By Dakuku Peterside

IT is now a cliché that this election is a make-or-break election for Nigeria. It is our way of saying this is a consequential election. The significance of this election has become clear to everyone, and unlike any other election before it, it is the first post-military election in which the outcome is difficult to predict. There are numerous conflicts between some simple and binary issues and some multifaceted issues. Some Nigerians see this election as a battle between established orthodoxy since the country’s current democratic dispensation began in 1999 and the desire for a new political order. Some are neither interested in any old nor new political order but want a political order that will solve the challenges of insecurity, poverty, unemployment, and underemployment, and improve economic and social well-being. Unfortunately, because our electorate is still largely illiterate, some are transactional and mercantile about this election. For this group, this election is about buying and selling votes and maximising the total commercial value possible in the voting value chain in Nigeria. More fundamental is the fact that, against the backdrop of an excruciating economic challenge, Nigerians will be making a choice in less than five days. On Saturday, February 25, approximately 74.72 million Nigerians who had collected their permanent voter’s card, PVC, or 80 per cent of the 93.4 million registered voters, will head to the polling booths in what promises to be a watershed moment for Nigeria. Elections will be held for seats in the National Assembly and the presidency, but all eyes are on the presidential ballot for good reasons. Whoever wins will have serious consequences for the country’s and Africa’s future. Many people must have made up their minds about whom to vote for. They must have made this important decision based on numerous factors, some logical and noble, others primordial and sentimental, and some may have been influenced by superstition and ignorance. This notwithstanding, performing the civic task of voting is essential to keep our democracy going. Nigerians are quite optimistic that this will be a comparatively free and fair election because of what INEC has put in place. We hope, too, that the best presidential candidate wins the election. However, what should be the priorities of the average voter as we go to the polls to elect the president? 

Nigeria has not had the best leadership, which impacts the country’s fragile state and citizens’ economic lives. The Nigerian problem, at best, can be reduced to a leadership problem. The quality of leadership a country receives directly correlates with the quality of leaders it has. Leaders who selflessly serve the interests of their people, leading the country to a clearly defined vision that is tangible, measurable, and specific. Nigeria needs a leader who will lay the foundation for harnessing the vast potential of Nigeria and push it to be among the top 10 economies in the world within the next few decades. A leader that stops our slide into the abyss and reverses the trend toward growth and prosperity will improve the lives of every Nigerian. The first priority of the average voter is to identify who among the contending presidential candidates truly represents such a leader. Using their knowledge of each presidential candidate’s antecedents and prior experiences in leadership, voters can judge who this presidential candidate is and vote for him based on their conscience. The second priority of the average voter is to identify and vote for a presidential candidate capable of addressing the most critical challenges confronting Nigeria as a nation. A significant challenge for voters is identifying a leader powered by vision and purpose. Nigeria seems directionless, and every effort made by existing and subsequent governments has yielded less-than-expected results at best and negative impacts at worst. We need a leader who will define the kind of future our country will have. A leader that will provide clear direction for the country and galvanise everyone to share and work for that future. The question is: who, not which party, can best guarantee the future we deserve. The questions every voter must consider are: what kind of future do I want for Nigeria? Does this align with that of the presidential candidate I want to vote for? Does the candidate have the qualities, character, knowledge, skills, and experience to fulfill this dream? Your answer to these questions will guide you towards the right choice. 

The third crucial challenge for the presidential candidate is having the capacity to address the problem of disunity and lingering agitations of marginalisation and distrust among the various groups making up Nigeria. The candidate to vote for must be able to promote and strengthen our unity and nationhood. This election is currently the most severe test of Nigeria’s unity. For the first time in this post-1999 democratic experiment, we have three major contenders for the presidency, representing the three major ethnic groups and two major religious groups in Nigeria. Only a free, fair, and credible election on Saturday will lay the foundation to douse the emotional sentimentalism that may ensue after the polls. The critical question is: who among the candidates can promote and strengthen our seemingly fragile unity? The answer to this question is vital for voters as they choose and vote for the next president. The fourth challenge is for the candidate to have the clarity of vision and proven capacity to address intractable insecurity, massive unemployment, fantastical corruption, and devastating multidimensional poverty. These challenges have been the bane of Nigeria since independence, and they seem to be getting worse by the day. A content analysis of the electoral promises of Nigerian leaders from independence until now reveals that these problems have been there all this time. We need a leader who will surmount these seemingly insurmountable problems. Only then will we make progress. We need a leader who understands the link between economic security and social security – one cannot exist without the other. A voter must ask: Who among the candidates can tackle, most radically and definitively, the four issues of insecurity, unemployment, corruption, and poverty?  This election is the most technology based in Nigeria’s history. This is the first time in a presidential election in Nigeria that the BVAS and online transmission of results technology have been adopted, and this has increased people’s hope for a transparent election, with the future looking bright for credible elections. This hope has led many voters to believe their votes will count and therefore give them power. This will likely lead to a high turnout for voting on Saturday. The body language and rhetoric of the president show that he is eager to leave a legacy of electoral transparency before he leaves office. This election, hopefully, will live up to its billing as the most accessible and fair election in Nigerian general election history. 

The international community expects a credible, free, and fair election. As one of the biggest democracies in the world, the outcome of Nigeria’s elections reverberates worldwide. A successful election in Nigeria will strengthen democracy in sub-Saharan Africa and serve as a counterforce to the growing appetite for coups and unconstitutional means of changing government in the region. A crisis in Nigeria would have far-reaching migration and refugee implications for the entire continent of Africa. We need credible and peaceful elections more than ever at these perilous times when global politics and alignments are shaky, especially given the NATO-Russia, brouhaha. As voters perform their civic responsibility on Saturday, it is an opportunity to choose between different options, not only candidates but also what they represent versus what we want. It should not be about religion, region, ethnicity, or party but about the future of our country. 

The next president must have the capacity and character to change Nigeria for good. Your vote counts! Vote by vote, and election by election, we will rebuild Nigeria into the country of our dreams.