WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER
info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com
While politics and political games in general are about contest and contention, the politics of identity presents a particular kind of contentious and, in some ways, destructive politics in the context of contemporary Nigeria experience. Contentious politics in the sense that it generates a variety of inter-population divisive struggles and inter-tribal movements that are often geared towards anti-development than it positively influences the system. In Nigeria, ethno-politics and religious identity fixation have become the kernel of contentious politics.
Our insistence on laying claims to superiority of religion, tribe or our groups and expecting the same to bear on others who we literarily expect to succumb to our selfish objects of claims has continuously remained mainly our undoing as a people and a nation. And the fact that we are not ready before, now, and in the nearest future from all indications, to stage a departure from this destructive status quo proves more than any other factors that the allowance of politics of identity fixation is our greatest national challenge.
A direct offshoot of the unrelenting fixation is the fact that as a country we have finally gotten to the point where, the only thing that matters to us despite all the variant of socio-economic, cultural and infrastructural challenges our country faces, is that we only care on the outcomes of the religious struggles and tribal brawls. We don’t ask or answer questions any longer on the basis of merit and benefit to our economic and infrastructural development; nor do we care about any other factors without a link, direct or otherwise to our religious and tribal affiliations.
The politicians recognising this ailment in our system, since the first republic have sharpened them, converted them to political tools and have continued to exert them to win elections while the common masses remain impoverished.
Resultantly, we have ended up at the point where we now have nonentities occupying the corridors of power across the country. We have senators who are senators today because they belong to a particular religion, tribe or group who laid claim to the position per time. Today we have a senator who made it to the upper chamber because he is a Christian and a Christian must become the Senator from his constituency. The same, though referred to as a Christian, is married to three wives and at a number of times been caught in the middle of atrocities that should not be identified with a Christian; atrocities like beating a woman and visiting a sex doll shop. That is what the politics of identity fixation has done to us. Competency is not a requirement for political office in our country any longer; we don’t discuss who becomes what on that basis again but on the stance of myopic acceptance based on religion, tribe or some group association.
When our sense of reasoning as a people becomes clouded with our fixation on unproductive gyration of the sense of protection of religious and some tribal affiliations at the expense of all that really matters, it becomes relatively easy for us to line up in our number behind individuals we do not really know but who we have to support because our fixation on identity has made them candidates for our support.
It is unavoidable that such politics will exist (at least at the local level). The important issue then is not that ethnic and religious fixation politics occurs, but the environment within which it is taking place and the sensitivity of our current situation to the effects it brings on; in the form of derailment of the functioning of our nation in securing justice, equality and social goods for Nigerians as well as the erosion of impartial, inclusive and fair citizen participations. It ought to be that, no matter how intense the political competition may become and no matter what prejudices, stereotypes and fixations become unleashed on the political competition, the contest should not drift towards ignoring the importance of competency and quality delivery but elevating religious and tribal biases. Our democracy must not and cannot be allowed to remain threatened by the prevailing local ethno-political and religious fixation contests.
Is that not the case of the crowd that is thronging behind Peter Obi’s candidature? They know very little about his antecedent and care not what his past is. It doesn’t matter to them what baggage of dirt you have on him. They care less. He could be the devil himself, but they have chosen him. The only reason Peter Obi would not be president in 2023 is because the country is lucky enough that the population of Nigerians who wants him because he is from the South-East or those who want him because he seems to represent the rejected because he was sniffed out of PDP or for any other reasons aren’t large enough to elect a president.
Today, despite all the recorded atrocities against Atiku Abubakar as a person, and the very damaging report against his person by his erstwhile leader, which he wouldn’t refute or get angry at as it normally should be, his political bloc do not care. They have heard about his part in doling out the nation’s many businesses to his friends and cronies and being instrumental to the loss of many domestic manufacturing ventures and capacities, all in the name of privatisation; but they are unrepentantly set to give him a lift to the presidency, regardless of what his plans are for them and for the country.
It is in the same discussion that the same set of people have chosen to hate and disparage the person and candidacy of another candidate; Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. When you prodded them to know what the offences are, they said he is old, yet he is in the same age bracket with the Atiku they are busy selling. They came again with the rhetoric on his health condition that was never an issue some months ago when he had not declared his intention for the position. In all this, they do not want to talk about Tinubu’s capacity nor of his track record as an astute political leader and a political office holder. The hatred for Tinubu is all about identity fixation; he is hated not because he is not capable but because he is a stumbling block to another candidate they would prefer because he is their fixated choice.
We all just witnessed events as they unfolded in the Osun state governorship election contest and the choice the people had made. I am still asking questions; why Ademola Adeleke? What antecedents be it of outstanding performance or other notable feats positions him for the support he got from the people? Was he a beneficiary of religious based campaign; an assault on Muslim-Muslim ticket of APC; or did he become the governor because he was attracted to the people who love his many dancing steps and become fixated on having him as their governor? I wonder if at any time, the issue of his administrative and leadership capacity was placed on the table. The people of Osun State have decided, but what is to come from their decision is secondary.
Until the time comes when we realise that our fixation on religious and tribal biases isn’t getting us anywhere good and end it, we will remain a politically rundown nation where a clique controls the majority with permission from the majority. That time when we come to the realisation that following individuals and empowering them to become leaders over us on the back of religious and tribal identification doesn’t benefit the majority. Incompetent individuals projected to power by religious and tribal fixated population would remain incompetent, and would literarily serve the population no good. Have we not asked ourselves these pertinent questions; in all the years of Hausa/Fulani leadership of Nigeria, how many poor Hausa and Fulani men and women have been taken off the street and got settled; in all the eight years of Jonathan in government, how many natives of the South-south, ordinary men and women of the region can boldly claim that their lives are better. The answer is very simple, and it is the reality of the error we are making; regardless of the religion or tribe of the leader we impose on the system. When competence is sacrificed, we would never be the beneficiary of the dividends of good leadership; it would always be a clique of cronies who has nothing to do with the tribe or religious fixation we expended to bring them to the position that would ironically be enjoying the benefits of their incompetent leadership.
This is a new era of national development in the global agenda; serious nations are according total consideration and value to capacity and ability as a measure of selecting and presenting leadership. Politics of identity fixation is a long forgotten issue for nations that value real leadership and effective state development. It is time Nigerians returned to their senses and joined the train.
GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!