Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Chidi Amuta is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993
The real outcasts are those whom the system alienated, frustrated or physically dissuaded from participating in the democratic process. When people cannot access the polling stations for fear of violence, when some people are segregated from the electoral process on grounds of religion, ethnicity or partisan discrimination, then the failings of the state in question will have sabotaged the aim of democracy and therefore created outcasts.
In the feverish race towards the 2027 elections, no one is concerned that many Nigerians may be left out of the democratic process. Yet democracy by its definition and nature ought to be a majoritarian enterprise. The originators of democracy designed it to be inclusive; a unifying platform that aimed to bring aspiring rulers and the populace together in a commonwealth. The state under democracy was conceived as an inclusive polity, not a riotous exclusionary battleground of dissonant factions. Nigerian democracy after 1999 has hardly been anything near inclusive. It has been 25 years of degeneration into an alienating and excluding growing political tradition.
To the dismay of many Nigerians, our democracy has become a clashing theatre of acrimonious factions, warring parties and warlords. A select body of citizens have christened themselves “politicians”, a vicious brood of unskilled power-mongers. No intellect. Hardly any knowledge of the nation over which they politick or the people they squabble to rule.
Frightened and betrayed constantly by clashing political juggernauts, a significant percentage of our populace have ended up as outcasts of democracy. People are now alienated, disenfranchised, frightened off and generally disgusted with the repetitive periodic rituals of democratic elections. There are now far too many outcasts and alienated citizens from our democracy in the process. From the trend in our recent elections, we are fast becoming a nation of outcasts and outsiders.
Among those who have cultivated a habit of politicking, there is uncertainty about the nation’s party architecture. Many citizens still see party membership as a preserve of a tribe called ‘politicians’. The elite still see politics as beneath them, something that should be for those with unsuccessful careers, dodgy certificates and failed enterprises. Even those in government service would rather stay away from political meddling and just render public service and move on.
Even within the political fold itself, party membership is now a fluid business. Parties are not held together by any ideals or beliefs. They are clubs of convenience. People converge only where there is something being shared, usually patronage, positions and privileges. Outside the ruling APC, everything about political parties today is in a flux. People wake up in one party and return home in the evening not knowing in which party to hang their coats. Meanwhile, State governors are busy conscripting, buying off and blackmailing citizens into parties of their own choosing irrespective of popular consent.
Popular opinion is in disarray as to whether the entire democracy chorus has anything to do with their welfare. Over a quarter of a century after the military retreated from politics in stampede, very few Nigerians can vouch as to what dividends democracy has brought us all. Out 25-year olds attained voting age over 7 years ago. They are now in a position to decide on their options in life. Yet, very few 25 year old Nigerians today feel a sense of ownership of their country. Nor do they feel owned by the Nigerian state. The nation has failed them in many ways. They can hardly find jobs to justify the certificates they have acquired.
The sustenance of every democracy depends on the populace coming out to cast their votes at periodic elections and seeing those votes count towards improving their lives. This ritual is the most universal indicator of the health of every democracy. Politicians come to power on the basis of the quantum of votes they secure at elections. If only a minority of eligible voters show up at polling stations repeatedly, something is obviously wrong with democracy in the nation in question.
Many reasons can be adduced by theorists for our receding vote counts. By far the most consequential cause of low voter turnout is the serial betrayal of successive governments. Over time, successive governments have failed to deliver good governance, efficient social services or much-needed beneficial infrastructure. Every four years, squads of politicians campaign for the same things but disappear soon after being elected, leaving the people worse off than ever before.
Schools remain without roofs in states. Hospitals remain so in name only as there are no essential drugs in stock. More and more people enter the ever-growing poverty republic. Dilapidated roads remain in places where highways were promised. Hell persists where paradise was repeatedly promised at campaign time. This constant betrayal has bred alienation and apathy among the people. People see no reason to troop out seasonally to vote to empower fraudsters.
In that case, public apathy becomes a form of protest against governments that habitually fail to meet the expectations of the people. People become apathetic and come to see future elections as a waste of time. The majority of people stay home, go to the farms, markets or look the other way. Democracy becomes another name for systemic fraud.
Low voter turnout as we have recently seen in Edo, Anambra, Ekiti, Ondo and the FCT, may also be a form of protest against elections that lack credibility or fairness. If people vote but the umpire returns or declares results that are at variance with the common drift of the popular will as expressed in perceptible voting trends, they are not likely to keep voting at future elections.
When on repeated occasions result sheets are tendered by INEC that indicate figures that run contrary to what election observers and party agents who observed the actual elections recorded, the credibility of the electoral process is undermined. In that case, the voting public comes to see elections as hollow, pointless rituals.
Added to this sense of futility is the widespread unreliability of INEC as an election umpire. Over time, results announced or issued by INEC have proved unreliable. In some cases, courts have voided results announced by INEC, thereby diminishing the authority of the agency as the final arbiter in election matters. A combination of an unreliable INEC and the collusion of compromised security officials has decreased the overall integrity of our elections, thereby deepening the alienation and indifference of voters.
