By Jide Ajani

An unadulterated nightmare!
That is what Nigeria’s political space is.
Yet, those who occupy and operate within that space would tell you that they are very much at home, indeed happy, operating within that space.

Make no mistakes there is absolute normality in the abnormal ambience of that space.
Still, talk to the major actors and the response you get is “you won’t understand”!
Well understanding an act of mental disorder is one thing; relating with it is another.

And that is where Nigerian politicians miss the point.
Nigerians have indeed come to understand why they rig or annul elections. What Nigerians have refused to get used to or relate with is the reason(s) that politicians peddle for their serial acts of misdemeanour.

Before we move on, let us seek knowledge from the American Psychiatric Association, APA.

APA publishes a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder and its fifth edition hit the bookstands penultimate week.  The DSM series seeks to “set strict criteria for identifying mental disorders…. And it has become the global standard for the description of mental illness”.

The power and influence that the DSM series wields is so enormous that most people who seek it consider it as the “psychiatric bible”.

Now, this latest publication in the series presents the thinking of the association on what constitutes a disorder of the mind.  It has its shortcomings because it “medicalises normal behavior”.  Another drawback is that scientists are being advised not to allow the approach of APA’s work to influence wrongly their own quest for diagnosis and treatment.

Of note here is the fact that the human brain, with 100billion nerve cells, has the capacity to process very complex pieces of information for the use of humans.

Relating this to the Nigerian politician is crucial within the context of attempting to fully understand why a group of people do not see the illusion and mental ill-health in pursuing and actually doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results or outcomes.

Two issues are linked inexorably here, though purely coincidentally.
20years ago this month, a presidential election was held and a winner emerged. Before the election, there were last-minute efforts to introduce shambles.  Later, while the results were being announced, all sorts of shenanigans played out ultimately leading to the annulment of that election.  At the end of the day, the entire transition programme of the Third Republic came to an abrupt end.  And with it, billions of Naira, and millions of man-hours went down the drain with that dangerously shambolic conclusion to that Republic.  20 years after, some of the lives which were ruined along with businesses which collapsed have not come back to life just as careers abruptly ended have not picked up. The human cost of the events of June 12, 1993 remains incalculable.

20years after, just penultimate week, a group of state governors, after voting to elect a chairman for their Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, stormed out of the voting venue, raised objections and sought to misrepresent the events in which they had just participated.  In fact, what they told Nigerians was not correct in every material particular. They claimed that there was no election and that there was a list of 18 state governors who had earlier endorsed the candidacy and eventual chairmanship of Jonah Jang of Plateau State. Meanwhile, the result of the voting which they participated in showed that Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State scored 19 votes to Jang’s 16 – 35 state governors were in attendance and they all voted.  For added effect, there is a video evidence of their actual participation in the process.

The relationship between the June 12 presidential election of 20years ago and the voting exercise of the NGF is in the outcome: An election was held and a clique decides for other Nigerians that because it lost, then to hell with every other Nigerian.

Unfortunately for the pro-President Goodluck Jonathan state governors who are insisting that Jang who lost should become the chairman, it was this same madness that played out in 1993 when state governors of the National Republican Convention, NRC, who had seen the hand writing on the wall that its presidential candidate was on the verge of losing the election, instigated a rejection of the election results. When the military struck, it did not differentiate between the Social Democratic Party, SDP, governors and their NRC counterparts. Mercifully today, military dictatorship is an anachronism. So, perish that thought of any adventure.

However, locating the recent events of the NGF, that is insulting the sensibilities of Nigerians all over again, 20years after the June 12 debacle, within the context of a disorder may not be too far from the truth.  The body does not have any constitutional relevance in the scheme of things; but because some Nigerian politicians reason backwardly atimes, they have convinced themselves that appellations and sobriquets are all that  is required to win  general elections and not performance.

MKO Abiola and IBB

Worse  still, President Jonathan’s seemingly glowing mid-term transformation performance is being dulled by the meddlesomeness of some of his confidants and the poisoning of the political space with conducts that are less than noble – on the 20th anniversary of June 12.

Meanwhile, President Jonathan, at the PDP Family Dinner, endorsed the falsehood that was presented to him when he acknowledged Jang as chairman of the NGF – that is a situation a President should not be putting himself.  In all this, two more years plus another four years for President Jonathan’s Second Term might seem like eternity today (20 years have since passed since the June 12 imbroglio).  But he would do well to ask Olusegun Obasanjo or Ibrahim Babangida how it  feels to look back

In conclusion, take this:  What mental disposition influences adults to behave the way some pro-Jonathan governors behaved penultimate Friday regarding the election of a chairman for NGF? Discuss.