COLUMN
By ’Tunji Ajibade
Democracy is essentially about numbers – “majority carry the day” as Nigerians always say. If that is in focus, no one would issue threats the kind that we hear in the public space regarding a possible Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket in the 2023 election. Why? Each person has one vote, and it is the ticket the majority votes for that will proceed to the Presidential Villa. That some come out to say it will be a mistake for a party to feature a presidential and vice-presidential candidate who belong to the same faith is like saying a decision democratically made through the ballot box is a mistake. The larger number of voters will ultimately determine who the president and the vice-president are, not groups who issue threats saying they speak for a segment of the nation.
Now, the foregoing points to the fact that many who speak in this nation don’t consider some realities; they always ignore facts that should necessarily determine what happens in a situation where each Nigerian has just one vote. There is a need to remind ourselves of those realities. One of such is the fact that there had been Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 1993 June 12 Presidential election and the party with such ticket was the winner. Now, the main factor that made that possible can still make a Muslim-Muslim ticket possible if either of the two major parties comes up with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. That factor is the fact that the West produced the presidential candidate in 1993 and it voted massively for the presidential candidate, Moshood Kashimawo Abiola. The North, the East as well as the South-south completed the rest of the votes that gave the party the upper hand in that election. Nigerians of all faiths made it possible.
In a situation in which, for instance, both the two major political parties produce a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the 2023 presidential election, Nigerians will have no choice but vote. That fact shouldn’t be forgotten since it is through political parties anyone can contest for election in Nigeria. And if any part of the country decides to not vote for either party, the North surely will vote because its Muslim population is represented on either ticket. However, in a situation where the All Progressives Congress in particular produces Muslim-Muslim ticket, and the presidential candidate comes from the south-west what transpired in June 1993 will repeat itself. The south-west will vote for the candidate it produces. It always does, and if it does the North will fill in the rest of the votes.
One shouldn’t forget that one major reason the West didn’t vote for Candidate Olusegun Obasanjo in the 1999 presidential election was that there was another Yoruba candidate in the race, Chief Olu Falae. In any case the Action For Democracy which Falae represented, and which was led by Chief Bola Ige and other Yoruba leaders, was more popular with the Yoruba voters at that point in time. In the current dispensation, the APC can be sure it will get the votes in the West if it has a Muslim-Muslim ticket, and the North and parts of the East and some places in the south-south can complete the rest of the vote to seal victory for it in the 2023 presidential election.
More than that, the population of Muslims in the north means there is no way either of the two major parties can do without having a Muslim vice-presidential or presidential candidate. Realistically, one can look across the north and check if any Christian candidate can draw the votes of Muslims in that part of the country. This is one reason one has always advocated that playing politics of “I belong to everybody, and I belong to no one” is better than some of the politics of alienation that some in that part of the country play. There are credible and worthy individuals in the north who happen to be Christians that one can point to in both parties, but can they carry northern Muslims along with them to ensure victory for their party? One hopes we get to that point one day because electing office holders without any concern with regard to their religion is more beneficial for any polity. But for now the reality on ground is that a Christian-Christian ticket won’t work at all, and a Muslim southerner and a Christian northerner may not pull the votes of northern Muslims as well. If the reader recalls that the 1999 southern Christian and northern Muslim ticket got the votes for the party that won at the time, then he gets the point.
There are factual reasons the foregoing cannot be dismissed in a one-man-one vote situation. One is that past election outcomes show that there is better voter turnout in many of the northern states, particularly in the north-west, than in some other parts of the country. As such their votes here, where there is a large number of Muslims, make a whole lot of difference in who wins the presidential race. There is no myth to this phenomenon; any observer who is in the north during election would see more young men who line up patiently under sun and rain to vote for their candidates. Such dedication has been noted to be missing in some other parts of the country where a presidential hopeful, Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, recently urged youth who supported him to get voter’s card and vote. He had added that there was no point saying there were millions of youths on instagram that supported him, if they wouldn’t go out to vote on the day of election. This speaks to the reality that in any election, the part of the country that votes the most justifiably has to be represented adequately on the major party’s presidential ticket. If it’s the north that delivers most of the eggs, then its people must be firmly represented on any ticket.
In addition to the foregoing, there is the need to point out that we’ve actually progressed in our political journey and political consciousness than some wish to acknowledge. It’s just that there’s this penchant to play to sentiments and primordial reasoning. If not, was it not in this same country that people across faiths voted the ticket they voted on June 12, 1993? This nation did that and put a face of falsehood on the claim that all things would burn down if the president and his deputy belonged to the same faith. Yet, from time to time, people come up with the same insinuation that nothing can work if the best hands we have on a party’s ticket happen to belong to the same religion. I think some are pulling this nation back with this kind of claim. It’s been demonstrated that the fact that a person belongs to a particular faith doesn’t make them better administrators or more honest. Looting and looters have no respected for faiths as has been demonstrated for all to see at the moment. Rather personal discipline, principles, and above all the restrictions placed on all by the rule of law are what can keep public office holders in check. It’s where we need to focus. In stating all of this, one doesn’t take the feelings of members of any faith for granted. What one says is that if all faiths voted for the ticket that they thought was best for Nigeria in 1993, irrespective of the faith of the two people on it, there’s no reason anyone should stand against repeating the same feat in 2023.
More than this, and still on the point that we’ve actually progressed more than we acknowledge, is the fact that we’ve always managed to balance things out especially in the area of appointment and filling of offices at the federal level. This is always done, no matter the faith of the person in power, with the consciousness of the need to promote unity. One does not mean that we’ve got it perfectly right, and no nation does; but most of our political leaders tend to take into consideration the need to balance things along faith and ethnic lines so as to give everyone a sense of belonging. There are sections of the country that don’t sometimes get what they think they deserve. So they complain of marginalization. But if we factually check, such seasons tend to be the time a particular section of the country isn’t mostly for the party that wins at the centre. It can happen in any democracy, and that’s why it is about number. The party in power must reward the number that brings it to power. The south-west experienced this situation and complained about marginalization when the region was for Action Congress and the PDP was at the centre. The south-east complained about marginalization in the season the party at the centre was in control of only one state in that part of the country. But it cannot still be said that the leadership at the centre didn’t put in positions people from those parts where they didn’t get majority support. That’s how far we have progressed.
It’s based on those realities stated that one can make conjectures that in a situation in which a Muslim-Muslim ticket surfaces for either of the two major political parties, the political consciousness is high, mature enough for the winner to balance things out at other power levels for the sake of unity. We’ve been doing these things. It may not be perfect, but we’ve always been doing them. Nigerian voters should be allowed to make their choice. Threats issued over the faiths of candidates are unwarranted at this stage when we need the most competent hands to steer the ship of our nation.
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