Aliyu U. Tilde 9:11am Apr 29
Labaru sun zo mana kan irin murnar da wasu mutane ke yi a Kano ta cin zaben Kwankwaso ta hanyoyin da ya ke nuna suna maraba da shi don zai kau da Shari'a. Wannan zai sa in kura ta lafa mu yi dogon tattaunawa kan tarbiyyar al'umma a tsarin demokradiya na wannan zamanin.
Su wadanan da ke murna ta hanyar yin wadannan abubuwa, kar mu dauka da addini su ke ja. Hasali ma, sau da yawa in aka wa addininsu kalubale, ko da a gidan giya ne, to wallahi kaca-kaca ake da su. Sai su tashi su pasa kwalba, su yi ashar, su ce za su kara da duk wanda ya baci addininsu.
Wancan satin a kauyenmu, Tilde, akwai 'yan wiwi da ke busa sigarinsu a bayan gidana, da unguwata da nake shugabanta, da kuma makarantar firamare da ke kusa da ni. Mutane sun aza sun addabemu. Nakan ce mu rika hakuri da su. Suma akwai ranarsu. Don ina da sanin amfaninsu a fadan zangon kataf da sharia a Kaduna. Ile kuwa. Wancan satin, da aka ce ga kabilu can sun kawowa Tilde hari daga duwatsu, su wadannan yan wiwin su ne kan gaba wajen kare garin. Kowa sai sa musu albarka ya ke. Akwai yara da suka rika yawo suna barna suna kona gidajen kirista bayan an ce Buhari ya fadi zabe. Ko mutanen gari sun musu magana, ba sa saurarensu. Amma da zarar sun hango 'yan wiwin nan, sai su ruga, su bar wurin. To, shege ma da ranarsa!
Watau, dan Adam yana da wuyar sha'ani. In ya yi wani abu yakamata mu nazarce shi, mu gano dalilansa. Akasari sai ka ga ba abun da muke tsammani ba ne. Zai yiyu, mun tsananta wajen gudanar da sharia ta yadda ta saba da asalinta ko da zamaninmu. Zan ba da misalin shan giya.
In ka duba batun shan giya, ni a raayina an zafafa. Ko a Madinar Manzon Allah ana sai da barasa a wasu unguwanni har zamanin khalifofinsa. Haka kuma a manyan biranen musulunci irin su Damascus, da Bagadaza, da Kufa, da Seville, da Cordoba, da Alkahira. Ban taba jin inda aka yi dokar hana sai da ita ba tamaman tunda a ko yaushe, saboda sassaucin muslumci, akwai wadanda ba musulmi ba tattare da musulmi. Kai! Har a kasar Hausa, su Shehu Usumanu basu damu da su yi doka da zata hana samar da giya ba kwata-kwata. Shi ya sa kusan ake da bauda a daukacin kasar Hausa, birni da kauye. Amma tanadin sharia shi ne duk musulmin da aka kama ya sha, to a masa bulala 80. Shike nan. Akwai wanda Umar ya sa aka wa bulala don an same shi a bauda, duk da cewa an tabbatar ba giyar ya ke sha Ba. Umar ya ce to me ya kaishi zama a inda ake shanta? Wannan, a maimakon Umar ya yii dokar hana sai da giya ba.
Kuma burin sharia ba wai ta maida mutane mala'iku ba ne da za su zam ba sa laifi kwata-kwata. Sam. Allah ya fi son ya gansu a 'yan Adam dinsu, masu laifi lokaci-lokaci, amma kuma masu reman gafararsa a kullum. Ina jin akwai ingantaccen hadisi qudusi a kan wannan. Malamai suna iya binciko mana. In burinsa marasa laifi ne, ai yana da mala'iku da ba sa sabama umarninsa, suna masa tasbihi ba dare ba rana.
Don haka, yana da wuya a kauda dan Adam daga wannan dabi'ar da aka halicceshi a kanta, dabi'ar laifi da zunubi. Dama shi mai sabone asalan. Aikin addini shi ne ya kira shi ga alheri, in ya amsa sai ya ribanta da kyautata sabon nan da aikin alheri da hali nagari, kamar yadda za a hana shi mummunan aiki ta hanyar da ta dace da lokacinsa da abunda nassi ya kawo na wa'azi da ladabtarwa yadda ya fi dacewa.
Hakanan kan abubuwa da yawa wanda harkar film na cikinsu. Fasaha bata wanzuwa sai cikin 'yanci da walwala. Ai ido ba mudu ba ne amma ya san kima. Da yakamata a duba yanayin kasarmu, da matsayin tarbiyyarmu, a fara da sassauci hatta kan abubuwan da musulunci ya tsananta, kuma a yi sassauci har abada kan abunda bai tsananta ba...a bimu sannu sannu har mu fahimta, mu daidaita sahu.
Don haka, a takaice, wadannan 'yan'uwa namu ban yi tsammani wai yaki da addini suke yi ba. Hanyar da muka bi wajen d'abbaka shariar ce kila bai dace da zamaninsu ba ko d'abi'arsu. Kila mun gaggauta wasu abubuwan, mun tsananta a wasu. Don haka suka nuna bijirewarsu ga tsarin amma ba ga addinin ba.
In an tuna ai a zamanin Kwankwaso aka fara shariar, irinta wannan zamanin. Ina tuna lokacin da mataimakinsa, Ganduje, da Malamina, Aminuddeen Abubakar, suke yawo otel otel suna farautar kilakai a cikinsu. Don haka ba bakinta ba ne. Kwankwaso na da nasa malaman. Ba ni da haufin za su bari ya goyawa abunda zai maida musulunci baya.
