This is a quick attempt at analyzing the last election. This SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis will give us clarity to where internal terrorism actually kicked off into full blown phenomenon in Nigeria. The SWOT analysis of the last campaign has proven how irrespective of their sizes or victories, political parties have a major role in reforming the nation.
At times, it seems that it is only in Africa, we fail to evaluate elections. We need to see what went wrong and how we can not just remedy it; but even avoid that same error in the future. Somehow it seems that the last election has a subtle affinity to the present terrorism we now experience in Nigeria.
The trends show us that when terrorism began in Nigeria, it was gradual and at a point when the election was drawing closer. What the naïve will later call a religious war can actually be traced back to a political crisis.
So, the way to reform a political crisis is not to shut our eyes to the root cause of it. By calling a spade a knife is silly. This is why I strongly believe that the unrest we are seeing presently can be calmed if the political parties can come together at some point.
The need for a round table discussion, and dialogue towards the way forward in terms of national reform must be mutually worked together. There is need to strategize towards peace and unity in Nigeria.
This is just one of the least good deeds these political parties can do for us as a nation.
Another role the political parties can play among several is to consider incorporating opposition into reform processes in Nigeria.
The plethora issues facing the nation require more than one ideology. There is no unity if the extinction, exile and excommunication of the opposition is all that is advocated by the ruling party. It is sad that when a political party lose in Africa, they don't want to have anything to do with the winning party and vice versa. The winning party rules without considering opposition party as partners who they can work together with in reform process of the nation. This is why implementation of laudable policies has been difficult because some people are not in support.
In considering, the roles of the political parties in quenching unrest of terrorism in Nigeria, we must evaluate the last electoral process to realize how we got here; and avoid the repetition of similar error in the future. Firstly, this SWOT analysis of our last election reveal flaws in the selection process of the gubernatorial and presidential aspirants. Let us consider them step-wisely:
The strengths:
Many prospective aspirants trooped out that we did not expect.
There was diversity in terms of the attributes and origins of those aspirants. We saw elites, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and even clergymen showing interests in rebuilding the nation. Since, that diversity reflected what we normally see in the West, we can say that in some aspect, Nigeria is moving towards development. Although, the pace of development seems slow, but we are getting there gradually.
The Weaknesses:
We saw major components missing in terms of what it takes to rebuild a nation. One of the most glaring was the criss-crossing of aspirants regardless of the differences in their values-system. This evidently reflected in how the minority parties could not win where they might have won. The candidates were paired up based on ethnicity rather than their values, vision and victory records.
In bid to do justice to the Geo-political zones and demands for ethnic-balance, the selection of candidates was totally flawed. So, what was the outcome? Some people saw those "mismatches" and felt that we are not there yet. Others were not discouraged along that line; but obviously the two schools of thoughts voted in frustration. Candidates who would have negotiated and made successful alliances were unable to do so because of that same mismatch of aspirants. So, the masses were not the only people who were confused at some point but the aspirants also were confused concerning who to form alliance with. This resulted in the way the electorate voted. Most people were forced to re-vote their incumbent leaders. Some did not vote at all.
The landscape of our national politics, allow the electorate to culturally prefer the old to the new; especially where the new seems undecided.
So most preferred the devil they knew to the angels they were about studying. The consequence of this was seen months later in wrong timing of the oil subsidy and some other socio-political issues.
In terms of whether or not the country chose the right leader? The answer may not be audaciously stated. Why because the terrorism that ensued tells us that the nation may have done well if the present leadership were to operate within 100 percent cooperation of all the opposing parties.
The fact that we have chosen a seemingly "wrong" candidate, in a seemingly wrong time tells us that we need to start considering timing in choosing our next leaders. For history has proven how important it is, to discern the right time for candidates; especially when it comes to minority aspirants.
Although, minorities may be advocating for their turn in rotational leadership pattern Nigeria has chosen, the timing may not be right. As we can see how many lives have been lost to terrorism in our nation?
This is not to state that a particular leader was not good enough; but misjudging the timing for such leader to lead the nation might be critical. Leaders come in different forms. Some are natural pioneers, others are managers. It takes wisdom to discern what kind of leader, the nation need per time. And that goes beyond making ethnicity and tribes as a variable for selection. It may be the turn of your region, but if your region cannot present the kind of leader the nation needs, it is better we pass to another region and still live together in peace.
Our primacy ethnicities have drawn us into more national problems than we can ever imagine. It has led us into errors in our electoral process.
Among several other weaknesses we also observed that some missing part of the puzzle during the last campaign and election was: the lack of wisdom, inattention to the need for speed, the absence of strategy, absence of foresight, Inability of candidates to pay full attention to details.
Time would fail me to pick these points one after the other. But mainly, these are the missing link in most of the last presidential and gubernatorial aspirants we saw in the last Nigerian election.
So, the ability to know what to do next; which we can call wisdom was a missing puzzle.
