Promise Adiele
I have, both on this column and in my scholarly engagements, interrogated the infinite juxtaposition of opposites and their inexorable unity. When I decide to walk away from the mutations of these opposites, I am confronted again with their dynamics as very important components of the human order. Victory and defeat are two opposites, although they contain themselves in each other like Esu and Orunmila on the Opon Ifa prognostic divination tray. However, they are derivative in nature since one necessarily begets the other. It is this kind of relationship that also exists between failure and success, rich and poor, love and hate, and such other seemingly opposed parallels with complementary alignments. Indeed, our conception of reality is validated by the dialectic configuration of these opposites.
Events in Nigeria, following the presidential and national assembly elections, have thrown up the two opposites, victory, and defeat into our faces. Certainly, they are the two most used words in Nigeria right now. However, let us examine what should be the appropriate attitude of victory and defeat in the current political aviary.
It is my conviction that every Nigerian of good conscience is interested in enthroning a country with innumerable, egalitarian possibilities. In this way, we see each other as partners in progress committed to the same objectives. With that consciousness, it is unacceptable for a citizen to insult, denigrate or vilify another citizen because of politics. This kind of attitude is more reprehensible seeing that every Nigerian professes to the homiletics of one religion or another. It grieves my heart to see Nigerians become enemies because of politics. Some people, especially those who support APC or PDP, unfortunately, subscribe to visceral hatred, they see politics as a game where the grotesque fantasy of victory at all cost predominates.
In my engagements with history, I appreciate the slogan, “No Victor No Vanquished” which was popular in Nigeria soon after the Nigeria-Biafra war. The slogan was popular not because we do not know who the victors were or who the vanquished were. It was popular because it provided a plank for rebuilding Nigeria and forging a common front towards national integration. The slogan was entrenched in the psyche of Nigerians and helped in refocusing the citizens towards positive affirmation to the task of keeping Nigerian one. Today, I re-echo the same slogan “No Victor No Vanquished” for the sake of peace, for the sake of millions of lives that would be lost in the event of any civil combustion arising from the elections.
The 2019 elections finally came upon us and on Saturday the 23rd of February, millions of Nigerians went to cast their votes, some at the risk of their lives and some, under inclement weather conditions. However, before INEC could conclude collation of election results, social media, that promiscuous facilitator which has bastardised information and its dissemination, was already awash with results from different parts of the country, some of them fictitious, some from the pit hellfire to engineer mischief and some outright falsehood to achieve tawdry objectives. Unfortunately, some Nigerians have lost their lives owing to the tensions created by fake news and its purveyors. It pulls at the strings of the soul to see that some of these tensions have degenerated to ethnic hate, a strategy by the wicked to cause disaffection and create further tension to feather their ignoble hats.
In truth, some aspects of this election have once again reinforced the existence of magic and wonder which defies explanations. According to visual evidence on the internet, some INEC officials were seen in the bush thumb printing election materials. We may wonder how it is possible for states ravaged by the terrorist group Boko Haram to record a humongous voter turnout. It is this kind of magic that fuels bitterness and questions the structures that produce our leaders. This is the more reason why any leader who rides to power on the back of such a mangled system should be humble in victory. Those who feel aggrieved in one way or another should seek redress through the proper channels. Nobody’s political ambition is worth the blood of Nigerians, thanks to former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Any student of life will know that in any contest there will be winners and there will be losers. Regrettably, many people do not have the right attitude when they find themselves on the side of either victory or defeat, as winners or as losers. It is very sad that there are Nigerians who have taken the occasion of these elections to resort to all manner of deviousness, name calling and in fact what may be termed as enemy action. For these people, it is an opportunity to make enemies and extend the frontiers of acrimony towards fellow citizens who hold a different opinion to their own.
I have come to realise that there are Nigerians, who claim to be educated and enlightened, yet cannot make a point without using very offensive language. These people are incapable of sustaining any argument without resorting to diatribe. One wonders how such people are able to keep a family. It is condemnable for anybody to call Alhaji Atiku Abubakar a thief, a rogue, and use such other acerbic words on him. It is the highest demonstration of disrespect for anybody to call President Mohammadu Buhari a lifeless one, or to wish him dead. Same goes for other aspirants in this election. Godswill Akpabio has not committed any crime, just as Bukola Saraki has not committed any crime too, at least not pronounced by any competent jurisdiction. To continue to hurl curses at them reveals the hollowness that resides in the hearts of those who indulge in such practices. It exposes their inability to find adequate, corresponding language for self-expression. Objective criticism is allowed, but to get personal and ridiculous is improper. Those who have their hearts and heads populated with bitterness, those who have a dislocated upbringing, those who are victims of a dysfunctional family where hate and bile reign supreme, should not pollute the social space with assertions from their chaotic ethical delirium.
Nobody is a hero for winning an election and nobody is a criminal for losing an election. However, a person who has won an election can become a hero if he uses his position for social and economic transformation, changing the lives of the people and giving them hope to live. Also, a person who has lost an election can become a criminal if, in his desperation, he constitutes a public nuisance, violating the codes and laws of the land. If anybody has won, it bestows on him a huge responsibility to perform, to save the people from the throes of hardship, corruption, poverty and all forms of social decay. People who have lost should show courage and lend their support in building a Nigerian edifice of their dreams. It is within this kind of matrix that we situate the best attitude of victory and defeat.
Dr. Adiele writes from Lagos
via Promee01@yahoo.com
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