Kamar yadda na fada jiya, sabon gwamnan sai ya gina kan abunda Malam Shekarau ya yi;ya yi gyara inda ake bukatar gyara; ya cigaba da duk abu mai kyau; ya kuma jingine, bisa shawara, abunda yake ganin kuskure ne. Amma kashedi kashedinsa, kar ya bibiye ma ashararai da za su kai shi su baro. Shekara hudu kamar gobe ne.
Haza wasalam.
Aliyu
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Slouching Toward Democracy: The Elections in Nigeria
Slouching Toward Democracy: The Elections in Nigeria
By Paul Beckett
The Perils of Democracy
To title (and set) his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, Nigeria’s great novelist, Chinua Achebe, drew on lines from the poem by William Butler Yeats which begins:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world . . .
And ends:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
(“The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats, 1920)
Nigeria is among the world’s most dangerous countries. Nigeria has the seventh-largest population in the world (nearly 160 million), and that population is a potentially explosive mixture of peoples, regions, and religions – a mixture of almost infinite complexity. The center’s holding (to paraphrase Yeats) has indeed been challenged throughout Nigeria’s 51 years of independence. At various times, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s longest-serving head of state (sometimes military, sometimes elected) has compared his country’s potential for violence to cases like Bosnia, Rwanda or Burundi – but on a much larger scale.
Nigeria came to independence two years after Achebe’s book was published with a British-style parliamentary electoral democracy in place. Unsurprisingly, the country’s experience with democracy since has been rocky. “Mere anarchy” (Yeats uses “mere” in the obsolete meaning of “pure” or “unmixed”) has frequently seemed close by.
As Nigeria celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence from Britain last year, the country had had elected governments for only about 20 years. The other thirty were accounted for by a succession of military governments, each a bit more dictatorial (and corrupt) than the one before. In its democratic interludes, it took Nigeria only about 40 years to get into its “Fourth Republic” (the present one); reputedly volatile France required about a century and a half to achieve the same.
Nigeria has spent enormous sums of money trying to create fair and transparent electoral systems. Yet rare is the election that has not been condemned as false by the loser (often, by everyone except the winner!). Over the 20-some years of democracy, vote-buying, thuggery, bribery, and ballot box-stuffing have been developed into high art forms. Sometimes the ballot boxes are simply stolen. Or, perhaps, stolen and stuffed. Voter registration, a vast process usually commenced too late, has often verged on chaos (if not “mere anarchy”). Polling station administration has usually seemed imperfect and sometimes much worse than that. Nigeria’s last round of general elections, in 2007, was condemned universally by observers as almost hopelessly flawed by violence, rigging and mismanagement. (For one of the reports, go here.)
As we recommend democracy for all countries, we should be conscious that democracy can be dangerous in a country like Nigeria: very dangerous. Democracy has been a significant factor in Nigeria’s horrific communal clashes (stretching from the pogroms against the Igbos in the middle 1960s to the bloody clashes in the Jos area that are on-going now). Scores and sometimes hundreds have been killed in violence in each national election.
By its nature, then, Nigeria does not seem a natural case for Western-style competitive electoral democracy. When I lived in Nigeria in the early 1970s, the number of separate ethnic groups was put at 250; the figure used now is 389. (Imagine for a moment the French, German, British or American democracies functioning with 389 different national traditions and identities in play.)
Overlaying the ethnic mosaic are traditions of regional hostility (both great and small). Since the 1980s, religion (Muslim or Christian) has become vastly more important as a basis for often violent conflict. Access to education, and therefore literacy, varies widely through the country. Finally, poverty, the national oil wealth not withstanding, is endemic, and wealth differentials are, well, worse than in the U.S.
Just as a reminder, Western-style democracy has generally flourished in – you guessed it! –Western countries characterized by a large middle class, high literacy, and a much higher degree of national integration.
In a sense, the puzzle is that Nigeria has tried so hard and persisted so long in the effort to make democracy work.
The Effort to Create Democracy
But try they certainly have, in a creative, participatory, and deeply serious way which will surprise those who know Nigeria mainly for corruption and “419” email scams.
In the latter 1970s, after a failed First Republic and a decade of military rule, Nigerian military leaders and civil society intellectuals (academics, administrators, doctors, lawyers, journalists) put their heads together to try to figure out how Nigeria could be a democracy. A kind of “great debate” occurred in a constitutional convention and through the media (it reminded yours truly of the Federalist Papers episode in our own history). A constitution was designed in which electoral success went to the leaders and the parties who best reached across the old divides of region and ethnicity, while punishing those who waged ethnic or regional political warfare. A principle of “federal character,” which essentially means fair representation of Nigeria’s constituent regions and peoples, ran through the constitution. (In some applications, it resembles American affirmative action practices.)
Thus, to illustrate with the presidential election (the one Nigerians care most about), to win a candidate must win by a majority of votes cast (so run-offs are likely), but also must receive at least 25% of the votes cast in two-thirds (24) of the 36 states in the Nigerian federation.
Other features were requirements placed on the political parties to be truly national in scope, a powerful independent, non-partisan electoral commission to prepare and run the elections, and judicial review of challenges.
What is interesting is that, while Nigeria has had three constitutional revisions since the totally disastrous First Republic, the basic elements have carried through each one.
