Nigeria And The 2015 Deadline By Leonard Karshima Shilgba

In 2010 when the drumbeats for the
2011 general elections in Nigeria grew
louder, a group of elders in Northern
Nigeria, called the Northern Elders
Forum, made very threatening noises
and insisted on having a Nigerian from
the North emerge as the president of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I
remember that I did an article in
which I unreservedly deplored such
divisive inclination by elders such as
Adamu Ciroma. I was not and am still
not interested in which part of
Nigeria a president should come from.
I did not rebuke my elders from the
North because I wanted President
Jonathan to become Nigeria’s
president. In fact, I warned in an
article published in May 2010, Nigeria:
Interpreting Times and Events, that
President Jonathan would disappoint
many who had hopes in him. And I
must confess that he has.
During the fuel subsidy protests in
January 2012, Jonathan’s kinswoman,
Ankio Briggs made a very
condemnable statement. She said, “If
Nigerians don’t want President
Jonathan, then they don’t need our
oil.” People like her saw the protests
against the removal of the subsidy as
rejection of Jonathan.
People like Ms Briggs considered it
wrong for Nigerians to complain even
though they were fed such
unpalatable menu of ill-conceived and
wrongly-delivered policies, which have
rather exacerbated the already hard
living conditions of Nigerians without
any prior preparations at ameliorating
them. I may be corrected; but were
Nigerians from the Niger Delta region
immune to the removal of the
subsidy? Did Jonathan make a secret
deal to alleviate the sufferings of
Niger Delta people?
Now that the year 2015 approaches
when general elections shall hold again
in Nigeria, almost every statement,
action, and maybe thought, for those
with clairvoyant powers, is being
interpreted to mean support or the
lack thereof for President Jonathan.
What is so special about President
Jonathan that people such as Asari
Dokubo and his collaborators think
that Nigeria would cease to exist
should President Jonathan not “win”
the 2015 presidential elections? Even
performing presidents are voted
against by the people during elections
in various democracies in the world;
how much more an under-achieving
president? So, if I and Nigerians who
think like me vote against President
Jonathan in 2015, then Mr. Dokubo
could mobilize against us. Do we elect
to have democracy or its aberration?
Must people be frightened to vote for
a candidate or persuaded with reason
and pleasing evidence?
I have read and listened to arguments
concerning the election of the
chairman of the Nigerian Governors’
Forum (NGF), which produced a winner
who got 19 votes against his contender
that scored 16. As a mathematician, I
can prove that the number 19 is
greater than 16. I am sorry, even
non-mathematicians should know that
19 is a greater number than 16. But,
for the sake of reasoning, let us
assume that number 16 is greater
than 19. Well, if you rotate the digit
6 in number 16 clockwise through
angle 180 degrees, you would get
number 19. But it is trite that 180-
degree rotation always yields the
opposite. Therefore, 16 can never be
19, or even greater than 19. Thus, we
have proved by contradiction the
fooleries of Nigerians who claim that
the candidate who scored 16 votes in
the NGF election is the winner of that
election.
I have seen a strange thing. Even
ordinarily reasonable people, in the
efforts at foisting falsehood upon our
national consciousness, have been
found to support or defend the
indefensible. And I am concerned. How
can the president of Nigeria support
an illegality? How can the president
of the Nigerian Bar Association
disrobe himself of judicial perception?
How can Nigerians that have loudly
called for “credible elections” in the
past accept that number 16 is greater
than number 19? And why would some
Nigerians call for the “proscription”
of the NGF only because a pretender,
with the backing of President
Jonathan and a host of enemies of
democracy, has proclaimed himself
the chairman of the NGF, even though
he participated in the election—
contested and voted—and lost?
Should states in Nigeria be
“proscribed” in the future when
pretenders claim to win gubernatorial
election? Should Nigeria be
“proscribed” in 2015 when the loser
proclaims himself the winner? Why
have we suddenly lost the voice to
speak up? Why has decency taken
flight out of the room? President
Jonathan is showing his hand; he is
doing a dress rehearsal of what to do
in 2015. I must announce loudly, as I
wrote in my article in January this
year, The Prince On Foot, the gate of
the palace has been shut against
Jonathan.
Few days ago, the Egyptian army
sacked a democratically-elected
president presumably to bring about
peace and stability in that country.
The head of the judiciary, Adly
Mansour was sworn in as caretaker
president until new elections should be
held to elect a new president. Nations
have reacted differently in measured
degrees. Very indicative of a strange
trend is the response from the US
government, which is not to insist on
the restoration of President Morsy to
his elected position. The US
government calls on the Egyptian
army to “quickly and responsibly
return full authority to an elected
civilian government.”