There is the added sporadic deployment of violence and intimidation by political actors to frighten off their opponents. Thugs bearing dangerous weapons have been reported to invade polling centres in past elections. Where a state has a reputation for serial insecurity, voters tend to be frightened away from voting centres. In some states, the number of security agents sometimes overwhelms and intimidates registered voters. To the public, such overwhelming security presence instead of inspiring greater confidence among the people frightens people into thinking that trouble is imminent. People enjoy democracy if they can votes and hope for a better life, not when going out to vote could lead to unplanned death. Fear depresses voter turnout more than anything else.
Not to talk of the impact of voter monetization. Vote buying has become a rampant sector of the economy at election time. During successive elections, rich candidates tend to literally set up vote bazaars at polling stations to buy and sell votes. Voters who support candidates other than those with purchasing power tend to be discouraged from participating since there is no financial or material rewards for their effort.
The degree of fraud in our elections is so high that whatever dubious results are announced, the “winners” will in any case be sworn in with Bibles and Korans by delinquent Priests, Imams and thieving judges. Thereafter, the business of endless festivities in the name of government will proceed in the name of “the people”.
We have arrived at a juncture where democracy has been redefined as a system of government that makes people more miserable, poorer and incrementally more alienated. Nigerian democracy has created a society in which individual success is now defined as the ability to provide your own power, security, and medicare. In Nigeria, you must either be able to afford to pay the Alibaba hospital bills or die prematurely. Ours is a democracy in name and external format that feeds only a thieving officialdom and their elaborate rituals and perks.
Yet in all considerations of a viable and credible democracy, voter turnout remains a cardinal barometer of democratic viability. Democracy remains the rule of the majority, not the minority. The fact that the majority stays away from the polling booths does not alter the majoritarian essence of democracy. While democracy empowers leaders through voter participation, the right not to vote is also a democratic right. Refusal to vote is in itself a vote. It can be a vote against previous governments that deliver little or no benefits.
Even then, refusal to vote does not exclude a citizen from the privileges and rights of belonging to a democratic republic. The obligation to vote is one that is extracted from citizens by the political class through appeals, campaigns, responsible governance and a reliable and credible electoral system. Huge voter turnouts cannot be enforced by legislation nor is it a punishable
offence under any jurisdiction. It is instead a delicate litmus test of political acceptability of a ruling class by the people without whom democracy cannot exist.
While every democracy presupposes the rule of the majority, minority rule is implied when leaders come to power through elections that are largely boycotted by the majority of voters. A democracy that derives legitimacy from only a minority of the registered voting population is inherently defective and badly needs to re- examine its priorities and conduct of state affairs. “Minority” in a democracy is in itself a direct threat to majoritarian democracy. It is even worse. “Minority” rule so defined breeds a dangerous indifference to the popular will on the part of the rulers in a true democracy. In 2023, less than 35 million Nigerians out of over 82 million registered voters elected the incumbent (Tinubu) president!
To that extent, “minority” rule by low voter participation becomes the foundation stone for the gradual emergence of authoritarianism. A “minority” rule that grows out of a continuously depressed voter turnout is the emblematic precursor of authoritarianism. The most odious authoritarian regimes are those that emerged under the guise of ‘democracy’. Check: Adolf Hitler. Check: Benito Mussolini. Check: Donald Trump?
To counter this dangerous slide. We need more openly accountable political parties, not the present secret cults and ‘brotherhoods’. We need a new breed of politicians who are out to serve the people and improve the nation by emphasizing the improvement of the lives of the people.
When a democracy consistently returns a low voter turnout, the democracy that was intended to be the rule of the majority over the republic degenerates into a rule by the minority. That minority that votes consists of die-hard party faithful, advocates and beneficiaries of the prevailing order, those bribed and bought by the prevailing power order and scattered factions of a dysfunctional political order.
By its very nature, however, democracy by its nature is bound to leave outcasts. There will be a sizeable segment of the populace that will opt not to vote. The right not to vote is in itself a democratic choice. Once conducted, the democratic outcome of elections emplaces a government that presides over a holistic commonwealth of those who voted or did not vote for the prevailing order. In that sense, those who voluntarily refused to vote or belong to any party are not necessarily outcasts of democracy. The system did not deliberately alienate of subtract them from the democratic polity.
The real outcasts are those whom the system alienated, frustrated or physically dissuaded from participation in the democratic process. When people cannot access the polling stations for fear of violence, when some people are segregated from the electoral process on grounds of religion, ethnicity or partisan discrimination, then the failings of the state in question will have sabotaged the aim of democracy and therefore created outcasts.
Any democracy in which the population of “outcasts” constantly overwhelms that of adherents is doomed to fail in the long run. And over time, the state presided over by products of this outcast democracy will falter and collapse as well.
Tinubu’s presidency and Nigeria’s electricity, power palaver. By Chido Nwangwu
