Interim Nation Government: The House of Delusion

The clamour for a stop-gap administration in Nigeria is illusory, writes Segun James.

Surprisingly, the most intense sporting event in Nigeria today has nothing to do with sport.

It is the competition for the control of the political soul of the nation. And the competition is between a seasoned well horned sporting champion and a political wildcat.

Few political dramas boast a plot as far-fetched as the one that has unfolded on the Nigerian political turf over the past few weeks.

 A situation where embittered politicians are openly calling for a coup against the constitution of the country!

Days after the announcement of the outcome of the presidential election, people operating over social media have been alleging fraud and calling for an end to the nation’s democracy.

The callers claimed that the election was fraught with irregularities and rigged in favour of the eventual winner, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. When he won, they cry fraud, but when he lost, it was fair.

Although such calls are not new or unusual in the country, it is the treasonable demand for an Interim National Government that is the problem.

Ridiculous as it may sound, the call has been confirmed by the nation’s secret service as true. Yet, the proponents of this delusional idea are hell-bent on it.

They don’t care about the implication to the political well-being of the nation. Their mission: Anybody for President as long as it is not Tinubu.

In Nigeria today, on the political turf, it has been like a war going on with nothing else on the news. The economy has been pushed to the backbench and President Muhammadu Buhari’s management of it is no longer an issue.

For the President, this is the best time since he came to governance in 2015. The perennial and armchair critics are no longer interested in him and how he handles governance. The heat has shifted to President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

As chaotic, fractious and bafflingly inconsistent as the Buhari administration may be, on one issue the nation has remained united – his aloofness to political pressure, no matter how ridiculous.

That is why his refusal to comment on the treasonous issue of the Interim National Government (ING) and the call for a coup against his government by supporters of a third-placed candidate shows the democrat and the nationalist in him.

Security threats the world over are no longer about territorial disputes and military confrontations; they are fast including nontraditional threats like seeming anger arising from political and social issues.

This alarming trend may be responsible for the underdevelopment of the country.

As more countries the world over have made the transition into nations, Nigeria is still struggling 63 years after independence because of such calls as this.

Nigeria is teetering on the edge of another political crisis, if what is going on in the polity is anything to go by and the implication forbodes anarchy.

National conversations on politics these days are currently dominated by threats. As long as there are ignorance and poverty in the nation, there will also be persons who would be treated as expendables.

That is a lot of those that went to the military to demand a takeover of government. As one philosopher once pointed out, it can be a source of comfort to remember that, no matter what else is happening, the world still turns.

Surely the world would move on with or without a country called Nigeria. The past few weeks have brought a steady infusion of grim news about the polity.

Much of it is caused by actions and utterances by those who profess to be political leaders. One such person is the vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Datti Baba-Ahmed, who has been drumming for war because his party lost a well-fought battle.

Due to his unguarded statement, the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) slammed a N5 million fine on the Channels Television station following an interview granted by Datti.

During the interview, Datti expressed statements capable of setting the nation on fire as he had urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to swear in Tinubu as the winner of the February 25th presidential election. A call which is treasonable as it would mean that either Buhari unconstitutionally extend his own tenure in office or a veiled call for an interim government.

Today provides a welcome opportunity to take stock of where we stand as a nation in meeting the challenges facing the country and there can be no question that the foremost challenge is politics.

Over the last few weeks, the nation faces two challenges in relation to each other – ethnicity and religion. Well, the answer to these challenges is the need to see beyond one’s ethnic or tribal nationality and secondly, one must see beyond religion. These two have been the bane of Nigeria’s political problems.

The controversies that beset Nigeria’s politics today extend beyond the most basic activities such as party programmes, speeches and condemnation of people on the opposite sides of the political divide, it is now ethnic and religious, a situation which is giving in to calls for insurgencies.

In politics as in football, timing counts. It makes the difference between a brilliant tackle and a red card or a smartly taken goal and a raised offside card. That’s what Peter Obi failed to realise when he accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after the election results have been announced.

People love to tell tales. Indeed, even when someone’s memory is patchy, he will still do his best to spin the information he has into a credible yarn. This is not a matter of decency, rather, it is an established psychological phenomenon in which they try to make sense of fragmentary information.

So it is with Obi, and so it is with Datti. Although such behaviour is natural and normal, it is nuisance for the forces of law and order.