The Leaders We Deserve

It started as a joke. Every time we discussed Nigeria and the failures of governance, I would tell my siblings and friends, “We are serving our punishment.” When those who live in the US or UK complained about their own government issues, I would tell them, “Serve your punishment well. We are serving ours in Nigeria.” With time, I have come to realize that it is true – our leaders are a reflection of our collective selves. Every nation, every group, gets the leaders they deserve.

As I write this one day to the Presidential and National Assembly Elections in Nigeria in 2019, unless a miracle happens, and we are allowed to vote with other means of identification like our International Passports or Driver’s Licenses, I have been disenfranchised. While I really would have loved to vote for the candidates of my choice, my sadness is tempered because I realise that regardless of what happens at the polls, we will be getting the leaders we deserve in Nigeria. Whatever the outcome is, we will be getting the leaders we deserve.

All my adult life in Nigeria, I have never voted in Nigeria’s elections. The first time I was of age to vote was in 2007. I recall going to the polling station with my parents and siblings, but it was bare, as if there was no election that day. We drove around town that day, looking for a polling station – maybe we had missed some announcement about venue change – but there was none in our community. My parents did not think that it was safe for us to stay out waiting for INEC officials to show up, so we went home, but we kept calling others to confirm if the polling station had opened, so we could go and vote. That night, mysteriously, miraculously or mischievously, INEC announced the results from our non-existent polling station. We laughed about this rape of justice, the way we are wont to laugh about uncomfortable and disgusting things in Nigeria. Same thing repeated itself the next election weekend.

Before the 2011 elections, INEC announced that the process was going to be technology enabled. My parents and I queued for hours to register and get our temporary voter’s cards. Well, my parents did most of the queuing because I had to go to work. That day, I got my temporary voter’s card, which was to be exchanged for a permanent voter’s card in the future, but which I could use to vote in the elections that year. I could not vote still. After planning my schedule around the election dates, INEC postponed the elections. I had to take an exam in Ghana 2 days before the election. I didn’t have money to travel by air, so I had to go by road, and there was no way I was going to be back home in time for the election. The next weekend, a dear friend was getting married and I couldn’t travel back home on election morning to vote. Maybe someday in Nigeria, we will be able to conduct elections without restriction of movements. Maybe we will also introduce absentee and early voting, because if we had such provisions, I may have been able to participate in 2015 elections. By then, the permanent voter’s cards (PVCs) were ready, and we needed them to vote. First, INEC officials couldn’t find mine and my mother’s. My mother checked again, and saw hers and mine, but she couldn’t collect mine, and I was out of town. By the time I returned, distribution of PVCs was over for that season. The INEC officials said I would have to wait till the next distribution cycle after the elections. Even though I wanted to vote, I didn’t mind much, as I was going to be out of the country during the elections, anyway. I promised myself that I would vote in the 2019 elections, and I tried to dissuade people from voting for the APC candidate for the presidential election. My argument was that no former military ruler, especially one who truncated democracy, deserves to be president of Nigeria. I was also not convinced by their manifesto. In my opinion, school feeding programmes and handouts of N5,000 or N10,000 monthly was not the way to move Nigeria forward. I argued then as I argue now, that we need government to provide enabling environment, not handouts, and that if the economy is working, parents will feed their children themselves, and the unemployed will find jobs that pay them better than the handouts. Nigerians decided in 2015, and we got the leaders we deserve.

Early 2018, I remembered my promise to myself, and started the process of getting my PVC. On my first visit to the INEC office in my local government area (LGA), I was told “come back next month”. The next month came, and I was told the same thing. I decided to give them 2 months, and I went again. This time after waiting on the queue for more than 5 hours, I was told that the person in charge of the PVCs for the year I registered was not on seat. I went again, and was told that they were only attending to people who registered after 2015, and those of us who registered in 2011 had to come again another day. Another day came, and they told me that they couldn’t find my PVC, and that I probably did not register. I insisted that I did, I showed them a screenshot of my registration details generated from the INEC website, with my Voters Identification Number and all. They didn’t believe that screenshot, and did checked the website themselves. When my details popped up on their own phone, they believed me, and advised me to “forget about the PVC for now”. I made noise that day. The electoral officer for the LGA had to attend to me. I narrated my experience with the PVC collection process to him, and told him I wanted my PVC before the elections in 2019. He advised me to check the voters’ register in my polling unit, and said that if my details were there, it meant I had a PVC, and I would get it. I checked, my details were there, I took a picture of it and went back to their office. Still no PVC. I engaged INEC via email, phone call and Twitter. It was a one-sided engagement. No response. I engaged some civil society groups too. Still no PVC. PVC collection ended on Monday, February 11, 2019. I write this on Friday, February 15, 2019. No PVC. What else should I have done? I tell you this story, to establish that my not voting, and my position that we will be getting the leaders we deserve is not from conceived from apathy.

Our leaders are a reflection of ourselves. Before you argue that you are different, I need you to stop thinking of “us” as individuals. Rather, think of “us” as a collective. That is what matters in nation building – our shared identity, characteristics, morals, etc. Or, even more precise, our mean or mode identity, characteristics and morals. Who we are is what you get when you take the sum of who we are individually, and you divide it by the number of “us”, or the values that appear the most, when you list all our individual characteristics and morals. Your individual self is of no benefit to anyone just by itself. Your individual “good” or “wisdom” will not EPP anyone. It needs others’ “good” and “wisdom”. We define a people by the “good” Imagine that you are the only sane driver on the road, the only one who obeys traffic rules. Do you really think that you will get to your destination safely? Unless we have a collective of sane drivers who obey traffic rules, and a system that ensures that the other mad people stay in check, it is just a matter of when the accidents will happen and who will be involved per time. That’s why we will be getting the leaders we deserve in Nigeria after the elections.

Let me tell you about Nigerians. Let me show you some pictures of who “we” really are. Nigerians make jokes out of everything, and we laugh about them to, including the disgusting, horrible and evil things. The Independent National Electoral Commission that has denied me and many other Nigerians our right to vote comprises of Nigerians. Some Nigerians have received payments to cause violence during the election season. Some Nigerians have defied logic and reasoning in their campaigns for the candidates of their choice. Even people who used to make sense before have started to defend the indefensible, because of their salaries or their religious leaders. Some Nigerians have glorified poverty, and desire that we continue to have policies that stifle economic growth. Some Nigerians have based their voting choices on the assumption that a candidate will die, and the next in line, who is their real choice, will become the leader. Where elections will be rigged, it will be rigged by Nigerians. Some Nigerians, will pay other Nigerians for their votes, and some Nigerians will sell their votes for N5,000 or less (less than $15 for four years of bad leadership). Some Nigerians have refused to participate in politics in any way. Some Nigerians who live in Nigeria, and are neither disabled nor invalid, did not even bother to register for the elections, and some registered but did not bother to check if their PVCs are available for collection. Some collected their PVCs, and will be in the same vicinity as their polling station, but will not bother to go out to vote.

When all of this is over, tell me, will we not be getting the leaders we truly deserve? And if we get four years of bad leadership, will we not be serving the punishment we justly deserve?