Shed Your Own Blood, Mr. Politician!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Whenever Nigerian politicians threaten that blood would flow if they lose in an election, what they always have in mind is not their own blood or that of their children and wives.  Even their distant relations and friends do not figure in their calculations.

*Post-election violence: who dies? (pix: salon)

What they have in mind is the blood of grossly impoverished Nigerians (people totally unfamiliar and unrelated to them whose death or impairment would not interfere with their happiness, assuming they even get to hear of it) whom they believe they would always be able to easily brainwash and deceive with dirty naira notes to unleash violence. These sometimes waste their lives in the service of those selfish and ultra-callous politicians who do not even place the slightest hint of worth on the lives of other Nigerians. These politicians have also learnt to deploy two usually highly reliable intoxicants, namely, ethnicity and godless religion, to confuse and blur the reasoning of the people and lure them into the streets to embrace their wasteful deaths.

But Nigerian masses must hasten to realize that they have been fooled and debased for so long now. It is time to place great value on their lives and nudge themselves into the edifying awareness that the politicians that move them into the streets are in no way superior to them. In fact, they may even possess more dignity and even better intelligence than those politicians they are worshiping. Indeed, no politician is worth dying for! So, during these 2015 elections, Nigerians must firmly reject and resist their enchantments and refuse to put their lives on the line because of any politician.

*Buhari and Jonathan: The president met with 

Buhari and other presidential candidates recently

 to commit themselves to violence-free elections  

(pix: vangaurd)

What it means then is that any politician threatening that blood would flow should start with his own blood and that of his wife and children. That is the message Nigerians, especially, the young people, must clearly underline for the politicians coming to hire them as thugs or pay them to perpetrate violence during the coming elections.

PUNCH newspaper of Saturday, January 18, 2015, reported on its front page that Nigerian politicians, fearing a possible outbreak of violence during the February elections, have begun to relocate their families abroad. The newspaper quotes a staff of a travel agency in Lagos as saying: 

“Before the political parties’ primaries held late [last] year, we procured tickets for the families of some politicians and we believe that they must have left the country by now. The politicians started procuring their tickets from the first week of this month.”

Now, what does this teach Nigerians? The same people hoping to call for violence and bloodshed when they lose in the coming elections have already taken care to remove their families from the theatre of war and bloodletting. After these pitiably deluded Nigerians (who ought to have united against their common enemy – the politician who does not retain any care about them) must have fought and maimed or killed each other, the politician will emerge from the safety of his hideout and make peace with his opponent on the graves of those who had died for him, and then be compensated with a juicy position for “losing his supporters”. Then he would send and bring his family home to come and enjoy his new unearned wealth (proceeds of mindless treasury looting), luxury and comfort secured with the blood of his so-called supporters.

*US Secretary of State, John Kerry, met with 

various party leaders in Abuja recently on the need

to abhor post-election violence. Here, he meets 

with Gen Buhari (pix: US Embassy)

When will the long-suffering Nigerian masses learn? When will they realize who their real enemies are? When will they stop fighting their fellow victims, those who are savagely oppressed and impoverished as themselves and by the same set of rapacious and heartless creatures, and join hands together to put their common enemy (the politician) in his place by ensuring that they use their votes prudently?    

Only recently, the leaders of the various political parties met in Abuja to sign an agreement committing themselves to violence-free elections in February.  The star photograph of that meeting was the image of President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari, grinning from ear to ear, hugging each other. But, despite that symbolic gesture of peace and friendship by the two leading presidential candidates, some people are already expressing grave doubts about the willingness of our politicians to abide by that agreement. Quite a number of them are still beating drums of war here and there. There are, also, still cases of their supporters attacking the supporters of their opponents. There is palpable desperation and fear everywhere. Southerners have, reportedly, begun to leave the North in droves, thereby disenfranchising themselves by leaving the locations where they are registered to vote. 

When politicians are defeated in an election, they always claim that they were “rigged out.” Elections are only "rigged" when they lose. But if they win, they would heartily describe the contest as “free and fair”. This is not to dismiss genuine cases of malpractices which our courts are there to address. But those who are too impatient with the seemingly slow pace of the judicial process and so prefer to resort to self-help because they believe they can always incite and induce poor people to unleash violence and put their lives at risk should in fact physically lead such violent protests. They should let history record them as the first martyrs of the violent protests instead of being the ones to address large press conferences to shed crocodile tears about how their supporters were brutally killed by the supporters of their opponents during a clash. Why is it that we hardly see the names of prominent politicians or members of their families in the list of casualties after violent protests?

*A game of death: Only for the poor! (pix: hrw)

A very ugly spot in our recent electoral history still haunts our memory. After the 2011 elections, more than 800 people, including young Nigerians on National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) assignments, were brutally murdered in the North by hoodlums protesting the outcome of the presidential elections in which General Buhari lost to President Jonathan. Churches were freely burnt as innocent Nigerians, mostly Christians and Southerners, were hunted down and cruelly slaughtered by Buhari’s supporters. 

Now, 2015 is here and Nigeria is facing another election. It is hoped that we must have recorded some improvements and refinement in the way we think and react to issues. I am, therefore, appealing to supporters of all the candidates to place more value on their own lives and those of others and resist any incitement and inducement to perpetrate violence. 

They should hasten to realize that they have just only one precious life and it would be terribly stupid to waste it to massage a politician’s ego and gratify his selfish craving. 

Please, before you rush into the streets to kill, maim and torch public and private properties, you must ask yourself: why am I really doing this; what value would this add to my country and my own existence; how does it make my life better; assuming I waste my life in the process what have I gained; why is the person for whom I am doing this not involved, and why are members of his family not on the streets with me? Think, Nigerians think!

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*Ejinkeonye is a columnist with Daily Independent newspaper, Lagos . His column appears every Tuesday on the back page of the paper.