lifetime. The game of comparison went into the added time of these proponents, stretching it to the violence they alleged would have been employed by the powerful PDP to garnish the confusion that would have been unleashed.

But that wasn’t even their main argument. They had to educate us that the worst election on record was conducted in Liberia in 1927. They argued that the Guinness Book of World Records gave it to the election that brought President Charles D. B. King into power in the country. At that time, they had 15,000 people as total eligible voters but the president recorded 234,000 votes in the election. In addition to Charles’s 234,000 votes, his challenger in the election, Thomas Faulkner, also recorded 9,000 votes. Their argument carried the day because what happened in Liberia was dumbfounding indeed. It was enough to agree with them that the counting of those Liberian ballots even took that vision by Joseph Stalin to some heights the man himself could never have imagined.

However, it is also imperative to put it out there that President King could not survive the outcry that followed his staggering indiscretion. This Mr. King, who was also a president, was unmindful like the hovering Asa, who didn’t reckon that people on the ground were watching his moves in the sky. Well, he had to abandon that office because when the heat from his action became unbearable, he resigned. The noise from the outcome of that election killed his presidency and his political career.

The scheming, action and outcome of President King’s 1927 election, and his fate therefrom, should be left to stand as a monument of a lesson to the discerning. Perhaps, the Edo State votes in the APC primaries should also serve as a lesson in the breathtaking and fabulous figures obtained from many states. For the figures from Edo State, one is left to wonder if it is Mgbeke that is bad at giving a haircut or could it be that the razor is blunt. It is either Edo State APC and Governor Monday Okpebholo did not understand the script they read or they were not given the script and so did not read it at all.

The thought here flows from the inability of Edo State to muster more votes for President Tinubu than Abia State in the presidential primary. It is a lesson because Governor Okpebholo has been in the vanguard of the APC army which has been boasting of giving the president two million votes in the presidential election of 2027. What then happened at the dress rehearsal? Where did the chain lose its hook? I think it is because Governor Okpebholo didn’t do the magic many of his colleagues performed on the field. He also might not have compared notes with the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu. Okpebholo needs to go back to school… APC should help him before it is too late.

He has to learn linear equations, that which many of us who are math illiterates call linear mathematics. Please excuse our illiteracy, we are only saying that there were acts of irregular counting of votes at the APC presidential primary election and during some other primary elections. We are wondering if that was a pointer to the 2027 general election. How many are registered members of the APC? Okpebholo should learn how all the registered members of his party would be made to turn up for a presidential primary election and vote. Then, he must produce additional people who must also join the APC members to endorse the candidature of President Tinubu in 2027 by voting for him.

Many still do not know exactly what they are trying to prove, but is it that we are all overwhelmingly in love with Tinubu such that all of us, including those not concerned, want him as the APC presidential candidate? After all said, the panoply of videos of APC primaries could have been any other political party. But still, I agree with Leo Tolstoy that “wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority shares in it.”