The general elections in Nigeria conducted on the 25th of February and 18th of March respectively, have generated so much heat in the country. The Umpire has come under heavy criticism for the conduct and outcome of the elections.
However, while the aggrieved parties have gone to court to seek redress, politicians, their surrogates and supporters have been making a series of comments and tweets that threaten our democracy and coexistence as a people.
The gap of division among Nigerians of different ethnicities has widened. Seeds of discord sowed in the mind of people pre-election to get ahead has transcended politics to irrational display and behavior of political parties and their supporters.
To avert the impending doom all of these may attract, we have to find a way out of this quagmire. The call for peace and unity should be a sermon preached from far and near. There is a need for civility in utterances and dispositions, to avoid setting the country aflame.
The Igbo extraction, people from the Eastern part of Nigeria who domicile in different parts of the country have been in the center of the dissent. One thing peculiar to them is their industrious and entrepreneurial nature.
Their commercial activities and hustling spirit depict the motivation of birds in the sky, flying around to get their daily bread- they never see the impossible.
The offence they committed to some people is their ability to make lemonade from lemon anywhere they find themselves, misinterpreted as an act of domineering.
The earlier the people begin to make their leaders accountable at various levels and not those they equally share problems with, the better for them.
Shops being burnt down to ashes is an eyesore. people threatened and manhandled because of their political affiliation, ethnicity and anything similar is absolutely dreadful.
The past seven and a half years have not been rosy for the average Nigerians irrespective of tribe and ethnicity they emanate from.
Sudden cognizance of this characteristic in their political choices glaringly depict their mindlessness, fighting for the wrong course when they should be collectively demanding for good governance.
Just the way they think north is the problem a few years ago because of the power the region wields in the polity of the nation that could not even save its own people from penury. The goal post seems to have shifted and the direction of the attack has gone south. A rollercoaster ride for the people clamoring for change.
The divide and rule tactic is part of the politics of calumny facilitated by the elite to set the people against each other. It has remained virtually unchanged since time immemorial and this time, it seemed to be more targeted at a particular ethnicity by creating a notion of dispute and subversion in people’s minds.
Shehu Sani, a former lawmaker and human right activist shared his experience in a tweet “I went into the office of a government agency and I noticed that some of the civil servants are not in talking terms with each other; then someone’s told me that the general elections divided their office along ethnic lines with so much bitterness and distrust.”
There is life after election, no political interest or ambition is worth the lives and peaceful coexistence of the people. The people need to understand this bridge before burning it. Sacrificing brotherhood on the altar of politics is a disservice to humanity, especially a complex entity like Nigeria.