As a distant and somewhat desultory observer, I have felt for some time, and feel more certain all the time, that Nigeria has been subject to a kind of creeping constitutionalism and a growing habit of democracy over more than three decades.
The 2011 General Elections
This month Nigeria has completed a mammoth round of elections: for the federal bicameral legislature (April 9), the federal presidency (April 16), and governors of the 36 states (April 26). The scale of the exercise was enormous in every way (very much including cost which has been estimated at more than half a billion dollars). Some 325,000 poll workers manned many thousands of polling stations scattered throughout a vast country where communications and transportation infrastructure remain limited. Sixty-three political parties were registered; at the presidential level, 21 had fielded candidates. (For more detail, go here.)
How did it go?
The ominous precursors were there. The elections, originally scheduled for December 2010, had to be pushed back twice. As usual, registration was a last-minute achievement. There were many problems with ballots, both their preparation and printing (they were complicated with many minor parties that had to be correctly listed) and ballot security. There were many efforts to rig or otherwise falsify or even to derail the elections completely. Just before the presidential election a vehicle traveling north was found to contain 100,000 ballots marked “tendered ballot papers.” Serious bombings occurred before and during the elections.
Also very ominous was a spike in violence (or arbitrary arrest) directed against reporters. This was reported by the international organization Reporters Sans Frontieres, which noted :
“Nigeria has one of the poorest media freedom ratings in Africa and is 145th out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders worldwide Press Freedom Index.”
One could go on and on with such ominous reports. But: surprise!
The Economist (London) almost gushed: “Nigeria’s Successful Elections: Democracy 1, vote-rigging, 0.” They went on, “Gambling on the world’s most expensive voting system has paid off.”
The leader of an international team of observers, Robin Carnahan of the (U.S.) National Democratic Institute, said the vote was “largely free and fair.”
“There were a number of people in our delegation that observed the elections in 2007,” Carnahan said, “and they said they felt like there was a marked difference this year. That there was a determination on the part of the Independent National Electoral Commission to run a real election, [and] a free and fair election. There was determination on the part of the Nigerian people to participate in an election that really reflected their voice.”
European Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) teams’ reports were similar, as was the verdict of the U.S. State Department.
Sweet music!
But then the music ended.
Serious rioting broke out in most of the far northern states, with hundreds killed. There were renewed bombings on the eve of the last set of elections for governor on April 26 (and they could not be held on schedule in at least two of the states). Meanwhile, the major opposition candidate for President (Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change party) and many others are charging (what else?) “massive rigging” that falsified the election.
The Balance Sheet
As the dust clears (and, as the bodies are buried), we see that the damage has been great: more than 500 killed, many more wounded, much property loss, much personal displacement, much loss of personal sense of security. The election and its aftermath have further exacerbated the dangerous combination of anger and fear at the Muslim/Christian interface, especially in the northern states.
If the presidential election of Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party was generally peaceful and fair, as observers tell us, the results may still prove dangerous for the future. Jonathan (Christian, from a southeast minority ethnic group) represented the dominant party (PDP) and his victory was expected by most. He handily met the constitutional requirements for election taking nearly 60% of the popular vote, and winning 24 states outright. Meanwhile, his principal opponent, Muhammadu Buhari (Muslim, Hausa-Fulani, from Katsina) swept the 12 most northern states, but failed to carry any states outside that group (including those that in past elections have tended to associate with the “far north”).
Thus, while Jonathan’s election complied easily with the constitutional requirements for national reach, paradoxically this presidential election seemed to result in a situation of stark regional, ethnic, and religious separation that we have not seen before.
Slouching Towards Democracy?
There were a number of special circumstances in the candidacy of Goodluck Jonathan and the opposition led by Muhammadu Buhari that are too complex to deal with here. Yet, even with allowance being made for these, the 2011 elections are likely to be seen as a watershed in Nigerian politics.
Viewed in national political terms, the far north finds itself (temporarily, at least) in unprecedented isolation. Over most of the previous half century, the Muslim (in ethnic terms, mainly Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri) far north (it was sometimes referred to as the Holy North in the old days) has generally provided the core political leadership for the rest of the huge area of the original Northern Region. During the first political decade, their dominance was absolute.
And throughout the independence period the influence of the far north has been disproportionate at the national level, too. Of the thirteen men who have headed the Nigerian government (military or civilian) since 1960 (see list here), eight have been northern Muslims (one other was a northern Christian). Six of the northern Muslims have been from the core Hausa-Fulani or Kanuri states of the far north. All four of the southern Christian leaders owed their original accession to accidental factors (Jonathan, the latest, became President unexpectedly in May last year after Umaru Yar’Adua (Hausa-Fulani, Katsina) developed a serious illness and finally died in office).
Thus, the landslide election of Jonathan may mark a watershed event in the evolution of Nigerian politics. The historic pattern of at least mild hegemony exerted from the far north may have largely run its course.
This assumes that Nigeria continues its “slouching” progress (borrowing again from Yeats) toward institutionalizing electoral democracy.
Which in turn returns us to the question: Why does Nigeria work so hard and so persistently to create a functioning, stable, permanent democracy?
The costs and dangers, after all, are great. With the country’s complex ethnic makeup, and the now bitter relations between many Christian and Muslim communities, Nigerians know that they live over a political sea of magma that could, at almost any time, erupt.