It is not enough to be excited about joining the political race. It is vital to understand where does the road lead next? Many aspirants were just angry about the status-quo without actually presenting a better strategy that can change the status-quo. Some were just happy to be part of the political debates, just to prove a point that they are part of the national issues.
These "me-too-aspirants" made the electoral process more complicated. It is much more important to know why, when, where and who leads the nation next. It is a mark of honour to see greatness in others and celebrate it, without blindly competing against them. Some people were just competing out of insanity!
We also see that a lack of idea and absence of vision seems to be disturbing many of the aspirants. Some old leaders who re-appeared had nothing new to say. The challenge for crowning leaders who are at their wits-end is that we will be expecting a change, when in actual fact no change would be coming in a long time.
So what role does the masses, the church and the youths play in all these? In ameliorating this kind of experience? We need youths who understand political intelligence. We need those who understand cutting edge governance as a matter of wisdom, vision, leadership, timing, development, strategy, and more.
So, how can you come in? You can start getting diligent in your sphere of influence and field of practice so that you can support the future leaders in all ramifications.
We have observed that lack of information is adversely impacting our nation. There are no reliable data-base systems, records that are substantiated with facts and figures. There are no cutting edge statistics that can support developmental reforms.
So, when such components are missing, the aspirants have already failed ever before their campaigns started. Not to talk of when they get into office.
Another vital issue was that as we followed some of the political aspirants online, there were those who had no websites. Some were not even known except within their geo-political region. There was no deliberate maximization of the new social media. The internet was still held at a distant from the electoral process. We could not track the results of the election online, immediately they were counted. We were kept in the dark as the ballot boxes were trooping in.
So, technology like we saw in the western elections was not maximized.
If I was asked that do you think that the absence of details made the last election from campaigns to manifesto and eventual election not convincing enough such that the masses were unable to trust the results. As a result, it has led in part to the present violence and terrorism, we now see as a nation. I will say yes.
This is why we must start looking forward to the next election now. It is not too early to prepare. We saw the absence of preparation in the last election. We saw how urgency was missing in the manifesto of most aspirants. We saw how goals were set without deadlines. In points of fact, there were no goals in sight for some aspirants and what they were proposing to do.
How do you think such error can perpetuate trend in African politics?
What are the opportunities?
I hate to be one of the doomsayers. There are lots of opportunities awaiting our nation.
The opportunities in Nigeria lie in the population. There is strength in our number. We have intelligent minds in our nation. Nigeria is one of the well-traveled nations of the world. We can bring the endowment of experiences and expertise of our travels into the governance of our nation. In addition, we can tap into the momentum we saw in the last election. The entire world was watching Nigeria. We saw international observers sat in our presidential debates. This was not a joke.
Another opportunity can be harnessed in terms of pulling the aggregates of our diversity in building our nation irrespective of our different alliances with political parties of our choice.
Although, most aspirants will think that this is foolish, but I strongly believe that many of those who came out to contest can still pull the same resources, manpower and energy together towards reform. It should not be in who got the accolades so far the job is done.
This will even boost their integrity towards the next season of election. The masses can see how fair you have played despite your losses, and support such candidates based on their strength of character.
What are the threats?
Delay-culture is one of the threats to our national development. We lack the sense of urgency when it comes to time. What we observed during that last election was that we did not act until it was too late to make a reasonable progress. We saw the die-minute attempt of some political parties towards alliance. This was what they ought to have done immediately they started their campaigns. So, coming into the eve of the election and confusing the electorate is a threat to our national progress.
The archaic methods of politics of the 80s and 90s must be done away with. We can no longer wait for the last hour before preparing the electorate for the Election Day. This fire-brigade, fire-fighting culture has not helped our nation at all. It reflects not just a weakness in our political transitions but it generally poses threat to our national lifestyle. Other threat that has already graduated into a risk is in the unrest and violence that erupted since that last election.
Immediately the election was over, you will assume that sleeping dog would lie; but no! Among several, we saw the loss of lives, businesses, plummeting of our Naira in foreign exchange market. We saw how expatriates are scared of coming to invest in our nation. We saw the loss of international trades. We saw how the nation has become seemingly ungovernable since then.
The implication?
You may ask how all these impact our national development? The violence and terrorism has driven many Nigerians out of their country to neighboring countries like Ghana, Chad, Benin, and Cameroun. These people are crossing borders to resettle. Many of them will re-marry, have children and make mix-blood descendants.
The implication is that, there will be fewer full-blooded Nigerians in the next generation.
Besides, another impact of this exodus to the Nigerian economy is that our national economy will continue to dwindle because the active workforce is being lost to other nations. People who are supposed to actually build the nation will be building another nation. The increase in this rate of loss will require that we invite strangers in form of immigrants, to sustain our country in the future. The sad awakening question is who will love to immigrate into "unsafe" zone? The threat we are now facing is not mere lower level of our national development; rather, it is even the national brand that we are impacting. We are writing our national history unconsciously.