It should be noted that the US
government is not insisting on
restoration of full authority to
President Morsy, but rather to “an
elected civilian government.” The
military general who announced the
removal of President Morsy had been
appointed by President Morsy. The
Brazilian government calls for
dialogue in Egypt in order to fulfill
the people’s demands for democracy,
freedom and prosperity. This is what I
would refer to as a call for a
sovereign national conference. The
Syrian president commented,
“Whoever uses religion for political
gains or in favor of one party without
the other will fall in every place of
the world.” The Muslim Brotherhood,
the party that had produced former
President Morsy, has got its
headquarters destroyed and its
leaders are being arrested. The people
simply got fed-up with the party and
president they had elected (yes,
elected!), and the military had to step
in at the expiration of a deadline
issued to Mr. Morsy to implement a
set roadmap for rescue.
Democracy without freedom and
prosperity is like a car without an
engine or an empty plate served to a
hungry person; he would break the
plate in exasperation and frustration!
The emerging trend in Egypt is a
lesson to countries such as Nigeria.
The infamous section 134 of the
Electoral Act 2010 as amended, which
places time limitations on electoral
litigation, which limitations were
exploited to deny fair hearing to
petitioners and to preserve rigged
elections in 2011, has not been
attended to yet by the national
assembly in order to cure the abuses
of the past. It seems to me that the
nation has gone asleep without a care
that it may be used again in 2015. But
I warn that then, it would spell doom
to our democratic experiment.
Section 102 of the Electoral Act
(2010) states as follows: “Any
candidate, person or association who
engages in campaigning or
broadcasting based on religious, tribal
or sectional reason for the purpose of
promoting or opposing a particular
political party or the election of a
particular candidate, is guilty of an
offence under this Act and on
conviction is liable to a maximum fine
of N 1,000,000 or imprisonment for
twelve months or to both.” Need I say
that the politics of zoning, to the
exclusion of certain candidates, is
against the Electoral Act? Have we
not repeatedly shown ourselves to be
outlaws in this country?
I have written copiously about re-
engineering Nigeria. I have proposed a
suspension of the quasi-democratic
rehearsals we have engaged in since
1999. The Nigerian military can take a
critical look at the happenings in
Egypt, the reactions by nations of the
world to those, and consider how to
instigate a rescue of the nation if the
present politicians fail to reverse the
human deprivations and insecurity in
our nation. Brazen impunity by those
who should protect and preserve the
law is our great undoing in Nigeria
while poverty and worsening
unemployment are time bombs ticking
away. Should a military intervention in
Nigeria become necessary, it should
be to install a caretaker civilian
government to begin the serious work
of nation-building, to wit, the
convening of a sovereign national
conference, which shall lead to the
framing of a people’s constitution
(Read the following essays of mine
online, “Re-engineering Nigeria, Part
1”; “A Manual for a Sovereign
National Conference”; and “Dialogue
On a Sovereign National Conference”).
I cannot conclude without calling on
Nigerian scholars and technocrats like
me to seriously consider becoming
involved in the noble art and science
of politics for nation-building, at
least for the sake of our children
whom we must not allow to grow up to
old age in such a crisis-laden country.
There is a limit to what our writings
and academic advocacy can accomplish
in an environment that is anti-
intellectual. We must consider
becoming activists in government. We
must not consciously seek government
appointment; rather, we must seek out
our people, patiently enlighten them,
and ask for their mandate to serve in
public positions of influence that shall
enable us implement those ideas we
have written or spoken about
repeatedly. If you have got a burden,
the burden to build this country, then
you must find a political vehicle and
work through it courageously,
diligently, and with faith to achieve
the goal. It is usually said that
Nigerians are docile. I think we the
supposedly enlightened ones are both
docile and cowardly, and also selfish. I
hope your lamentations shall not
continue beyond 2015. Now is the time
to work. It is time to be selfless and
bold. These traits are infectious. The
masses are like their scholars and
philosophers. If we have betrayed the
cause, they will. If, in spite of our
relative comfort, we can still
compromise for a pot of broth, why
can’t the masses sell their votes for a
kobo? Arise, ye cowardly and selfish
Nigerian elite!

Leonard Shilgba is an itinerant scholar
and Associate Professor of
Mathematics with the American
University of Nigeria (about to leave).
shilgba@yaho.com