Yet Nigeria persists in the effort, and, I believe, will continue to persist. At the time that Nigerians were emerging from more than a decade of military rule in the latter 1970s, intellectuals advanced many ideas for a constitutional system that would work for Nigeria, not as one might want Nigeria to be, but as it is. A number advocated indirect, or “guided democracy,” or a benign single-party system. Ultimately, such compromises were rejected in favor of straight, unadulterated winner-take-all electoral democracy with competitive parties. The preponderance of opinion was that Nigeria was too complex a country to function as a single party system, and their experience with military rule had convinced them that benign dictatorship never remains benign.
One could say that Nigeria needs to be a democracy not in spite of its staggering complexity, but because of it.
Paul Beckett taught political science at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, from 1969 to 1976. He is co-author of Education and Power in Nigeria and co-editor of Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria.
By Paul Beckett
The Perils of Democracy
To title (and set) his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, Nigeria’s great novelist, Chinua Achebe, drew on lines from the poem by William Butler Yeats which begins:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world . . .
And ends:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
(“The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats, 1920)
Nigeria is among the world’s most dangerous countries. Nigeria has the seventh-largest population in the world (nearly 160 million), and that population is a potentially explosive mixture of peoples, regions, and religions – a mixture of almost infinite complexity. The center’s holding (to paraphrase Yeats) has indeed been challenged throughout Nigeria’s 51 years of independence. At various times, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s longest-serving head of state (sometimes military, sometimes elected) has compared his country’s potential for violence to cases like Bosnia, Rwanda or Burundi – but on a much larger scale.
Nigeria came to independence two years after Achebe’s book was published with a British-style parliamentary electoral democracy in place. Unsurprisingly, the country’s experience with democracy since has been rocky. “Mere anarchy” (Yeats uses “mere” in the obsolete meaning of “pure” or “unmixed”) has frequently seemed close by.
As Nigeria celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence from Britain last year, the country had had elected governments for only about 20 years. The other thirty were accounted for by a succession of military governments, each a bit more dictatorial (and corrupt) than the one before. In its democratic interludes, it took Nigeria only about 40 years to get into its “Fourth Republic” (the present one); reputedly volatile France required about a century and a half to achieve the same.
Nigeria has spent enormous sums of money trying to create fair and transparent electoral systems. Yet rare is the election that has not been condemned as false by the loser (often, by everyone except the winner!). Over the 20-some years of democracy, vote-buying, thuggery, bribery, and ballot box-stuffing have been developed into high art forms. Sometimes the ballot boxes are simply stolen. Or, perhaps, stolen and stuffed. Voter registration, a vast process usually commenced too late, has often verged on chaos (if not “mere anarchy”). Polling station administration has usually seemed imperfect and sometimes much worse than that. Nigeria’s last round of general elections, in 2007, was condemned universally by observers as almost hopelessly flawed by violence, rigging and mismanagement. (For one of the reports, go here.)
As we recommend democracy for all countries, we should be conscious that democracy can be dangerous in a country like Nigeria: very dangerous. Democracy has been a significant factor in Nigeria’s horrific communal clashes (stretching from the pogroms against the Igbos in the middle 1960s to the bloody clashes in the Jos area that are on-going now). Scores and sometimes hundreds have been killed in violence in each national election.
By its nature, then, Nigeria does not seem a natural case for Western-style competitive electoral democracy. When I lived in Nigeria in the early 1970s, the number of separate ethnic groups was put at 250; the figure used now is 389. (Imagine for a moment the French, German, British or American democracies functioning with 389 different national traditions and identities in play.)
Overlaying the ethnic mosaic are traditions of regional hostility (both great and small). Since the 1980s, religion (Muslim or Christian) has become vastly more important as a basis for often violent conflict. Access to education, and therefore literacy, varies widely through the country. Finally, poverty, the national oil wealth not withstanding, is endemic, and wealth differentials are, well, worse than in the U.S.
Just as a reminder, Western-style democracy has generally flourished in – you guessed it! –Western countries characterized by a large middle class, high literacy, and a much higher degree of national integration.
In a sense, the puzzle is that Nigeria has tried so hard and persisted so long in the effort to make democracy work.
The Effort to Create Democracy
But try they certainly have, in a creative, participatory, and deeply serious way which will surprise those who know Nigeria mainly for corruption and “419” email scams.
In the latter 1970s, after a failed First Republic and a decade of military rule, Nigerian military leaders and civil society intellectuals (academics, administrators, doctors, lawyers, journalists) put their heads together to try to figure out how Nigeria could be a democracy. A kind of “great debate” occurred in a constitutional convention and through the media (it reminded yours truly of the Federalist Papers episode in our own history). A constitution was designed in which electoral success went to the leaders and the parties who best reached across the old divides of region and ethnicity, while punishing those who waged ethnic or regional political warfare. A principle of “federal character,” which essentially means fair representation of Nigeria’s constituent regions and peoples, ran through the constitution. (In some applications, it resembles American affirmative action practices.)
Thus, to illustrate with the presidential election (the one Nigerians care most about), to win a candidate must win by a majority of votes cast (so run-offs are likely), but also must receive at least 25% of the votes cast in two-thirds (24) of the 36 states in the Nigerian federation.
Other features were requirements placed on the political parties to be truly national in scope, a powerful independent, non-partisan electoral commission to prepare and run the elections, and judicial review of challenges.
What is interesting is that, while Nigeria has had three constitutional revisions since the totally disastrous First Republic, the basic elements have carried through each one.
As a distant and somewhat desultory observer, I have felt for some time, and feel more certain all the time, that Nigeria has been subject to a kind of creeping constitutionalism and a growing habit of democracy over more than three decades.
