By Rotimi Fasan
FINALLY the 2011 presidential election will end in the same place the last two previous presidential elections ended: At the electoral petition tribunal. With the generally favourable comments from local and foreign observers concerning the elections, one would have thought things would go differently this time around.

But Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of Congress for Progressive Change, thought things were not exactly right with the elections and so chose to contest the declaration of Goodluck Jonathan, incumbent president, as winner of the election by Attahiru Jega’s INEC. General Buhari ‘s response should not be surprising to followers of his politics since he joined the presidential race in 2003.

Since that time, Buhari, a retired general and former Head of State, one of the dreaded duo that led the junta that ousted the civilians from power in 1983, has contested for the presidency thrice- twice on the platform of the ANPP where internal disagreement with the party hierarchy would see him leave them in a huff.

On the first occasion, not only did Buhari, a man of iron will, go to the tribunal where he lost after a struggle that ended at the Supreme Court, he also refused to recognise Obasanjo’s victory and expressed his disagreement by refusing to shake hands with Obasanjo even as he discreetly stayed away from state functions that would have conferred some form of recognition on, if not his personal approval of, the administration.

The same situation played out in 2003 when Buhari was once more defeated by late president, Umar Yar’Adua, in an election that was manifestly flawed. And now that Buhari has suffered similar fate in the hands of Jonathan, sending this veteran of presidential contests into retirement, the PDP, it can be said, has indeed done for Buhari.

His going to the tribunals would seem more a symbolic gesture of his protest rather than firm belief in his ability to overturn INEC’s decision that has been applauded in many regards despite the wobbly start that marked the elections. In his dogged pursuit of justice through the instrumentality of the law, Buhari reminds one of Gani Fawehinmi, late symbol of Nigeria’s struggle for democratic justice and human rights who was one of the few people outside the military that had a warm relationship with Buhari.

Fear of failure is not enough deterrence to Buhari. But if one can talk of Buhari demonstrating faith in the judiciary he didn’t seem to have had much respect for as a military leader, one cannot say the same thing of some who claim to be his supporters who went on rampage when it became clear that their principal had lost the presidential race.

These elements from whom Buhari has rightly dissociated himself, calling them miscreants, reverted to ways we thought we had abandoned for good. Coming from a section of the country that had been the bastion of sectarian-cum-ethnic strife directed at outsiders, this is particularly disheartening.

One wonders what the hoodlums who chose the victory of Jonathan as an occasion to unleash violence on their innocent compatriots from the South and other parts of the country, touching homes, places of worship and business, in a blind orgy that is not only aggravating to right thinking people but must also be embarrassing to responsible Nigerians from the North- one cannot but wonder, I say, what the so-called supporters of Buhari would have expected of Nigerians from other parts of the country had Buhari won. Such people give the impression only their kind deserves to rule.

As at Wednesday last week, two days after Jonathan was declared winner of the presidential polls and the violence started, the number of displaced Nigerians had, according to the Nigerian Red Cross, doubled to about 50,000.

This is certainly no victory dance for Jonathan; it’s no way to repay the firm, undiluted support the North had enjoyed since Nigeria’s independence from the South-south, the very region from which the president-elect comes. For long Nigerians of Northern extraction had managed to count on the support of Nigerians from the South-south. The South-south had managed to tilt victory to the North on very significant occasions of national dimension.

To imagine now that it’s the electoral victory of the first Nigerian from that part of the country that sparked off this scale of violence is quite unbelievable. Certainly, there is a lot to worry about this kind of reaction from the North where some people imagine the only way to express displeasure about conditions in the country is to turn on others from outside their region. This can’t all be a matter of illiteracy.

There is something more innate about this kind of visceral dislike of outsiders, and until perpetrators of hate crime like this are made to account for their unacceptable conduct, little will be achieved by way of persuasion. Wherever such impunity has been on display, it’s always been in contexts where nobody has been made to face the full rigour of their conduct.

Nigerians cannot be expected to live in this atmosphere of insecurity where they become victims of ethnic and sectarian violence simply on account of their ethnic and religious background. Whatever are the merits of Buhari’s petition is diminished by the violent behaviour of his so-called supporters.

Those who cannot subject themselves to the leadership of others cannot and should not expect such people to accept their own ‘foreign’ leadership. We must begin to insist on a common code of conduct for all Nigerians no matter their creed or political affiliation. Those who refuse to accept the demands of these common codes should not lay claims to them in other spheres of life. Violence is not the exclusive preserve of some people.

Others too can be violent. Yet returning violence with violence cannot be the right response, attractive as it might seem, in this situation. It is a cowardly response; the reaction of those who’ve accepted defeat, especially the unprovoked variety from Buhari’s ‘supporters’. Perhaps, one important lesson Jonathan’s victory and Buhari’s response has engendered is that no election is entirely flawless, free of corruption either intended or otherwise. This lesson has to be learned and quickly too.