There is a shrinking feeling about it all. With each off -season election that is conducted and results announced, we feel smaller and more unfree as a polity. Our elections bring about more insecurity; unpopular electoral outcomes require goons and thugs to protect illicit incumbents. And of course a larger number of election related court cases spring up to create work and money for an army of lawyers and judges. The state of alienation of the majority of the people is palpable. The elation and celebration is mostly among the minority of those who happen to have ‘won’ in this particular election. For the rest, the majority of consequential electorate, it is an overwhelming sense of betrayal, of being hoodwinked and ousted from what was meant to be a general celebration of democracy and collective empowerment.
As we conduct more elections, the size of our voter population seems to be shrinking. In fact, it seems to be running in inverse relation to the longevity of our democracy. The more the number of years we celebrate as a “democracy”, the smaller the voter population seems to be running. After 25 years of unbroken democracy, our sense of democratic participation and involvement seems to be thinning out, shrinking as we conduct more ‘successful’ elections. In short, many more Nigerians now feel excluded from the process of leadership selection than they did in 1999.
It is worse. In order to guarantee more security on election day, the population of policemen, soldiers, State Security Service personnel, civil defense personnel and other paramilitary personnel swamp voters, candidates and election officials. The atmosphere is one of a garrison event. Voting venues sometimes look more like mini garrisons with uniformed personnel in full battle gear menacingly on patrol in election venues. You wonder who the “enemy” is really as these personnel brandish assault rifles and handguns. These scenes hardly remind you of a ritual in praise of freedom to choose leaders. People are frightened. Sensible people either stay away to be safe or avoid these scenes of undeclared war. In any case, more often than not, the end results that are declared often run counter to the real expressions of the wishes of the people. Even if peoples’ express wishes are reflected in the results, those ‘elected’ do whatever they wish, not what the people voted for.
The frightening prospect about Nigerian democracy is that fewer and fewer people are coming out to vote. People register and obtain voters cards for identification purposes, not necessarily for voting. You never know which bank or government office might need a voters card for identification! Otherwise, people register as voters and prefer to stay home and safe on election days!
Recently, in rapid succession, off-season governorship elections have successfully held in Edo and Ondo states. In spite of charges of rampant vote trading and other minor familiar bad behaviour among political mobs, the elections largely testified to a degree of democratic commitment. The announced results have since formed the basis for a peaceful transfer of power from one gubernatorial dispensation to its successor. The aggrieved have since proceeded to courts and tribunals in a shameful tradition that only castigates the sorry quality of our elections. To that extent, democracy can be said to be alive and well in Nigeria. We hold periodic elections. Elaborate logisitics are laid out. Big money is often wasted. Results are announced. Election officials and political hacks cash out and go home richer from a season of harvest. Some even build new houses.
Yet for all the appearance of democratic progress, Nigeria may be sliding more into minority rule than progressing with democracy as majority rule. The most classic definition of democracy is the rule and triumph of the majority as a result of credible elections. Yes, the majority is a statistical dominance which overwhelms the minority. It presupposes that those qualified to vote participate in the ballot and overwhelm the minority in a triumph of the majority. Majoritarian prevalence is the essence of democratic rule. If however, the reverse obtains, a situation in which the minority prevails over the majority and their electoral verdict comes to determine who rules, then we may have enthroned a curious minority rule. Something is wrong when an exercise that was intended to serve majority rule ends up repeatedly enthroning minority rule.
In both Edo and Ondo, the new governors were elected by less than 25% of the registered voters. In Edo, only 24.49% of the 2.6 million registered voters cast their votes. Similarly in Ondo, less than 500, 000 or 25% of the registered 2 million voters cast votes. Other registered voters either stayed away or could not be bothered that something important was taking place in their states on the election days. This trend merely accentuates a trend that had gathered steam in the 2023 presidential election.
In the 2023 presidential elections, only 26.72% of registered voters cast their votes mostly for the three main candidates with a smattering of votes for the other numerous candidates of the nearly 80 parties. That dismal turnout and the overall result cast a pall over the election and its confusing nature has lingered and tormented the incumbency of Mr. Bola Tinubu as president till date. For good reason, Mr. Tinubu is viewed more as a ”minority” leader on account of being sworn into office on the basis of less than 9 million votes in a population of over 80 million registered voters and a national population of 200 million odd people.