The 2011 General Elections
This month Nigeria has completed a mammoth round of elections: for the federal bicameral legislature (April 9), the federal presidency (April 16), and governors of the 36 states (April 26). The scale of the exercise was enormous in every way (very much including cost which has been estimated at more than half a billion dollars). Some 325,000 poll workers manned many thousands of polling stations scattered throughout a vast country where communications and transportation infrastructure remain limited. Sixty-three political parties were registered; at the presidential level, 21 had fielded candidates. (For more detail, go here.)
How did it go?
The ominous precursors were there. The elections, originally scheduled for December 2010, had to be pushed back twice. As usual, registration was a last-minute achievement. There were many problems with ballots, both their preparation and printing (they were complicated with many minor parties that had to be correctly listed) and ballot security. There were many efforts to rig or otherwise falsify or even to derail the elections completely. Just before the presidential election a vehicle traveling north was found to contain 100,000 ballots marked “tendered ballot papers.” Serious bombings occurred before and during the elections.
Also very ominous was a spike in violence (or arbitrary arrest) directed against reporters. This was reported by the international organization Reporters Sans Frontieres, which noted :
“Nigeria has one of the poorest media freedom ratings in Africa and is 145th out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders worldwide Press Freedom Index.”
One could go on and on with such ominous reports. But: surprise!
The Economist (London) almost gushed: “Nigeria’s Successful Elections: Democracy 1, vote-rigging, 0.” They went on, “Gambling on the world’s most expensive voting system has paid off.”
The leader of an international team of observers, Robin Carnahan of the (U.S.) National Democratic Institute, said the vote was “largely free and fair.”
“There were a number of people in our delegation that observed the elections in 2007,” Carnahan said, “and they said they felt like there was a marked difference this year. That there was a determination on the part of the Independent National Electoral Commission to run a real election, [and] a free and fair election. There was determination on the part of the Nigerian people to participate in an election that really reflected their voice.”
European Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) teams’ reports were similar, as was the verdict of the U.S. State Department.
Sweet music!
But then the music ended.
Serious rioting broke out in most of the far northern states, with hundreds killed. There were renewed bombings on the eve of the last set of elections for governor on April 26 (and they could not be held on schedule in at least two of the states). Meanwhile, the major opposition candidate for President (Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change party) and many others are charging (what else?) “massive rigging” that falsified the election.
The Balance Sheet
As the dust clears (and, as the bodies are buried), we see that the damage has been great: more than 500 killed, many more wounded, much property loss, much personal displacement, much loss of personal sense of security. The election and its aftermath have further exacerbated the dangerous combination of anger and fear at the Muslim/Christian interface, especially in the northern states.
If the presidential election of Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party was generally peaceful and fair, as observers tell us, the results may still prove dangerous for the future. Jonathan (Christian, from a southeast minority ethnic group) represented the dominant party (PDP) and his victory was expected by most. He handily met the constitutional requirements for election taking nearly 60% of the popular vote, and winning 24 states outright. Meanwhile, his principal opponent, Muhammadu Buhari (Muslim, Hausa-Fulani, from Katsina) swept the 12 most northern states, but failed to carry any states outside that group (including those that in past elections have tended to associate with the “far north”).
Thus, while Jonathan’s election complied easily with the constitutional requirements for national reach, paradoxically this presidential election seemed to result in a situation of stark regional, ethnic, and religious separation that we have not seen before.
Slouching Towards Democracy?
There were a number of special circumstances in the candidacy of Goodluck Jonathan and the opposition led by Muhammadu Buhari that are too complex to deal with here. Yet, even with allowance being made for these, the 2011 elections are likely to be seen as a watershed in Nigerian politics.
Viewed in national political terms, the far north finds itself (temporarily, at least) in unprecedented isolation. Over most of the previous half century, the Muslim (in ethnic terms, mainly Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri) far north (it was sometimes referred to as the Holy North in the old days) has generally provided the core political leadership for the rest of the huge area of the original Northern Region. During the first political decade, their dominance was absolute.
And throughout the independence period the influence of the far north has been disproportionate at the national level, too. Of the thirteen men who have headed the Nigerian government (military or civilian) since 1960 (see list here), eight have been northern Muslims (one other was a northern Christian). Six of the northern Muslims have been from the core Hausa-Fulani or Kanuri states of the far north. All four of the southern Christian leaders owed their original accession to accidental factors (Jonathan, the latest, became President unexpectedly in May last year after Umaru Yar’Adua (Hausa-Fulani, Katsina) developed a serious illness and finally died in office).
Thus, the landslide election of Jonathan may mark a watershed event in the evolution of Nigerian politics. The historic pattern of at least mild hegemony exerted from the far north may have largely run its course.
This assumes that Nigeria continues its “slouching” progress (borrowing again from Yeats) toward institutionalizing electoral democracy.
Which in turn returns us to the question: Why does Nigeria work so hard and so persistently to create a functioning, stable, permanent democracy?
The costs and dangers, after all, are great. With the country’s complex ethnic makeup, and the now bitter relations between many Christian and Muslim communities, Nigerians know that they live over a political sea of magma that could, at almost any time, erupt.
Yet Nigeria persists in the effort, and, I believe, will continue to persist. At the time that Nigerians were emerging from more than a decade of military rule in the latter 1970s, intellectuals advanced many ideas for a constitutional system that would work for Nigeria, not as one might want Nigeria to be, but as it is. A number advocated indirect, or “guided democracy,” or a benign single-party system. Ultimately, such compromises were rejected in favor of straight, unadulterated winner-take-all electoral democracy with competitive parties. The preponderance of opinion was that Nigeria was too complex a country to function as a single party system, and their experience with military rule had convinced them that benign dictatorship never remains benign.
