SCARS OF NIGERIAN POLITICS

SCARS OF NIGERIAN POLITICS
By Kenneth Inaku Egere
Before the 1999 general election, the political elite in Nigeria broadly favoured the transfer of power to the South in general, and the South-West in particular. The reason was simple: most people felt it was the best option to keep Nigeria one, considering the injustice the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida-led military regime did to the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the late Chief M.K.O Abiola. The Babangida junta had cancelled the election, adjudged the fairest in the nation’s electoral history.

Military officers of northern extraction enjoyed 15 uninterrupted years (1983-1998) at the nation’s helm of affairs. Babangida, known for his mastery of political subterfuge, led a pack of northern political leaders to persuade Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo to come out of retirement and join the presidential race.

The struggle for political space among up-and-coming politicians and the old guard threw up fresh challenges. While old breed politicians were bent on sticking to the old ways of doing things, the new breed, determined to break the hold of the old breed on politics in the region, took another look at traditional values and decided to appeal to religious sentiments. Religion became the platform for political gymnastic, Christians versus Muslims. Rather than uniting the country, sectionalism became the order of the day. Various religious sects began an internal struggle for dominance so much so that laws like the Sharia where introduced that are unconstitutional. What a rape of democracy.