2023 Poll Amid Ethnic and Religious Sentiments

Udora Orizu

x-rays the recent assertion by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, that this year’s presidential and national assembly poll was characterized by ethnic and religious sentiments rather than competence.

Last week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila opined that the just concluded presidential and national assembly elections were mainly about ethnicity and religion rather than performance and competence of the candidates.

The Speaker who made the assertion when the House of Representatives Press Corps visited him in his office, lamented that the National Assembly elections in particular was determined by factors besides the performance of the lawmakers.

He said, “It was a hard won battle not just for me but for many of our colleagues on the floor there. All 360 of us. Many were unlucky. Some were lucky. I used the word ‘lucky’ deliberately because this election was not as it should be, not so much about the performance of members whether on the floor or in their constituencies. It was about a lot of other things. It was about religion. It was about ethnicity. It was about so many other things which I hope that as we develop as a nation, one’s election would be based solely, or at least mostly on his or her performance on the floor and in the constituency.

“That is what I hope would happen as we move along and that is why he mentioned the Electoral Act that was just passed. That is why I fought tooth and nail to make sure the Electoral Act adopted strictly the direct mode for primaries because of elections. So we lost a lot of legislators even at the primaries level, and that does not help our democracy. So hopefully moving forward, we would perfect that document, the Electoral Act, which many people have celebrated but still not perfect yet. Hopefully we would be able to perfect it.”

The above opinion can be seen to be true as every election season politicians tend to exploit tribal loyalty to advance personal gain, parochial interests and cronyism.

As a big country, Nigeria is well endowed with both human and material resources, but, unfortunately, is largely divided along ethnic and religious lines.

On a normal day, the citizens are loving and have nothing against each other on issues of religion or tribe.

But at any given opportunity such as the election campaign season, politicians exploited these two factors, whipping up sentiments and thereby creating disaffection and ill-feeling.

Instead of issue-based campaigns which define politicking in civilized societies, the political candidates over here, while talking to the electorate, hit at their weakest points which are religion and ethnicity.

Rather than compete on the basis of development ideas, they revert to tribal identities as foundations for political competition. This now turns the contest to a “war of where is the candidate from and their religious belief”.

During the campaign season last year, and despite signing the peace accord, some leaders and supporters of the ruling All Progressive Congress and main opposition People’s Democratic Party were primarily focused on pursuing their tribal interests rather than issue- based campaigns.

For instance, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, said the North as an ethnic bloc, did not need Yoruba or Igbo to lead Nigeria as president. Rather, he said, they need a pan-Nigerian, which he claimed to be.

He made the remarks while responding to a question posed to him by the spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, during an Interactive Session with Arewa Joint Committee held in Kaduna State.

According to Atiku, Northerners need to vote for him rather than a Yoruba or Igbo candidate because he was a Pan-Nigerian with a northern extraction that had built bridges across the country.

His words, “What the average Northerner needs is somebody who’s from the north who also understands that part of the country and has been able to build bridges across the country. This is what the Northerner needs, it doesn’t need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate, I stand before you as a Pan-Nigerian of northern origin.”

In the same vein, APC presidential candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, told the Yoruba who gathered for the inauguration of the new governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, that they should disregard Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) since these are not their kinsmen.

Another instance and the most recent, was the threat made by the Lagos State Parks Management Committee Chairman, Musiliu Akinsanya, also known as MC Oluomo.

Oluomo issued a threat to Igbo people to stay at home during the governorship election in Lagos scheduled for March 18 if they do not want to vote for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates.

This was seen in a viral video in which the loyalist to Bola Tinubu was addressing a gathering and warning their Igbo neighbours not to bother going to the polling units if they intended to vote for candidates other than the ruling party’s flag bearers.

Though he later tried to recant his statement, his threat was seen coming to pass on the day of the governorship and State Assembly elections when thugs allegedly supporting the APC stormed the streets of Lagos threatening Igbos who intend to vote for opposition parties to stay at home.

The most brazen tribalistic comment of all was the one made last Saturday evening by Spokesman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, who warned the Igbos against interfering in Lagos Politics.

Onanuga had tweeted: “Let 2023 be the last time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027. Lagos is like Anambra, Imo, any Nigerian state. It is not No Man’s Land, not Federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business.”

Onanuga’s tweet and the brazenness to pin it to his profile have renewed worries among Nigerians who believe the president-elect, should not be surrounded by persons who are intolerant of other ethnic groups.

Criticised for his controversial and divisive ethnocentric statement,  Onanuga in another tweet said “let me make myself abundantly clear: the views I express on Twitter are my personal views. I don’t owe anyone any apology for addressing the existential threats of our people. I am after all, first of all a Yoruba, before being a Nigerian”.

The outcome of the presidential election showed that most people voted their tribe person and not competence.

Tinubu won the election in the southwest states including Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and Ogun.

Atiku won major northern states including Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Kaduna, Gombe, Yobe, Bauchi, Adamawa and Taraba.

Peter Obi of Labour Party won the all the southeast and some south-south states including Edo, Cross River, Delta, Imo, Ebonyi, Anambra, Abia and Enugu.

Going Forward

The outcome of the 2023 general elections is a proof that tribal interests played a major role, and this to an extent has caused disagreements and civil unrest across the country. Politicians who took advantage of ethnic alliances have brought about sectarian animosity.

With this, the president-elect will spend most of his time on tribal balancing rather than on economic management.

Going forward, and in the interest of the nation’s democracy, concerted efforts should be made to ensure that political parties campaign rules are founded on development ideas and not tribal bonds.