One could say that Nigeria needs to be a democracy not in spite of its staggering complexity, but because of it.
Paul Beckett taught political science at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, from 1969 to 1976. He is co-author of Education and Power in Nigeria and co-editor of Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria.
SAKO 1. KWANKWASO YA KAFA TARIHI A KANO
Aliyu U. Tilde 12:52am Apr 28
Kwankwaso Ya Kafa Tarihi a Kano.
Bana jin a Kano an taba sarkin da ya je ya dawo. In Shekarau ya karya al'adar single tenure, to Kwankwaso, wanda ban sani ba, ban taba gani ba, ya karya al'adar rashin dawowar sarakuna a kasar Hausa.
Ina tuna abinda kakanmu Sarkin Kano Sanusi (Rahimahullah) ya gayawa Abubakar Rimi (Rahimahullah) lokacin da tsohon gwamnan ya sauka a 1983 zai sake takara a wata jam'iyya. Da ya samu tsohon sarkin a Wudil, ya ce mar ga niyyarsa, sai Sanusi ya ce mar, "Kash, dana, ka yi kuskure. Ai ba a barin mulki a dawo." Sadaqata. Dawowar da Rimi bai yi ba ke nan.
Dawowar Kwankwaso ya fito da amfanin hazaka, da rashin karaya da naci a fili. Nasarar da ya samu ya bauta mata, in za a fadi gaskiya. A 2002/2003 in na tuna jifansa ake, har a lokacin ina kiran haka "Kano intifada" a column dina. Amma abubuwa da yawa sun taimaka masa musamman mukaminsa na minista, da kusancinsa da mutanen jamiyyarsa da daukan nauyinsu, da rashin barinta ya koma wata.
Nasararsa abar yabawa ce, kamar ta Shekarau ce a 2007. Haka kuma darasi ne ga 'yan siyasa musamman 'yan jam'iyyar CPC da suke tsammani za su fake a bayan Buhari su ci nasara. Hakan na iya yiyuwa a jihohin kauye, amma ba a Dala Babbar Hausa ba. Yaro ko da me ka zo an fi ka!
Ina taya Kanawa murnar samun sabon gwamna. Allah ya taya mar da basira, da tausayin talakawansa, da aiki tukuru, ya raba shi da halin tsiya na bita da kulli da zalunci da ramuwar gayya. Allah ja zamaninsa in yai haka. Ku ko talakawansa, Allah ya baku ikon hakuri da shi, da taimaka masa, da kyautata masa zato.
Samun mulki don ai mulki
Manufa jan mulkin bis sidki
Ji amarya kan bata hau doki
Ba, Ba Za a aza mata kaya ba.
....
Ai samu yafi iyawa, shi
Kwado bai mallaki ko dukushi
A ruwa aka san shi makomarshi
Nan ne zai sami abincinshi
Ya yi wasanni da nishadinshi
(Abubakar Ladan)
Don Allah a mika nasiharmu zuwa gareshi.
Shi ko Shekarau, Allah ba shi ladan aikinsa nagari, ya yafemar kurakuransa, ya sauwake masa hisabi gobe kiyama. Kuma talakawansa, yana da kyau ku yafe mar, ku san cewa mulki a kasa cike da talauci da mutane masu son zuciya ba sauki ba ne. Sai mutum yana gwamnati zai san haka. A waje muna waliyi, a ciki muna gafiya, sai wanda Allah ya so.
Haza wasalam
Aliyu
Kwankwaso Ya Kafa Tarihi a Kano.
Bana jin a Kano an taba sarkin da ya je ya dawo. In Shekarau ya karya al'adar single tenure, to Kwankwaso, wanda ban sani ba, ban taba gani ba, ya karya al'adar rashin dawowar sarakuna a kasar Hausa.
Ina tuna abinda kakanmu Sarkin Kano Sanusi (Rahimahullah) ya gayawa Abubakar Rimi (Rahimahullah) lokacin da tsohon gwamnan ya sauka a 1983 zai sake takara a wata jam'iyya. Da ya samu tsohon sarkin a Wudil, ya ce mar ga niyyarsa, sai Sanusi ya ce mar, "Kash, dana, ka yi kuskure. Ai ba a barin mulki a dawo." Sadaqata. Dawowar da Rimi bai yi ba ke nan.
Dawowar Kwankwaso ya fito da amfanin hazaka, da rashin karaya da naci a fili. Nasarar da ya samu ya bauta mata, in za a fadi gaskiya. A 2002/2003 in na tuna jifansa ake, har a lokacin ina kiran haka "Kano intifada" a column dina. Amma abubuwa da yawa sun taimaka masa musamman mukaminsa na minista, da kusancinsa da mutanen jamiyyarsa da daukan nauyinsu, da rashin barinta ya koma wata.
Nasararsa abar yabawa ce, kamar ta Shekarau ce a 2007. Haka kuma darasi ne ga 'yan siyasa musamman 'yan jam'iyyar CPC da suke tsammani za su fake a bayan Buhari su ci nasara. Hakan na iya yiyuwa a jihohin kauye, amma ba a Dala Babbar Hausa ba. Yaro ko da me ka zo an fi ka!
