Obama Victory: Lessons for the Nigerian Government

That Obama has won and since emerged the youngest and the first ever African-American President is now history but as usual quite a lot of lessons abound for Nigeria and other African countries especially Kenya, Egypt, Zimbabwe and others but for certain reasons the derivable lessons from this the conduct and emergence of Barrack Obama victory as presented here will be limited to the Nigerian Government.

If this election was to be held in Nigeria, certainly innumerable difficulties forbidding the victory of Obama would have arisen, trust our government officials who in their usual manners egregiously hold on to many unnecessary political of orders in solving minute matters of interest to the nation. An Obama would have been unthinkable in the Nigerian political scenario, considering that his father originally would not have been a Nigerian, the Nigerian elders of politics would have labeled him a non indigene coming to reap where his daddy did not sow. Tribalism has many a times done many damages to our politics.

It is a one forward and three steps backward that no matter how long one has lived in any particular region of Nigeria it does not make him eligible to contest election in that very region of the country, even if he was born there. In order words, an Igbo man remains an Igbo man no matter where he was born, a Fulani man remains a Fulani man no matter how long he has lived in Oghara. Here was an Obama, a fourth generation family originally from Kenya because his father was from Kenya wonderfully and constitutionally allowed to contest and wins election in far away United States of America.

From inception, the politics of Nigeria has been characterized by tribalism and godfather factor. Tribalism especially has forbidden many visionary personalities from contesting and winning elections in any part of the country and meaningfully contributes to the development of such regions. Even in our presidential elections, the system of rotation has crept in because a particular region of the country has in certain indescribable means dominated the political leadership of the country to the wonderment of other regions. We have now learnt from Obama that tribalism does not matter but policies. Americans voted for policies not tribalism.

In Nigeria age is a factor, while the highly developed society such as USA has since discarded age into the waste paper dustbin. Our elders here are still of the opinion that until one is aged, he actually has nothing to offer much more become the president of our dear nation. If anyone at 47 is contesting the presidential election in Nigeria what happens to our Babas and Mamas who posses all the wherewithal and knowledge to pilot every affair of this nation? It would have been thoroughly difficult for an Obama at a very tender age to win a presidential election in this country, when actually he should have been kowtowing to his elders.

The problem of Nigeria at the moment starts with too many political parties in existence many of who wishes to merely form a party and regularly collect a little allocation from the government or at least seek cheap political publicity. Nigeria does not require more than two political parties as two political parties naturally draw a line between a ruling and opposition parties. Besides, it is always easy to manage two political parties, and constant defection from one party to another forgetting that party and not personality is highly regarded for victories sustained in elections. Ibrahim Babangida was able to score political victory in his June 12 election not minding the annulment of that election because he operated a two-party system which naturally forbids tribalism thus bringing about unity. Two-party remains the best for the country. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken as proven by Obama.

The press should also stop giving attention to political parties without a local government, only serious-minded candidates should be shown attention, to avoid waste of time, energy and resources.

Publicity has also proved to be very vital in electioneering, in the USA presidential election about $3million was spent on daily basis for this purpose, and this is one area we are lacking in this country, campaigns are naturally bound to follow publicities but quite often, we have candidates and even perceived electoral winners foisted on us. The recent 2008 LG election in Lagos State shows that a candidate not even known by the people, only selected by certain godfathers in unknown and unconvincing circumstances can find his way to the political offices without the massive support of voters. It is the fear of this that dissuades voters from voting since it is believed that it does not matter whether one votes or not, a winner must always emerge. Obama and McCain reached people.

Internal democracy was at work within the parties in USA unlike what transpired in 2008 Lagos LG election where primaries within political parties were shunned by people who described themselves as party godfathers fostering on us all candidates not known to us under mysterious circumstances

The incumbent president of USA did not give explicit support to any of the candidates, an Obasanjo would have held the hand of one of the candidates and sing Christian victory songs in support of his personal choice which must now become the general choice of the everyone, including you and me because I bet he must win the election whether the Devil likes it or not. There certainly was no compromise in order not to cause division. There was no violence as cutlasses were not used to strike anyone, dead or alive; every local government resources were released. No ballot boxes were fraudulently stuffed up or stolen.

There was also a timely release of results within hours, and no one has protested or even indicated interest to head for the courts to prove a case of large scale of electoral malpractice as we would have seen a man in “agbada” threateningly do. A McCain immediately congratulated an Obama, and his speech remarked that he had fought a good fight, asking his supporters to support the Obama.

We sincerely hope that our Electoral Reform Committee at work has taken note of all these so that we can see less of imposed candidates on us and thoroughly see true visionary winners coming to offer us true policies that will change our already rubbished socio-political and economic situations of the country.