Ethnic champions and Unrealistic Voting expectations

By Terhemba Osuji |

Some of you who have read my posts know that I am a strong supporter of the monarchy and will strengthen them even more if I had the power so the can prevent mass murder and riots, but certainly not for inciting ethnic cleansing. 

So I am saddened at the ethnic bigotry surrounding these elections, the incendiary statements of the Oba of lagos and the unrealistic wholesale gloating of tribalists on social media about Ibo's losing out in the power struggle in Nigeria today because the happened to be in the opposition in this particular election.

There is no escaping the fact that the voting patterns reflect the tribal, religious and ethnic origins of individual voters. It does not take an oracle to know beforehand that the APC will capture the vote in Oduduwa land as the son of the soil is the the VP candidate. 

It also came as no surprise that the middle belt would vote for APC because of shared affiliations from the old northern regional government. But tribal politics came into play in Apa state as the Idomas massively voted for GMB for president but voted for David Mark, its strongest man to protect its interest at the table of the PDP. It took no great imagination or time for me to call that election in a previous posts and it only goes to show that we will act as nigerians only so long as our tribal interests are not under threat.

It also takes no great imagination to calculate that GMB would secure the majority vote of the North. Some people might pretentiously claim it is because of GEJ's managerial neglect and incompetence but we all know that the north voted APC because GMB would secure nothing less than the presidency for the north. This is inspite of the fact that the north has always had a strong presence at the table with one immediate past and current VP and inspite of having many positions and and PDP party chairmanships since the return to civilian rule in 1999 to name a few. 

The Yorubas now celebrating their current political strategy were all in the opposition in the 60's all the way through the regime of their kinsman OBJ in the old AD party. Now even though the Yorubas through OBJ held the exalted office for eight long years, how do you expect them not to vote for the APC with a VP candidate motivated by the perception that they were systematically excluded from power by the GEJ administration in distributing official posts.

The PDP obviously won the elections in Rivers even without rigging,but the APC secured a huge turnout nevertheless. The APC besides many other reasons only secured the vote because of the Ameachi led insurgency against the PDP, but he had his personal reasons for that unnatural tribal support and was embarrassed when his deputy decamped to the PDP as could also have been ethnically calculated.

Only a naive political hack would think that GMB would secure the majority vote in the east much less Imo state unless you do not understand IBO nationalisms or their fears real or imagined that the have been systematically excluded from power since after the civil war. When you point out to Nigerians how come the third largest tribe has not become president they say IBO's are poor politicians, how would you now expect to secure the majority vote from such a politically inept people who are aware of your perceptions. 

I think my Highness has a right to speak to his subjects and i hope this article is the case of him being misquoted or poor journalism, but I would prefer that he speaks on issues of restoring FEAR and order. I would prefer that he appeal to IBO and non-indigine sensibilities, they are all lagosians and will make that calculation for Lagos as most states will after the APC captured the center so why beleaguer the issue. 

So, will there be bloodshed if the PDP wins Lagos, will IBO's obviously now become targets for the collective failure of the electorate. Besides the tribal sentiments in voting, This broad condemnation does not take into account principled stands of educated Yorubas not voting for GMB because of a principled stand that he was a former dictator turned democrat or that the might not like his vp for whatever reason, even if he is the so called son of the soil, just ask sambo. 

After taking these tribal realities into account you can only smirk at the comments of Nigerian patriot pretenders on social media mocking Ibo people about losing out in the current power permutations or being categorized as untrustworthy simply because they did not vote for the APC. 

Such broad categorizations do not take into account the very public efforts of the imo state governor to call out the vote for the APC. No one remembers that he has been derogatively called a mallam for that support or that the many of the disunited IBO's voted for APC because the want the CHANGII not being offered by GEJ.

When the call goes out to the mob for mass action against the IBO's don't the know that the will be targeting Rivers people who will be broadly categorized as IBO even though there are allegations that Amaechi has bankrupted his state to support the APC, how happy will he be when his people are targeted in Lagos. 

I think GMB has matured as a politician and I heard he is reportedly visiting Imo state to thank them for their support which he got despite the many misgivings the would and should have against his candidacy. 

That is the right course of action instead of a tribal witch hunt, blame games and ethnic calls from a monarch who should be over and above Politics.

The real axe to grind is not about Lagos being in the opposition, but about the institutional fraud, graft and corruption by past Lagos state administrators that has slowed down the infrastructural development of Lagos and made its former officials like xxx notoriously wealthy and described as the michiavelli of Nigeria in a foreign newspaper.

A call to arms against poor governance will be more easily understood than caving in to group think majority rule. 

Oh my God, it's time to get ready for work