Ina taya Kanawa murnar samun sabon gwamna. Allah ya taya mar da basira, da tausayin talakawansa, da aiki tukuru, ya raba shi da halin tsiya na bita da kulli da zalunci da ramuwar gayya. Allah ja zamaninsa in yai haka. Ku ko talakawansa, Allah ya baku ikon hakuri da shi, da taimaka masa, da kyautata masa zato.
Samun mulki don ai mulki
Manufa jan mulkin bis sidki
Ji amarya kan bata hau doki
Ba, Ba Za a aza mata kaya ba.
....
Ai samu yafi iyawa, shi
Kwado bai mallaki ko dukushi
A ruwa aka san shi makomarshi
Nan ne zai sami abincinshi
Ya yi wasanni da nishadinshi
(Abubakar Ladan)
Don Allah a mika nasiharmu zuwa gareshi.
Shi ko Shekarau, Allah ba shi ladan aikinsa nagari, ya yafemar kurakuransa, ya sauwake masa hisabi gobe kiyama. Kuma talakawansa, yana da kyau ku yafe mar, ku san cewa mulki a kasa cike da talauci da mutane masu son zuciya ba sauki ba ne. Sai mutum yana gwamnati zai san haka. A waje muna waliyi, a ciki muna gafiya, sai wanda Allah ya so.
Haza wasalam
Aliyu
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Short Essay 15: PDP, the Day of Reckoning is Here
Short Essay 15
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
PDP: The Day of Reckoning is Here
Parliamentary elections are taking place in Nigeria today. In the polling booth just few meters from me, it is expected that the ruling party, the PDP, will suffer a terrible loss. Ahmadu, one of the busybodies in the village, just left here, confirming my fears –- or say delight -– about the mammoth, saying, “PDP fa ta tafi”, meaning PDP is gone. The story will be the same in many parts of the North and the Southwest. What will permit it to linger on with some degree of strength is the inability of other parties to field in candidates in many constituencies, as someone correctly observed in an interview yesterday. It will lose its dominance in the National Assembly if the elections are free and fair.
PDP will not die right away. No. I do not think so, for two reasons. One, the opposition parties are too weak to give it a lethal blow now. Two, it will reinvigorate itself especially when the opposition fails to do better in office particularly at the centre. People would begin to compare the present with the past. And in most comparisons between the two, human judgement has favoured the past that it is remote, forgiven and barely remembered against the present that is here, dominant and biting. This has happened in Kano and Bauchi states where the ANPP ousted the PDP, on both occasions with the help of Buhari, in 2003 and 2007 to the extent that in Kano today, Kwankwaso, the former PDP governor, has bright chances of winning the gubernatorial race. In Bauchi too, the masses are anxiously waiting to humiliate their one time saviour, Yuguda, and whom they have dropped like a hot potato.
The opposition must therefore know that victory is a burden. In Nigeria it should only celebrate it briefly; thereafter, the it must rush to face the daunting task of meeting the high expectations of Nigerians – who are as impatient as a baby awaiting delivery. This is an area we will dwell on in later discussions.
If the PDP loses substantial number of seats in the National Assembly but keeps the Presidency by a small margin, it will serve its future well if it uses the next four years to redeem its image among Nigerians. It must run a transparent government with a clear commitment to break away from it's notorious culture of corruption and incompetence. It must also give up its culture of impunity that has generated so much hate against it in the hearts of citizens and prevented it from meeting our expectations. In 1999, the expectation was that Obasanjo would save the country from its path of collapse. We dubbed him the messiah, then. However, in less than a year, his dictatorial tendencies and tolerance for corruption made him lose every goal he aimed at and miss his every target he set. His successors, who he handpicked, have not proved to be better administrators either. Today, PDP at the centre has little to show in 12 years. This failure was its greatest undoing. I, like many Nigerians, would not care which party is in power, so long as it performs.
Then came the anger the PDP generated from rigging elections. The party at all levels blocked any attempt by Nigerians to peacefully register their protest at the polls in 2003 and 2007. Despite its dismal performance at the centre, the party continued to wax stronger and stronger with every election until it was controlling at one time 27 of the 36 states we have. Incumbency was at its worst. Now the people have found their voice. In areas where they feel aggrieved, today presents them the opportunity to unreservedly demand for their pound of flesh from the PDP.
Finally, the opposition in the North has gained a lot from the zoning controversy in the PDP. In fact, a lot of the votes the party would lose in this part of the country will be as a result of Jonathan's intransigence. He has seen how he was coldly received in every gathering he attended in the North, despite the billions he dolled out and the promises he made. It was a big miscalculation that he was impervious to our advice when he assumed office as President: conduct a free and fair election and leave, then return as a celebrated statesman in 2015 to be received warmly across the country. Instead, he chose to use incumbency to win the ticket of his party. If a northerner were given the PDP presidential ticket, the opposition would not have garnered so much support. Many PDP supporters in the region will now be voting for the opposition in the presidential elections.
Well, I will not be surprised if the PDP tries its tricks once more in the following hours. In the senatorial by-elections in Bauchi and Gombe states, we saw a rehearsal of what is likely to happen today. The PDP will allow free and fair elections in cities and semi-urban areas while it will rig them in rural areas where traditional institutions are still strong and the population is less enlightened about its right. Election officials and materials will be diverted to unknown locations for ballot stuffing and people will be repressed if they attempt to protest at collation centres. The government has not hidden its strong disapproval of the vote protection strategy of the opposition. Money will be used to induce election officials, of course. Many local governments have already refused INEC trained agents, claiming that they have trained their own. INEC at the bottom remains as rotten as ever. These were the flaws that characterized those by-elections. Yet, INEC under Jega said they were free and fair! I hope it will not be so this time. How successful will the PDP be in executing its plan remains to be seen; but both the precept and the possibility are here.
