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Saturday’s
elections into the National Assembly come on the heels of widespread
violence. From Akwa Ibom to Jigawa, Oyo to Taraba, and Benue to Kwara
States, to mention just a few, politicians have graduated from
employing cudgels and machetes, to using guns and bombs to advance
their cause of intimidating opponents in a curious way of wanting to
serve the public. The legacy of such advertised service is the loss of
lives, wanton destruction of homes and vehicles, and brutalisation of
the body and psyche of those lucky to be alive.

As we approach the
elections with bated breath, the government has been reaching out to
various groups, preaching the message of peace and mutual tolerance,
and trying to reassure the public it is in charge.

The State Security
officials have been showing politicians special dungeons in Abuja
designed to pacify its occupants in a psychological effort to nudge
politicians to be of good behaviour. Although the law enforcement
officers have reported some arrests, it remains a conjecture how many
will be successfully prosecuted. Although all political parties are
probably guilty of this antisocial behaviour, the pattern of arrests
hardly reassures even-handedness.

Violence is no
magical conjure; rather it is a forceful, antisocial behaviour to cause
disorder. It occurs when people are unprepared to follow the rules,
when electoral officials are insincere, when vigilance fails, and law
enforcement agents cannot match the pace of the agents of mayhem. It
arises when parties in a contest would rather short-circuit their way
to victory.

The rules of
civilised engagement allow for all parties to canvass peacefully for
votes through rallies, debates, advertisements, talks, and visitations
to the electorate. The rules call for police neutrality and alertness
in providing security, INEC’s vigilance in ensuring that guidelines on
campaign funding and advertisement are observed, and the media’s
credible role in scrutinising the candidates and their programmes.

It seems to me that
our failure to rid our politics of violence is a collective indictment
of our sincerity. Our media have been full of campaign stories and
visuals, promises and platitudes, imagined insults and thinly veiled
incitements to violence, orchestrated assaults and naked shows of
strength by political gladiators. Rather than hurl the rule book at
offenders, we indulge in endless sermonising.

Campaigns are being
funded as if money is going out of fashion, yet I have not read of any
audit of campaign spends. While some parties are awash with cash, some
definitely are in lack. Who cares where the money is coming from? Not
INEC, which has deferred such concerns till after the elections, that
is, after the horse has left the stable.

Yet, access to
funds or the lack of it accounts for most of the violence consuming our
politics. Consider that Party X chieftain provides some money for
logistics. Some cheats corner a significant portion of it, leaving the
crumbs to others who protest and the failure to manage the protest
degenerates into a street fight to separate the boys from the men.

Or Party B,
obviously lacking financial muscle to buy advertisement space, relies
more on open space rallies to sell its programme. Party B members are
tutored to deride the opposition, Party X, as fraudsters. Succumbing to
the power of suggestion, the agitated Party B crowd, in song and dance,
confronts the opposition, which in turn, dismisses the riotous crowd as
an assemblage of idlers, thereby setting the stage for a violent
confrontation of strength. In most of these confrontations, the police
are conveniently missing in action, and the average citizen is
unprotected.

For the media, the
scrutiny has been largely uneven; with little explanation of their
positions. Media access is largely a function of media ownership, media
purchase, and your network of media friends, not just the content of
your message.

When the NN24
organised debates for presidential candidates, only four were invited;
does it mean others are irrelevant? The initiative of the Nigerian
Election Debate Group that announced eight presidential candidates will
be lucky if it finds four, as three have already bowed out. The
boycotters made good their threat when only the PDP candidate showed up
for the vice presidential debate on Monday.

I find the decision
of the presidential candidates of the APP, CPC, and ANC to boycott the
NEDG debate because Goodluck Jonathan failed to honour the earlier NN24
debate as violently petty. Agreed, it is discourteous of the Jonathan
group to have shunned the debate after having it shifted at its
instance, but it is carrying it too far to deny the electorate the
opportunity to watch and hear the candidates on national media if only
as a way of deepening our democratic ethos. The opposition seem unable
to say before the PDP candidate all they said behind him.

When avenues for
civilised engagement are closed, we leave room for problems to be
resolved violently. If I do not vote on Saturday, it may well be
because I do not know the candidates well enough or the setting is not
safe.