Focus on growing political violence

After 41 years of independence, no elected government in Nigeria has conducted elections leading to a peaceful and successful transfer of power. Failed general elections in 1965 and the widespread political violence that followed provided the excuse for the military to take power in January 1966. Similarly, blatant rigging and generalised violence which followed elections held in 1983, provided the pretext for the military to topple the civilian government on the last day of that year. With general elections due in Nigeria in one year, signs indicate violence may mar the process, with many politicians gearing up to use more foul than fair means to realise their ambitions. Though the contest is expected to be between the country’s three political parties, party divides now hardly matter with each party riven by bitter intra-party rivalries, with neither side appearing ready to give any quarter in the contest for power. Evidently worried by the ominous portents, President Olusegun Obasanjo, from 7 February, held a three-day retreat for political leaders from all political parties and known interest groups on the "Electoral Process and Violence". He said current preparations being made by politicians towards the coming elections suggest the country was going to war and urged aspirants to do all in their power to ensure the 2003 general elections were free and fair. "Nigerians are wondering just what is at stake in these offices to justify this fight-to-finish preparations," President Obasanjo said. "We all have a duty to shield the electoral process from the corrosive influence of violence, otherwise the entire democratic system will founder and eventually collapse." However, the meeting was still in progress when reports came that 10 people had been killed in clashes between rival factions of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in southeastern Ebonyi State. One group, according to the reports, was loyal to the state governor, Sam Egwu, while the other were supporters of Senate President Pius Anyim, who also comes from the state and is known to be a close ally of Obasanjo. Though the PDP controls 20 of Nigeria’s 36 states, it is bitterly factionalised in at least seven states. All People’s Party (APP), which controls 10 states, is currently largely paralysed by a long-running crisis that has broken the party into several factions. Alliance for Democracy (AD), the smallest of the three, which won six states in the southwest region, including the commercial capital Lagos, has so far manifested the bloodiest crisis. In the Osun State legislature made up of only AD members, rival groups have frequently engaged in fisticuffs in the past three years in place of parliamentary debates. Early in December last year, a session of the legislature ended abruptly after gunshots rang out inside the house. The crisis which pits the governor, Bisi Akande, against his deputy, Iyiola Omisore, further degenerated into the killing of rivals. It is widely believed to have resulted in the assassination of Justice Minister Bola Ige, (an AD member and known backer of Akande) on 23 December. "The political situation in at least six states already looks like positional warfare in which the state is divided into spheres of influence among armed mafia groups," Uche Chukwumerije, social scientist and a former minister of information, told the Vanguard daily in a recent interview. "The Nigerian polity today is at a crossroads. It will evolve in the direction of either a popular democracy or a mafia conglomerate," he added. Many analysts believe the desperation displayed by Nigerian politicians in the contest for power stems from the role the state has played as the main instrument of capital mobilisation for the ruling elite. This, they argue, became even more so after the country became a top world oil exporter and earner of petro-dollars. "Unlike in many other societies where a capitalist class first emerged and then used their influence to take political control of the state, in Nigeria it was the reverse," Ike Onyekwere, a political science lecturer, told IRIN. "There was no properly formed capitalist class in Nigeria at the time the British gave up colonial control of the country. And those who inherited state power then started accumulating capital through corruption and the distribution of patronage." He said so far in Nigeria the easiest way to become rich is through government. "It is either you are there yourself or you know somebody who is there," he explained. According to Onyekwere, this "proclivity to looting" by the power elite is the reason Nigeria’s oil wealth never trickles down to the mass of the people and also why there is a do-or-die attitude to achieving political power. Some analysts see moves by Obasanjo to secure re-election as a source of additional fuel for the brewing violence. Though a former military ruler, he is a relative newcomer to the hustings. He had to depend on the platform set up by others to ride to power soon after emerging from jail in 1998, where he had been put by late dictator Sani Abacha on charges of plotting his fall. Since taking office, Obasanjo has moved decidedly to set up his own political machinery in apparent preparation for another shot at the presidency. His critics allege that his political designs have created schisms not only within his own party but also in the two other parties. Pro and anti-Obasanjo manoeuvres are believed by many to be responsible for the violence that have manifested in Oshun and Ebonyi states as well as volatile situations in Anambra, Enugu and Abia states. "So far much of what we have seen is intra-party violence as members position themselves to seek elective posts next year," analyst Dele Ojebiyi, told IRIN. "Inter-party violence is likely to set in when the nominations are over and campaigns fully get under way. Then the violence may yet get worse." But, as even Obasanjo himself has acknowledged, a chaotic electoral process is a perfect excuse for the enemies of democracy to strike a death-blow. Nigeria’s political history dominated by long years of ruinous military rule is also a clear example of how terribly wrong things could go.