Literally about 24.9 million voted in that presidential election in what is a 44-year low in voter turnout. Tinubu got 8.8 million votes to be sworn to rule over a nation of over 200 million with over 80 million registered voters!
The conventional wisdom in established democracies is to reduce low voter statistics to low voter turnout. Thereafter, all manner of explanations and academic explanations are sought for low voter turnout. What however is breeding in Nigeria is not just low voter turnout in an established democracy. It is a deepening malaise. It is a progressive mass apathy, a turning away from democracy. It is a vote of no confidence in democracy and its serial disappointments over the years. People have been losing interest over time to elections and their efficacy as instruments for democratic change.
An election may change the personae that drives a democratic government. But elections in Nigeria have failed serially in improving the quality of governance, the quality of live of the people. If we reduce the essence of democratic governance to the qualitative change in the lives of the people, then elections must mean more than periodic rituals. They must mean the use of elections to replace a less effective an ineffective government with a more effective one. In it all, democracy and the elections that power it must be a change mechanism to empower a more effective governance in the delivery of good governance. If periodic elections fail to empower leadership that brings about positive change in the life of the people, then elections begin to lose their import and meaning.
In recent years, people are more excited by the entertainment value of the ritual of election season. There are the massive campaigns, mass movements, the garish party -inspired costumes and of course the gifts, cash handouts, items of “stomach infrastructure” and other inducements to drive partisan followership. Outside these fleeting elements, the actual ritual of voting means nothing. Most people have already concluded that the elections will not fundamentally change their lives from the perspective of real governance action.
At best, the ritual of democracy and elections becomes a class thing. The elite tend to see elections as the business of the lower classes, those who are gullible, who can be enticed with petty cash inducement, small gifts, and empty promises . These are people who can afford the time and inconvenience to go out and wait endlessly in the elements to cast a vote and justify their petty inducement packages. The elite are too busy with other important things and cannot afford the inconvenience. In any case, their existential conveniences have been guaranteed by their social and occupational entitlements and position. They reduce good governance to material good things. Why queue to vote if you have water, electricity, a car, personal security guards or some left over cash to send junior to a nice school? Active political choice at election time is therefore left to active party members, the few that can be mobilized, induced or bought to vote for chosen candidates.
On election day, the elite wait in the comfort of their cozy homes while their servants, gatemen, divers, cooks, stewards, nannies and other menial and servile dependents troop out to vote and decide on who rules the next dispensation. When subsequently the governance process goes awry and society fares poorly, the elite leads in the criticism and complaints. This is the contradiction of Nigerian democracy.
The vast majority of people , namely, the elite, the rural and urban majority are alienated from the electoral process. People spend years going through a democratic ritual of elections without seeing any positive changes in their life circumstances. Nothing changes. Therefor, over time, the majority of people see little or no point in subsequent elections. The outcome is a succession of ‘minority’ governments over time. This is the underlying logic of the recent results that we have seen in recent times. Our low voter turnout means the prevalence of minority rule, government by the minority over the majority.
Yet, it is the verdict of this statistical minority that goes to determine the outcome of our elections. This minority elects the next president, the next set of governors, legislators , local government officials etc. In effect, we have a democracy controlled by a statistical minority left to rule the lives of the majority. The result is a succession of minority governments with the majority of the populace left to grumble and complain for the next four or so years.
A statistical minority government does not exactly fit the conventional definition of “minority “ rule. We are used to minority rule by minorities defined in terms of ethnicity, race, caste or class. That is usually a political ruse deliberately foisted by a political elite that wants to dominate power as in Apartheid old South Africa or America before universal suffrage and the end of slavery.
Statistical minority rule such as we are witnessing recently in Nigeria is something else. It is the result of the disfigurement of democracy by political and social manipulation and usurpation. In an assumed democracy, if a ruling elite is empowered by a demographic minority to rule over the majority, it is the fault of democracy itself. If democracy fails to deliver good governance, the life of the people worsens over time and democracy itself is endangered. The minority can be manipulated to commandeer the electoral process to produce results that place minority governments in place.
But these minority governments cannot in themselves guarantee or protect democracy as a value system. It is the delivery of good governance alone that can ensure majority participation and mass election participation. Democracy can only mean majority rule when governance guarantees good governance for the majority. It becomes the business of the majority to troop out to protect and defend democracy with their votes.
Credit: Chidi Amuta