It is hard to tell if Nigeria’s holding of gubernatorial elections despite the violence that convulsed parts of the country after the recent violence that followed the country’s presidential elections represents an example of prudently staying the course, foolishly provoking a continuation of the climate of violence, or simply hopeful whistling past the graveyard.
Ultimately it makes sense to hold the elections lest the message be sent that violence can undermine democratic processes. But then again, hasn’t violence, as a matter of fact, already disrupted whatever democratic culture exists in Nigeria? After all, whetever irregularities characterized the Presidential election that gave Goodluck Jonathan the presidency they surely were not enough to account for Jonathan’s overwhelming victory. The violence that erupted in the wake of his victory thus must be seen political as opposed to representing a form of protest against corruption. People who did not want to see Jonathan win reacted with fury. Irregularities — indeed signs of corruption — thus became a pretext for violence rather than a justification for it. Opposition politicians did not help to rein in the violence and it soon raged beyond their probably tenuous ability to do so.
It is not unreasonable, given Nigeria’s history, to wonder whether the country as currently configured is not simply untenable. Colonial borders were arbitrary and based on the self-interest of the colonizers and not the colonized. But upon independence the new African states accepted those imperfect borders in part out of a sense of pragmatism and in part because once in power people tend not to want to give up territory. And there is no guarantee that further fragmentation would be any better than imperfect nation states with their sometimes bizarre shapes and awkward agglomerations. But Nigeria in particular is riven by seemingly irreconcilable North-South, Muslim-Christian divisions that at the best of times hold together through uneasy truces and in the worst of times verge toward civil war. At some point one has to question whether the ideal of Nigeria is enough to counter the realities that don’t seem to be shifting toward a unified conception of nationhood.
