Do campaigns have to be bloody to win?
By Azu Ishiekwen
If this were a compulsory exam question, a number of
politicians would simply answer: it depends. On what?
On what is at stake. What the opponent does and how.
And, of course, how far the resources of the one at the
receiving end can go to exact revenge, sometimes in
spite of the rules.
As campaigns for the 2023 general elections in Nigeria
begin, everything is at stake. From the office of
representatives in state houses of assembly to the
positions of 28 governors, 469 national lawmakers, and
the president.
In all, about 1,520 positions are up for election and for
the first time, Muhammadu Buhari who has been
president for nearly eight years and a contestant in all
elections in the last nearly 20, would not be on the ballot
for what is perhaps the most consequential office.
The stakes to play for are not only high, they are
dangerously seductive for two contenders – the All
Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate,
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) candidate, former Vice President Atiku
Abubakar – two deep pockets who may well be taking
their last shot at the nation’s top job.
The real world is not a periodic exam hall. Nowhere is the
ferocity of contest keener than in political campaigns,
such as we’re about to commence. It’s a grisly mess of
interests, of wheeling and dealing, and continuous cloak
and dagger entanglements worse than the binary choices
often present in an examination.
A 2018 report by Daily Trust quoted the INEC chairman,
Professor Yakubu Mohmood, as saying that for N242
billion, the 2019 election was the most expensive ever.
That is excluding expenses by candidates, parties and
individuals. The next one might beat that record.
If only it were possible to see the arsenal of Nigeria’s
political parties – especially the major ones – on the eve
of the commencement of campaigns for the 2023
general elections. I would not be surprised if they have
stockpiled enough weapons to give either Russia or
Ukraine a decisive advantage in the ongoing conflict in
Europe.
It’s not a laughing matter. If morning shows the day, the
pre-flag off skirmishes among not just supporters but
even the campaign team members of the APC, the PDP,
and the Labour Party (LP) show that we could be in for a
season of blood sport.
Recent exhibits, of course, include the feisty exchanges
between APC’s Femi Fani-Kayode and PDP’s Dino
Melaye. Anyone with the heart to read either of their
recent messages to the end risked exposure to post-
traumatic stress.
With PDP’s relentless Reno Omokri in the wings, the APC
media team led by formidable warriors like Dele Alake,
Bayo Onanuga and Festus Keyamo, among others, and
the LP’s army of social media avatars at daggers drawn,
we’ll have to double down on luck to have a normal
campaign season.
But what does history teach, really? Is all the talk about
issues-based campaigns wishful thinking? With all to play
for, is it realistic to expect bloodless campaigns? And in
any case, if winning often matters more than anything
else in politics, do normal campaigns win?
Normal campaigns may be desirable. They may even
have worked at some point in Athens or Ancient Rome.
Yet, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesaris a constant reminder of
the world’s long and futile journey to political amity.
Mass communication tools and their widespread
adoption have fuelled the flames and compounded the
misery of pacifists hoping for a day of decency in political
campaigns. Also, we have seen from the 2015
performance of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, that
social media can be both a facilitator and a big danger to
elections.
But perhaps there are exceptions, however imperfect,
from which our politicians could take a leaf in the days
ahead?
Despite his disability, for example, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the US ran what
presidential historians consider some of the most
successful campaigns. In spite of the daunting odds of
the Great Depression, FDR ran a campaign in 1932 that
ended four decades of Republican dominance, a feat that
he sustained and repeated back-to-back in three
subsequent terms. His theme song, “Happy days are here
again”, became his party’s anthem.
How a man stricken with polio at 39 could have done it
was in part a result of the genius of his message which
offered despairing voters a “New Deal” after the
famished years of Republican rule, and partly also as a
result of the understanding of the press not to highlight
his disability, which frankly, would be a miracle today.
The point is that the only US President who ruled for an
unprecedented four terms ran largely issues-based
campaigns and won, in spite of his disability. And to think
that he had in his corner, the warmonger and one of
America’s most notorious publishers, Williams Randolph
Hearst, whom he could have pressed to dishonorable
ends!
US Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan also
showed how even in the age of the TV, focusing on issues
and connecting with people can make a difference in
election campaigns.
And perhaps the most electrifying in the recent history of
US campaigns has been Barack Obama, an extraordinary
mobiliser and charming politician whose wife, Michelle,
said in spite of all the garbage thrown at Obama by
Hillary Clinton’s bullies in 2016, “when they go low, we
go high.”
Newly elected Kenyan President William Ruto also
provides an example of how to run a difficult campaign
without always being nasty. In spite of his supporters
getting trashed and the few he recommended as cabinet
members being targets of Uhuru Kenyatta witch hunt,
Ruto harped on how the government’s anti-corruption
war had lost its way.
While his main opponent mocked and called him an
“irresponsible young man deceiving Kenyans with fake
promises”, Ruto’s campaign responded by providing a
roadmap of how he would tackle the country’s 40
percent youth unemployment. He spun a legend that he
was a “hustler”, just like the ordinary people, and not a
member of the corrupt, grasping dynasty.
MKO Abiola’s Hope ‘93 was also, in many respects,
exemplary and a number of the current actors played
important roles in it. In comparison with the National
Republican Convention (NRC), Abiola’s Social Democratic
Party (SDP) was imaginative, folksy and down-to-earth.
Abiola showed a forlorn, divided country that it was
possible to believe again.
Since the military railroaded President Olusegun
Obasanjo back to office in 1999, our political campaigns
have been anything but inspiring. Obasanjo, both a
creature and mastermind of this new era, poignantly
described it as a “do-or-die” affair.
As the blatant lies, fake promises and dark schemes of
politicians have come back to haunt them, a number of
them begotten of this season seem determined to return
to their natural habitat – the mud.
Yet, voters will have to decide whether or not to join
them there. Voters who indulge the demagoguery of
politicians, who choose to cheer them on as they kick the
leg instead of the ball, cannot blame anyone when
charlatans run their lives for another four years.
President Muhammadu Buhari, like those before him,
has repeatedly promised free and fair elections. But that,
quite honestly, is not his job. It is the duty
of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
to see to it and the responsibility of citizens to hold the
Commission’s feet to the fire.
Civil society and the press can also help with the most
important question of any election campaign – how?
They can help not only to remind voters of what is
important and insist that politicians play by the rules, but
also by constantly demanding that the umpire, INEC,
should monitor and enforce its own rules.
Campaigns matter because they can help to activate
voter interest and also underline the fundamental issues,
which for Nigeria, includes security, the state of the
economy or where partisan or group interests may lie.
As Gary Jacobson said in his article, “How do campaigns
matter?”, published in the May 2015 issue of the Annual
Review of Political Science, “The question is not whether
campaigns matter, but where, when, for what and for
whom they matter.”
The supply side has let us down badly, offering mostly
transient amusement, vile abuse or downright bogus
promises. It’s time to demand something more than
empty promissory notes. Something we can hold onto
the morning after this seasonal charm offensive has
gone.
Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP
