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A seeming threat to
the political warlords in the coming elections is a great, informed
voting population who are angry about the wasted leadership of the last
50 years – the youth. However, the antidote to be administered against
this teeming power is those of their generation who have long traded
their franchise and very dignity for daily bread; franchise for
protection and for the faint hope of redemption from the dregs of
society.

May I welcome you to the food chain of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).

They may go by
different names in different states of the country but in Lagos, the
name, ‘agbero’ gives a vivid, annoying image of only one variant of
humans: the vexed, coarse, sloven; a husky, agile person who
deliberately maintains the local tongue in his confrontation – his
first gambit at unsettling your confidence.

They too are a
teeming population, albeit not an informed one. They hail from a very
deprived background made whole by past administrations which mark our
peculiar history. Yet, they are a great population which could have
been diminished, simply with good exposure. Unfortunately, their
exposure now settles for the filthy rationale of temporal wages –
commissions from tolls squeezed from market women, street traders, bus
conductors and in some cases, beggars.

For as long as the
NURTW remains that shoddy institution held strongly by ‘area fathers’,
themselves, former victims of this food chain; as long as the grass
root problems do not have multi-channels for the conveyance of
resources due them; these area fathers will always succeed in capturing
the interests and loyalties of a forgotten mass of our population. They
will ignite them and show them the ‘ways’ to earn a living. They will
buy their loyalties with the assurance of daily bread and make them
build their aspirations on the lavish luxuries of their executives.
When the time comes (and it comes often), set them against opposing
factions, where the bloodbath will leave a few dead, many injured and
most, terribly scarred.

Anyone who takes on
any neglected responsibility of any government, by providing for any
deprived spectrum of society, wields power over that spectrum.

But how does this
relate to the office-holder? How is it relevant to the government of
the day or the ruling political party? It is a sheer case of nemesis. I
do your job for you, and somehow, you compensate me for it. It makes no
difference whether you contracted me in the first place and it doesn’t
matter how well I did the job.

People of that
population, judging from their perception of their environment, are
almost always of voting age. Where they fall short, their solid build
compensates. For a country lacking data preservation, who dares
challenge them? The ‘area fathers’ can now sit on one end of the
negotiating table, with a muffled governor on the other, and say with
confidence, “My Governor, we can give you at least five million votes
on that day. You talk about the youth, Governor. We are the youth. We
have them in our hands. All you have to do for us is …”

It is a genuine case of quid pro quo!

Look carefully.
What is the majority of the calibre of voters you see on the queue on
election days; an informed youth or a traded mass?

Where has Bashar al-Assad of Syria been this past week?

Thousands of
Syrians across the country have staged demonstrations against the
government, and dozens of protesters have been reported killed by
security forces. The cabinet was dismissed on Tuesday, although that’s
a meaningless gesture unless it’s followed by real reform. Through it
all, Assad has remained so quiet that rumours were rampant that he had
been overthrown. But while Syrians are desperate for leadership, it’s
not yet clear what sort of leader Assad is going to be.

Will he be like his
father, Hafez al-Assad, who during three decades in power gave the
security forces virtually a free hand to maintain order and sanctioned
the brutal repression of a violent Islamist uprising in the early
1980s? Or will he see this as an opportunity to take Syria in a new
direction, fulfilling the promise ascribed to him when he assumed the
presidency upon his father’s death in 2000?

Assad’s background
suggests he could go either way. He is a licensed ophthalmologist who
studied in London and a computer nerd who likes the technological toys
of the West; his wife, Asma, born in Britain to Syrian parents, was a
banker at J.P. Morgan. On the other hand, he is a child of the
Arab-Israeli conflict and the Cold War. Contrary to American interests,
he firmly believes Lebanon should be within Syria’s sphere of
influence, and he is a member of a minority Islamic sect, the Alawites,
that has had a chokehold on power in Syria for decades.

In 2004 and 2005,
while writing a book on him, I had long interviews with Assad; after
the book was published, I continued to meet with him as an unofficial
liaison between Syria and the United States when relations between the
two countries deteriorated. In that time, I saw Assad evolve into a
confident and battle-tested president.

I also saw him
being consumed by an inert Syrian system. Slowly, he replaced those of
questionable loyalty with allies in the military, security services and
in the government. But he does not have absolute power. He has had to
bargain, negotiate and manipulate pockets of resistance inside the
government and the business community to bring about reforms, like
allowing private banks and establishing a stock exchange, that would
shift Syria’s socialist-based system to a more market-oriented economy.

But Assad also
changed along the way. When I met with him during the Syrian
presidential referendum in May 2007, he voiced an almost cathartic
relief that the people really liked him. Indeed, the outpouring of
support for Assad would have been impressive if he had not been the
only one running, and if half of it wasn’t staged. As is typical for
authoritarian leaders, he had begun to equate his well-being with that
of his country, and the sycophants around him reinforced the notion. It
was obvious that he was president for life. Still, I believed he had
good intentions, if awkwardly expressed at times.

Even with the
escalating violence there, it’s important to remember that Syria is not
Libya and Assad is not Muammar Gaddafi. The crackdown on protesters
doesn’t necessarily indicate that he is tightening his grip on power;
it may be that the secret police, long given too much leeway, have been
taking matters into their own hands.

What’s more,
anti-Assad elements should be careful what they wish for. Syria is
ethnically and religiously diverse and, with the precipitous removal of
central authority, it could very well implode like Iraq. That is why
the Obama administration wants him to stay in power even as it
admonishes him to choose the path of reform.

Today, Assad is
expected to announce that the country’s almost 50-year emergency law,
used to stifle opposition to the regime, is going to be lifted. But he
needs to make other tough choices, including setting presidential term
limits and dismantling the police state. He can change the course of
Syria by giving up that with which he has become so comfortable.

The unrest in Syria may have afforded Assad one last chance at being something more than simply Hafez al-Assad’s son.

(David W. Lesch, a
professor of Middle East history at Trinity University, is the author
of “The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria.”)

The New York Times

On November 3, 2008, an unknown Nigerian hid in a building on Muri Okunola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, and recorded an act of brutality perpetrated by officers of the Nigerian Navy. Within minutes, a disturbing video clip of a lady, Uzoma Okere, being beaten and stripped by naval ratings went viral on social network sites. Radio presenters quickly picked the ongoing assault and started calling on the authorities to intervene and stop the brutality. For many months after the incident, civil society organisations and activists continued to air that video, to the embarrassment of our military authorities. The video was also used as evidence in the judicial process that saw a Lagos High Court awarding N100 million in damages to Ms. Okere on January 27, 2010.

Perhaps more than any other, the Okere case illustrates the power of simple gadgets such as mobile phones in shaping events, and many Nigerians are now aware that the citizen is a key player in information dissemination. They are prepared to fully exercise this newly-found voice in the forthcoming general elections.

Across social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, many Nigerians have written of how they will arm themselves with mobile phones and cameras to monitor and report the elections wherever they are, in order to forestall election rigging. Those who have made this decision are certain there is no wrong in assisting authorities in the effort to hold credible elections.

It was, therefore, a shock when media reports indicated that the Inspector General of Police, Rafiz Ringim, had ordered the police to arrest anyone using camera phones at polling stations on election days. As expected, there was outrage at the decision from activists, civil societies and political parties. But more importantly, officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission also expressed dissatisfaction with the order. “The position of INEC is very clear. INEC has said anyone can bring their phone or camera to the polling unit. Anything to the contrary is not the position of INEC,” Kayode Idowu, the spokesperson for Attahiru Jega, the commission’s chairman, said.

Perhaps owing to the outcry, Mr. Ringim has since denied ever giving such an order. A spokesperson for the police, Yemi Ajayi, said his principal was “quoted out of context”. Whatever the truth is, we at NEXT are happy that the ban on mobile phones is no longer an issue. We believe that the Nigerian voter anywhere should be free to monitor and report events during the elections.

Indeed, we urge all voters to become citizen journalists using their mobile phones, cameras and other gadgets to capture events in their areas during the polls. On our part, we will provide the platform for their stories to be told to the rest of the nation. For the purpose of citizen participation in the election, we have built a micro site http:// election.234next.com, where anyone can provide real-time updates of the elections.

We believe that every Nigerian has a role to play in the conduct of credible elections and invite you to tell us how elections are going wherever you are. This kind of coverage will not only help voters protect their votes; it will also help electoral officials make judgments concerning logistics in future elections as well as provide information useful for better policing of the process. Besides, as cases of malpractice become well documented, it will be almost impossible for votes not to count. Even those who have planned to rig will think again when they see large numbers of voters with tools to document their criminality. This time around, there is no reason why our judges should lack evidence of election irregularities where they occur.

Over the past few
months, I have seen some of the people I admire most take a stand and
demand that enough is enough in Nigeria. I have seen both young and old
Nigerians demand that we end the hypocrisy and corruption that have
eaten so deep into our political system and crippled us as a nation.

I have seen close
friends show enviable enthusiasm in seeking change democratically. I
was part of many campaigns that said it is not over yet for Nigeria;
that maybe if we get this coming election right, maybe we will start to
see that light at the end of the tunnel. I believed, friends believed,
many others do too; we believed we would find that one different
politician that will sit at the helm of affairs and stir us at high
speed in the right direction.

Now, I am not that
kind of person that just sits around and waits for somebody else to
come and do the job. However, for some time now, I have seen other
believers and action-takers all trying to preach the candidacy of one
man – ‘The Right Man’, they said. I have seen them take to cyberspace,
and all other media to campaign for the said messiah – the one with
integrity, purpose, vision and will. The one without selfish interests,
who is different from the regular crop of politicians: Nuhu Ribadu.

At first, these
people started with mouth-watering promises from Mr. Ribadu, and they
got a lot of people excited, but not me. Something just wasn’t right!
He served under a government that failed to tackle corruption to her
fullest capacity. He is hobnobbing with the very kind of politicians he
said he wasn’t. Plus, his campaign strategies hinge more on mudslinging
and highlighting problems just like the other said ‘up-to-no-good’
politicians. Where is that difference? I just can’t see it! But I still
almost believed that he is the best of the lot.

The scales,
however, fell from my eyes on the night of Sunday, March 27, 2011, when
a friend and active Ribadu promoter sent me a celebratory message with
a link to a story that said Ibrahim Babangida endorses Ribadu. This
friend and I just months ago, actively campaigned together on Facebook
about how IBB can never be associated with anything good. Now the same
person celebrates this ‘Messiah’/Babangida relationship. Come on! This
is plain hypocrisy. You come down so hard on the incumbent because you
say he is surrounded by corrupt politicians, yet your candidate now
wines and dines with the perpetrators of the practices he promised to
fight.

You can look at
this development and want to wave it off as another strategic political
move or see it for what it is. As a political move, I think this is
laughable; Mr. Babangida is as relevant as he used to be politically.
He couldn’t even get himself the infamous northern consensus ticket. On
the other hand, how low do you have to sink, in order to actualise you
dream? Is there no moral or ethical standard in politics? Is Ribadu now
any different from Abubakar ‘public enemy’ Atiku, since he is going
about pitching tents with the same old politicians he labelled as the
source of our problem? This is pure desperation; a sign that he is
either misguided or unfocused. Either way, it is a sign of
incompetence, a sign that he is going to compromise the promises he is
making.

It is one thing to
make promises and be clueless about how to go about redeeming them; it
is another to show you actually lack the spirit and will to want to
redeem them in the first place. How do you hope to tackle corruption if
you seek help from corrupt people to get into office in the first place?

You argue that it
is not a sought endorsement? Yes, it is! He was there at Babangida’s
home on a courtesy visit. Don’t say the party didn’t know better.
Babatunde Fashola walked out of an event because Babangida was present
– and no, Fashola is not a saint either, but you see some level of
integrity in that sole action.

Let Ribadu go about
his business and campaign. I wish him luck. He probably can’t be any
worse than the rest but it is now so glaring that he is not any better,
either. Let his supporters spare me the pain of reading any more
propaganda. The game is over; I now see him for who he is. For me,
Ribadu has just lost the little edge he had, that benefit of doubt.

In theory, rigging
will be more difficult than ever in 2011, because of a combination of
factors: unprecedented INEC reforms, and renewed (technology-aided)
citizen involvement.

If the computerised
voters’ register (backed up by voters’ cards) is what it claims to be –
an accurate database of eligible Nigerian voters, certified by
finger-print and thus (theoretically) tough to manipulate – then
multiple voting, fraudulent finger-printing and inflation of numbers
have all been stripped of their allure, as the database should easily
detect them. But politicians being what they are, are ‘never-say-never’
people. We will probably witness the deployment of brand new rigging
strategies – e-rigging perhaps? – next month.

Let’s keep in mind
the fact that Nigeria’s parties are generally ethically
interchangeable, and that as a rule, parties will seek to rig in their
strongholds. In his widely-reported speech on election rigging,
delivered last year, former Cross River Governor, Donald Duke, said
that “[fraudulent finger-printing] is not a PDP thing… it’s a
Nigerian thing… it happens throughout the country, whether it’s
Action Congress or APGA, it’s the same thing. We are all the same.” In
all instances and mechanisms of election fraud, voter intimidation is
the common denominator – to manipulate people’s votes to the maximum,
you have to keep them away from the voting centres, or keep the voting
materials away from them. This often depends on the active
collaboration of the Nigeria Police Force, which, sadly, has always
seemed to make itself available to the highest bidder at election time.
Wole Soyinka once described the Second Republic Inspector-General of
Police, Sunday Adewusi, as “an uncouth, power-crazed police chief, who
promptly inaugurated a scorched earth policy in order to ensure his
master’s second tenure as Nigeria’s Head of State.”

Nigeria still has
tens of thousands of police officers serving as orderlies to ‘big’ men
and women around the country. These underpaid officers are more than
willing to assist their ‘bosses’ on election day – snatching ballot
boxes, providing cover for the snatching of ballot boxes, and generally
harassing opponents. There are also armies of disgruntled youth across
the country available to be cheaply used. We now know that many of
today’s ‘militants’ were originally employed and armed by desperate
politicians seeking to fight (literally) electoral battles. One piece
of good news coming from INEC is that it has vowed to cancel elections
anywhere there is violence. The downside is that parties could
instigate violence in opponents’ strongholds in a bid to cause
cancellations.

The most crucial
defining-factor in these elections would probably be technology. Not
only has it empowered INEC (again, in theory) via the computerised
voters’ register; it also promises to transform the electoral
experience from the perspective of the ordinary voter. Recall how the
video recording (most likely from a phone) from the Uzoma Okere case
‘immortalised’ what would have been just another random act of military
brutality, and served as a focal point for the crystallisation of
citizen anger. The level of transparency crucial at election centres
requires the free use of electronic devices by citizens.

The IG of Police,
Hafiz Ringim, was recently quoted as announcing a ban on mobile phones
and electronic devices at polling centres (the police has since then
invoked the “quoted out of context” rule). Professor Soyinka, probably
recalling the Adewusi era, promptly described that directive as
“nonsense”, “illegal” and “stupidity”. Need we say more?

A number of
technological tools have recently been unveiled, to assist in creating
the conditions for transparent elections. Revoda is one. Find out more
about it here: http://www.revoda.org/, and please spread the word. It
works via mobile phones, and “allows voters to report as independent
citizen observers from their respective polling units across Nigeria.”
ReclaimNaija.net also provides an election monitoring platform for
citizens. There will, of course, be the sceptics, wondering about the
utility of online tools in a country plagued by illiteracy and low
Internet penetration. My advice: look beyond the Internet platforms,
and realise that behind them are people – real people. (The ‘Nigerian
Election Coalition’ describes itself as “a virtual network backed by
real networks”).

People and
technology are coming together in unprecedented ways, to make a
difference. It may be a small difference today, but what Tunisia and
Egypt have shown us is that the journey of a thousand voices sometimes
begins with a single click.

There are also the
independent “observer” schemes. INEC is introducing “parallel observers
who shall document election results independently and forward same to
the commission for comparative analysis”. And there are initiatives
like the Nigerian Election Vigilantes Organisation (NEVO –
http://nigerianelectionvigilantes.ning.com/), and the Nigerian Election
Coalition (http://nigeriaelections.org/); determined to fight rigging
in 2011.

No one said rig-proofing Nigeria would be easy. But, here’s a
chance. For Nigerians itching for their own ‘revolution’, perhaps this
is an opportunity to replicate Tahrir Square (in terms of citizen
involvement) at individual polling centres across the country. The
North African wind may finally be here, waving a Nigerian flag. And if
you listen hard enough, you may hear it whispering: “The Elections They
Are a-Changing’!”

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.