New Telegraph

2023: Ethnic card exposes Nigeria’s fault lines

FELIX NWANERI reports on the ethnic card being played by some political stakeholders ahead of the 2023 presidential election, which has rekindled ethnic rivalry that has always been part of the nation’s history due to struggle for dominance

 

 

Campaigns for the 2023 general election will commence on September 28, but there is apprehension in some quarters over the ethnic card being played by most political stakeholders as well as socio-political and ethnic groups across the country over the contest for the presidency.

Though the election that will see the emergence of a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled for February 25, 2023, Nigeria’s political landscape is agog with permutations, especially, over which region between the North and South and even geopolitical zone that will produce the next leader.

The candidates of the country’s two major political parties – All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – represent the Nigeria’s North/South divide. A former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who hails from the South-West is the standard bearer of the ruling APC, while former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the flag bearer of main opposition PDP, is from the North-East.

 

Ordinarily, he contest would have been between the duo given that the last two presidential elections (2015 and 2019) were between the APC and PDP despite the number of parties that participated in both contests but what many have described as emergence of a third force has altered calculations for the 2023 polls.

 

The Labour Party (LP), which has a former governor of Anambra State as its presidential candidate and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), which has another former governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano State) are political forces that cannot be underestimated.

Like Tinubu and Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso also represent the North/South divide. Obi hails from the South-East, while Kwankwaso is from the North-West. While many had expected the personalities of the quartet will make the presidential contest interesting in terms of issue based campaigns and quality debates, ethnic card is however taking the shine off the build-up to the poll.

So far, it has been exchange of brickbats between the North and South, supporters of the various candidates inclusive, over the 2023 presidency. However, some political analysts are of the view that Nigeria cannot afford a drift to ethnic politics given the danger it portends.

 

Those who hold this view have continued to admonish stakeholders to ensure that the trending vituperations and violence-inducing remarks by some political stakeholders and their supporters are curbed before they snowball into a large scale crisis.

It was also advanced that debate on issues, especially as it concerns the need for visionary leadership that will take the country out of the woods, should shape the build-up to the 2023 presidential poll as divisive politics, at a time there is lack of bond among the various ethnic nationalities that make up the country, will further divide Nigerians along ethno-religious lines.

No doubt, ethnic tension is not new in Africa as there have always been disagreements between the various nationalities across the respective countries that make up the continent. While such discords predate independence of most of the countries, they have grown substantially since the end of the colonial era. This could mostly be blamed on two major factors – struggle for dominance and power play. Nigeria is not an exception to this problem.

Ethnic rivalry has always been part of the nation’s history due to struggle for dominance and power-play. It is indisputable that fragmentation predates the country’s independence in 1960 given its over 300 ethnic nationalities. Given the heterogeneous nature of the country, the tendency of the various nationals is towards parochial consciousness at the expense of national consciousness. Perhaps, it is against the backdrop that respective ethnic groups view each other with suspicion.

Whereas identity politics cannot be completely ruled out of electoral contests in most countries of the world, those who have cautioned the ethnic card being played ahead of the 2023 presidential election, are of the view that Nigeria cannot afford the backlash associated with such brand of politicking.

A bitter tale of such ethnic political rivalry in recent times is the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which an estimated one million Rwandans, mostly Tustis were killed by members of the Hutu majority tribe within 100 days. The crisis was triggered by the April 1994 shooting of a plane carrying then President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira (both Hutus) and in which everyone on board was killed.

While the genocide was planned by members of the political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the country’s national government then, the perpetrators came from the ranks of the Rwandan Army, the Gendarmerie and government-backed militias.

Its aftermath was the destruction of infrastructure and the severe depopulation of the country, which brought the economy of the landlocked country to its knees. The genocide, however, served as an impetus for creating the International Criminal Court to eliminate the need for ad hoc tribunals to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Another of such ethnic crisis is the Darfur war; a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003, when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting the government of Sudan over alleged oppression of Darfur’s non-Arab population.

The government responded to the attacks  by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur’s non-Arabs. This led to the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of then Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

While Rwanda under President Paul Kagame has rebuilt its economy, a comprehensive peace agreement was signed on August 31, 2020, between the Sudanese authorities and several rebel factions to end armed hostilities in Darfur.

Given the tensed build-up to Nigeria’s 2023 elections, there is concern that the continent is on the verge of another crisis of the Rwandan and Darfur dimension in its most populous nation. Elder statesman and leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Chief Edwin Clark, who warned against the dangers ethnic politics, appealed to politicians to call their supporters to order in the interest of Nigeria’s unity.

His words: “Look at what is happening in the North-West; people who feel that they have been oppressed are the ones fighting back. The state governors were the ones moving the Almajiris from place to place and they are the ones fighting back now.”

Factional National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Mr. Ralphs Nwosu, who also spoke on the issue, said: “Reducing our rich knowledge to North and South thinking creates the kind of dichotomy that impedes development and the kind of national cohesion to leverage our various people.”

He added: “Holding onto leadership and creating the kind of poverty we have now leverages none. Elites must become unifiers, so that we can build a nation that is able to employ our rich diversity values for quality and endearing public policies; public policies that are just and non-discriminatory.

“We need to develop an elite culture that is beyond myopic prism. Our elites should really begin to challenge the status quo, so that we can inspire our youths towards a direction that creates prosperity, security, peace and opportunities for all. Hakeem and many of our elites in the public space should realize that they model the way for all others, especially the youths, each time they mount any podium.”

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), on its part, called for responsible political behaviour among stakeholders for Nigeria to cross the threshold into a new dawn.

The group in a communiqué issued at the end of its Second Plenary meeting at Orlu, Imo State, at the weekend, stated: “In campaigning and canvassing for votes, we urge politicians to eschew the politics of bitterness, divisiveness and religious bigotry.”

Director of Publicity and Advocacy, Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Dr. Hakeem Baba- Ahmed, who lent his voice on the issue, warned that Nigeria’s future is at stake due to what he described as undue emphasis on religious and ethnic backgrounds of the presidential candidates and their choices of running mates. “What is at stake is more than an election.

It is the survival of our country. The prospects of safe conduct of electoral activities and a free and fair election are being threatened by the conduct of our politicians. We must find the resolve and the strength to step back and pull the nation away from its current precarious position.

Our politics now operates outside safe and tolerable boundaries, and the nation will pay dearly for the desperation and limitations of those who ought to show leadership and responsibility among our politicians.”

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