What the 2015 elections should have taught us
It is clear to many that the Buhari administration has underperformed so far (this may change, but that is beside the point). This underperformance has led to a lot of scrutiny of the behaviour of Nigerians during the lead up to the 2015 elections. A lot of the focus has been on the vitriolic behaviour of some supporters on social media. While I understand the reasons behind this, I’d like to focus on some key issues we should have learnt from the entire incident and key steps we should (have taken) take:
1. Nigeria needs electoral reform
During the 2015 elections and preceding elections, I felt that we did not have enough choices. I am sure many Nigerians felt that way. In order to be a serious candidate, it seemed you either had to be an ex-government official, linked to an ex-government official or connected to some godfather or tycoon.
There are a lot of factors behind this, but an electoral system that doesn’t try to encourage transparency, especially finacial transparency does not help matters. One thing Nigerians should have realized from the 2011 or 2015 elections is that our electoral system tends to throw up the same options in the same uneven ways that lead to the same results.
Even if Buhari had turned out (or turns out) to be a stellar president, we should have still moved to fix our electoral system. Most of the campaign financing for both major candidates was very opaque and such a system would definitely lead to deleterious outcomes in future elections.
In a perfect world, most of us should have focused our energy from May 30th 2015 on ensuring electoral reform measures such as a cap to campaign budgets and individual donations, more transparency to campaign finance, improvement in INEC logistics etc. were pushed as far as possible. I am not saying we would have gotten all we wanted, but we may have seen improvements to the system that will make the 2019 elections a bit better.
2. Our Media’s weaknesses
One thing the run up to the 2015 election showed two weaknesses in our media: Shallowness and tendency for bias.
a. Shallowness: Throughout the campaign period, I longed for a deep view of what each candidate thought on certain key national issues like Power, housing, National structure, diversity management, trade etc. Somehow, there seemed to be little (or not enough) mention of this or the candidates history on such issues in the media. Instead, Nigerians were regaled with sensational but inconsequential stories. It seemed like a case of the “bikeshed effect”, where the media unable to handle deep issues of governance, chose to focus for the most part on simpler more trivial issues; this robbed Nigerians (whatever number of us who cared)of a chance to see each candidate thought patterns on such key issues. Even when seious issues were raised, there seemed to be a lack of depth in the way they were handled, leading to similar results
Nigeria’s media also helped frame the election as a single issue election, an election focused on corruption. While this is understandable, is this something we want to accept going forward, given how it prevented us from looking at other aspects of national life which seem to not be getting the right type of attention now?
b. Tendency for Bias & unprofessionalism: While a level of bias is expected from the media, since it is run by human beings, Nigerian media has been hit hard by what many call a “brown envelope syndrome”. It is common to see media briefings end with “transport money” being shared and also common to see media houses only touch issues sanctioned by their various paymasters or owners. This phenomenon when added to the earlier problem of shallowness leads to a very poor media diet for Nigerians. This affects the quality of decisions the electorate can make.
We need media houses and voices that can provide deeper, fairer, more knowledgeable views on policy issues, candidate histories etc at all levels. This may help improve decisions in future elections.
3. Civic & Voter Education
While one may want to fully blame the media for not providing the right information, it is also important to note that this was made possible by the absence of a large audience for such forms of information. Currently, a good number of Nigerians lack a strong grasp on the functions of government and other key institutions. This can be clearly seen in some expectations that keep being laid at the feet of a President or Presidential candidates that may actually lie within the realm and functions of other arms or tiers of government e.g. State or the Judiciary or Legislature.
Once again, we should have given our energy to finding ways to ensure Nigerians at the grassroot get some form of orientation about the part the different institutions in government play. This may not work immediately but over time, I believe we will reap benefits of a more enlightened society and electorate.
4. Ethnicity and National Structure
Inspite of all the talk of a better electoral process and a more involved citizenry, one thing that can be easily seen is that voting patterns remained largely ethnic for the most parts: From wedge politics in areas where the “big” candidates hailed from to low turnouts in areas whichfelt they had no dog in the fight, Nigerians largely stuck to the same ethnic patterns with only minor variations.
What can we (young people with a mind for reform) learn from this? For now, ethnic voting seems to be a fact in most parts of Nigeria, so anyone who wants to drive change in Nigeria must be ready to form cross-nationl alliances.
Also, ethnic voting should not be seen as a bad thing in itself. We need to find out the many reasons why people vote in such patterns, one such reason may be that there regional are needs that “our man” speaks to that “the outsider” ignores? If so, candidates may need to carry out good research to know what issues are important to people in diffferent regions, similar to what the Macron campaign did with it’s early surveys. There is an assumption that the issues all around Nigeria at the same and that all that is needed is to wear different attires in different locations, while saying the same thing, that assumption is weak.
Also, we may need to consider structural changes to Nigeria that make the presidency less of a zero sum game. This is more of a long term suggestion
5. Debates
One thing that was sorely missed during the last elections was debate between the major candidates. Debates are a chance for the electorate to seee the stance of candidates on many issues. A few discussions I have had with some supporters of the wining candidate shows me that many of them had no idea of their candidates stance on issues they felt were important to them before the election.
One thing I also noticed is that many supporters of different candidates simply project their desires on said candidates, one example for instance was with Buhari: young socially liberal Nigerians somehow forgot the fact that he is socially conservative, while people who are in support of more fiscal conservatism projected their own beliefs on him. At the same time his core support group actually supported him because he was the opposite of these things, a debate would have cleared his stance on such issues, while preventing some of the buyer’s remorse we currently see.
Another benefit of encouraging a culture of debate among political figures is that it may introduce new ideas to solving problems, so that even if the candidates with such good ideas on specific issues do not win, winning candidates would have been exposed to such ideas.
6. Decidng what (not who) we want
One thing I seem to not have seen is a clear difference in ideology in both parties. Ideology need not be seen as some elevated idea, a group’s ideology may simply be its desires and it’s ways to achieve them.
This lack of ideology is more or less clearly reflected in the inability of many Nigerians to clearly define what they would see as good governance and how it would work in their lives. This leaves the populace a lot more vulnerable to being led by one charismatic person, moneybag or media campaign during every election cycle.
We all need to deeply check ourselves and decide what we want from our government, so that when candidates come in a year or two, we can then evaluate them based on this checklist and how close they are to it. I for example may have freedom of speech, small government, education reform high on my priority list, you may have good roads, abundant subsidies etc on yours. Such a list may help us join or even start parties of like-minded people. No matter the list, it is important to have it ready before the pageantry of the electoral season.
In conclusion, while I think we haven’t moved in the right direction since the 2015 elections ended, I believe that we can still take some steps that will make the 2019 elections process better on the path to a more improved Nigeria.