The outcome of today's elections will give a lot of insight into the chances of the opposition in subsequent elections. The strengths and strategies of both sides will become clear. It is a legitimate source of worry that the opposition has not united behind one candidate as we pleaded. Perhaps, the results of the elections today will bring home the wisdom for such a unity.
Whatever happens, we do not expect that the PDP will have a smooth ride this time. The paper is spread and the ink that is chronicling its decline is already flowing through the votes of the Nigerian masses.
Tilde,
9 April 2011
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
PDP: The Day of Reckoning is Here
Parliamentary elections are taking place in Nigeria today. In the polling booth just few meters from me, it is expected that the ruling party, the PDP, will suffer a terrible loss. Ahmadu, one of the busybodies in the village, just left here, confirming my fears –- or say delight -– about the mammoth, saying, “PDP fa ta tafi”, meaning PDP is gone. The story will be the same in many parts of the North and the Southwest. What will permit it to linger on with some degree of strength is the inability of other parties to field in candidates in many constituencies, as someone correctly observed in an interview yesterday. It will lose its dominance in the National Assembly if the elections are free and fair.
PDP will not die right away. No. I do not think so, for two reasons. One, the opposition parties are too weak to give it a lethal blow now. Two, it will reinvigorate itself especially when the opposition fails to do better in office particularly at the centre. People would begin to compare the present with the past. And in most comparisons between the two, human judgement has favoured the past that it is remote, forgiven and barely remembered against the present that is here, dominant and biting. This has happened in Kano and Bauchi states where the ANPP ousted the PDP, on both occasions with the help of Buhari, in 2003 and 2007 to the extent that in Kano today, Kwankwaso, the former PDP governor, has bright chances of winning the gubernatorial race. In Bauchi too, the masses are anxiously waiting to humiliate their one time saviour, Yuguda, and whom they have dropped like a hot potato.
The opposition must therefore know that victory is a burden. In Nigeria it should only celebrate it briefly; thereafter, the it must rush to face the daunting task of meeting the high expectations of Nigerians – who are as impatient as a baby awaiting delivery. This is an area we will dwell on in later discussions.
If the PDP loses substantial number of seats in the National Assembly but keeps the Presidency by a small margin, it will serve its future well if it uses the next four years to redeem its image among Nigerians. It must run a transparent government with a clear commitment to break away from it's notorious culture of corruption and incompetence. It must also give up its culture of impunity that has generated so much hate against it in the hearts of citizens and prevented it from meeting our expectations. In 1999, the expectation was that Obasanjo would save the country from its path of collapse. We dubbed him the messiah, then. However, in less than a year, his dictatorial tendencies and tolerance for corruption made him lose every goal he aimed at and miss his every target he set. His successors, who he handpicked, have not proved to be better administrators either. Today, PDP at the centre has little to show in 12 years. This failure was its greatest undoing. I, like many Nigerians, would not care which party is in power, so long as it performs.
Then came the anger the PDP generated from rigging elections. The party at all levels blocked any attempt by Nigerians to peacefully register their protest at the polls in 2003 and 2007. Despite its dismal performance at the centre, the party continued to wax stronger and stronger with every election until it was controlling at one time 27 of the 36 states we have. Incumbency was at its worst. Now the people have found their voice. In areas where they feel aggrieved, today presents them the opportunity to unreservedly demand for their pound of flesh from the PDP.
Finally, the opposition in the North has gained a lot from the zoning controversy in the PDP. In fact, a lot of the votes the party would lose in this part of the country will be as a result of Jonathan's intransigence. He has seen how he was coldly received in every gathering he attended in the North, despite the billions he dolled out and the promises he made. It was a big miscalculation that he was impervious to our advice when he assumed office as President: conduct a free and fair election and leave, then return as a celebrated statesman in 2015 to be received warmly across the country. Instead, he chose to use incumbency to win the ticket of his party. If a northerner were given the PDP presidential ticket, the opposition would not have garnered so much support. Many PDP supporters in the region will now be voting for the opposition in the presidential elections.
Well, I will not be surprised if the PDP tries its tricks once more in the following hours. In the senatorial by-elections in Bauchi and Gombe states, we saw a rehearsal of what is likely to happen today. The PDP will allow free and fair elections in cities and semi-urban areas while it will rig them in rural areas where traditional institutions are still strong and the population is less enlightened about its right. Election officials and materials will be diverted to unknown locations for ballot stuffing and people will be repressed if they attempt to protest at collation centres. The government has not hidden its strong disapproval of the vote protection strategy of the opposition. Money will be used to induce election officials, of course. Many local governments have already refused INEC trained agents, claiming that they have trained their own. INEC at the bottom remains as rotten as ever. These were the flaws that characterized those by-elections. Yet, INEC under Jega said they were free and fair! I hope it will not be so this time. How successful will the PDP be in executing its plan remains to be seen; but both the precept and the possibility are here.
The outcome of today's elections will give a lot of insight into the chances of the opposition in subsequent elections. The strengths and strategies of both sides will become clear. It is a legitimate source of worry that the opposition has not united behind one candidate as we pleaded. Perhaps, the results of the elections today will bring home the wisdom for such a unity.
Whatever happens, we do not expect that the PDP will have a smooth ride this time. The paper is spread and the ink that is chronicling its decline is already flowing through the votes of the Nigerian masses.
Tilde,
9 April 2011
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