Nigeria Content Online

This week, the International Republican Institute
released an opinion poll carried out by a reputable polling company –
Opinion Research Business. They polled 3,030 Nigerians sampled from all
states in the country providing us a photograph of political opinions
and beliefs as of early December 2010 when the face to face interviews
took place.

The polls show serious concerns but also a lot of optimism about the political process and the future of Nigerian democracy.

Fifty three percent of Nigerians polled are
concerned that Nigeria is moving in the wrong direction. They list five
key problems that underpin their concerns and worries. In the order of
importance, they are corruption, unemployment, bad leadership, poverty
and the lack of electricity. This is not rocket science; we all know
that these problems have dogged our post independence life over the
past fifty years.

What is interesting about the poll results is that
77% of Nigerians expect their economic situation to improve after the
April elections and only 5% believe things will worsen after the
elections. This huge confidence and belief that the coming elections
will improve our lives is certainly excessive and my fear is that these
very high expectations might be followed by disappointment and rising
frustration.

It is however very promising for deepening
democracy that in spite of our history of consistently rigged
elections, Nigerians refuse to be apathetic and maintain their belief
that democracy will eventually produce dividends. This refusal to give
up has been strengthened by confidence in the new leaders of key
institutions. The polls show that 76% of Nigerians have confidence in
President Goodluck Jonathan and 63% have confidence in Attahiru Jega’s
leadership of INEC. Even more significant is that 84% of Nigerians
believe that all will be ready for the April elections.

According to the polls, 77% of Nigerians believe
that the elections will be free, fair and credible. This response is
broken down along ethnic lines and the responses in order of confidence
are interesting – Ijaw 91%, Hausa-Fulani 74%, Igbo 70%, Yoruba 68% and
the Tiv 40%. I guess Goodluck and Jega need to reach out more to the
Tiv population.

The proof of this optimism in the coming elections
is expressed in the massive determination of Nigerians to get
registered for the elections. We have all observed people getting up at
4 a.m. to queue up in registration centres to get their voter’s cards.
Nigerians were buying fuel to run generators and purchasing ink for the
printers to facilitate the registration process.

Nigerians however need to temper their optimism
with vigilance. The future of credible elections in Nigeria relies not
only on President Goodluck Jonathan and Professor Attahiru Jega but
also on other stakeholders. The political parties have an important
role to play. Political parties in Nigeria have shown themselves to be
instruments used by unscrupulous political entrepreneurs for selfish
purposes. As we have seen from the recently concluded party primaries,
most of them acted in total disregard of the Electoral Act and imposed
candidates that had not emerged in genuine primary elections. They are
likely to continue to use their favourite instruments of state power,
money and violence to impose their candidates during the forthcoming
elections.

Indeed, the godfather syndrome makes it impossible
for true accountability to be practiced in parties. The fact that one
or two individuals bear the cost of running campaigns and funding of
other party activities leads to a privatisation of both party and state
machinery because government officials would naturally owe allegiance
to the political godfather who “put” them in office rather than to the
ordinary citizen.

Yes, it’s good that Nigerians have high optimism
for the coming elections. We must however strengthen this by closely
monitoring the elections as citizens. We must be there to count, escort
and protect our votes because as the survey shows, the improvement of
our lives depends on free, fair and credible elections.

The road to free and fair elections must be lined
with civic education and citizen engagement. The real challenge for
future elections is about enlightening the citizenry on how to defend
the sanctity of their votes: and showing ruling parties that they do
not own the country.