Editorial
2023: Need For Political Tolerance
While the campaign season for the February 2023 general election officially kicked off on Wednesday, September 28, 2022, some Nigerian politicians have made clear what to expect from their actions and rhetoric in recent weeks. What campaign managers seem ready to accept is not a contest of ideas and questions, but intolerance and how to throw dirty water at each other.
A major political party’s presidential candidate has claimed that some of his party supporters were attacked and injured by hired political thugs believed to be loyal to a party to prevent them from holding rallies in Lagos State. Likewise, hooligans and the police were sent to disrupt the peaceful one-million-man march organised by a political party in Ebonyi State. These developments are worrisome. Every Nigerian is entitled to the protection of the government.
All these travesties of democracy come at the start of a political campaign season that will lead up to the 2023 election. The aforementioned threats, aggression, hooliganism and violence in Lagos and Ebonyi States and elsewhere are a major setback to Nigeria’s democracy, to say the least. If left unchecked, this devilishness could grow into a gigantic monster that could spark further crises across the country.
Therefore, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must remind gladiators and political parties of their obligation to show tolerance for one another and conduct a decent campaign following the code of conduct for the election. INEC, the government, law enforcement agents, and relevant stakeholders must provide proportional opportunities for all candidates and their respective parties.
Shockingly, after 22 years of constitutionalism, Nigerian democracy has not gone beyond the weaponisation of threats, intimidation and violence in deterring political opponents or disrupting their activities. As a country, we still have a long way to go. We pontificate over the same issues, fooling ourselves.
Driven by an excessive thirst for power, pomp, property and quick money, some dirty politicians are still using threats, intimidation and violence to grab political power. Indeed, Machiavellianism still reigns supreme in our national politics. Political parties must not succumb to threats, violence, aggression and hooliganism. They should resist them and work harder to win the next election.
The right to campaign for election is a fundamental right of all political parties. This is part of the freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of thought and conscience enshrined in the 1999 Constitution. Hence, anything that prevents them from carrying out their legal acts or deprives them of a level playing field violates the Electoral Act and is thus illegal and unconstitutional.
In addition to threats and intimidation, politicians have made a habit of empowering their political mobs to take off or destroy campaign banners or billboards hung by other parties. It does not make sense. Ours is a multi-party and multi-religious system. Consequently, it is unreasonable for one party to be a nuisance to other parties or disrupt their political activities.
It is for this reason that the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, recently signed Executive Order 21, prohibiting the use of public schools for political activities without approval from the Ministry of Education. Contrary to presumptions, the Order is not intended to halt campaigning in the state. Instead, it aims to regulate them and hold political parties accountable in the event of a breakdown in law and order. Wike’s proactive move is what is expected of the country’s leaders at this critical time.
As people who belong to the same country, we need each other in socialisation and the political process, even though our tribes, languages and religions may be different. By using threats and violence to disrupt political campaigns, politicians are conveying the impression that they are incapable of winning an election except through savagery, rigging, gerrymandering and manipulation.
The current Electoral Act prescribes punishment for such threats and violence. Section 116 stipulates that: “Any person who, at a political meeting — (a) acts or incites another to act in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was convened, or (b) has in his possession an offensive weapon or missiles, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both”.
President Muhammadu Buhari and state governors should level the playing field for all candidates. Our political leaders should be cautious in their comments and always seek to deepen the electoral process. Moreover, no political party or candidate should be denied access to state-owned facilities to campaign. Political parties and their candidates do not need police permission to organise campaigns or rallies.
The entire provisions of Sections 91, 92, 93, 94, 95 and 96 of the Electoral Act are designed to deal with the recurring problem of denial of access to public facilities and media platforms. They are mandatory for unhindered access to state-owned or publicly owned venues and event centres, such as stadiums, and civic centres that can be used as venues for rallies or other such political events, as well as access to public media platforms and also provisions for equal airtime parity for candidates.
In the past few months, the social media platforms have been plunged into a degenerate form of political debates, with supporters of the respective presidential candidates in the country engaged in invectives, mudslinging, and name-calling with incisive vituperation. Politicians should rein in their supporters. No electoral event worthy of the name can proceed in chaos. Putting in place a punitive measure for the violation of the Electoral Act by overzealous candidates and their supporters is the way forward.
There are moments in the life of a legislature when plain speaking becomes a public service. Senator Adams Oshiomhole provided such a moment on the floor of the Senate when he accused the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, of manifestly neglecting critical federal arteries in Edo and Delta States, and implored his colleagues to prevail on the Minister to adopt a more equitable and genuinely national approach to road infrastructure delivery. It was blunt, it was uncomfortable, and it was necessary.
The specifics of his complaint deserve restating. Drawing attention to the recent approval of some 20 new road projects despite the parlous state of existing ones, the former Edo State governor lamented that Nigerians cannot travel from Benin to Warri, Benin to Asaba, Benin to Auchi, or Auchi to Okene without encountering severe distress. He alleged a deliberate omission of these corridors from the national budget in the last three years, save for palliative interventions directed by President Bola Tinubu through tax credit arrangements. His question — “What have we done wrong?” — resonates far beyond the chambers of the National Assembly.
We lend our full and unequivocal support to that call. The Auchi-Benin Road, for instance, has been in a deplorable and near-impassable condition for several years, turning what should be a two-hour journey into an all-day ordeal of broken axles, extortionate fares, and despondent commuters. The media have, on multiple occasions, chronicled the suffering of motorists, traders, and students who ply that route. To describe it as a federal road today is to stretch the meaning of the term beyond recognition.
This pattern of sidelining is not confined to Edo or Delta. Even here in Rivers State, the disposition of the Federal Ministry of Works has left much to be desired, particularly along the Eleme axis of the East-West Road. That road, which ought to be a flagship of federal presence in the Niger Delta, has remained in a wretched state for long. Those who use it daily — workers at the Eleme Petrochemical Complex, the two refineries, Onne Port, and the countless ancillary industries — can attest to its deterioration. Work has proceeded in fits and starts without the sustained urgency such a strategic road demands.
The Eleme stretch is not a mere intra-state byway. It is the gateway to the nation’s economic jugular. According to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing’s 2023 Highway Condition Survey, only about 35 per cent of the country’s 36,000 kilometres of federal roads are rated as being in good or fair condition, with the remainder classified as poor or very poor. The East-West Road, conceived in the 1970s to bind the entire Niger Delta, remains unfinished in critical sections more than four decades after. If it had been treated as a priority, the perennial gridlock, carnage, and economic loss on the Eleme-Refinery junction would have long been consigned to history.
The irony is as painful as it is glaring. The Niger Delta remains the goose that lays the golden eggs. Data from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [NEITI 2023 Oil and Gas Audit] show that the region still accounts for over 78 per cent of Nigeria’s federally collected export earnings and about 65 per cent of total government revenue. The National Bureau of Statistics [NBS Foreign Trade Report Q4 2024] similarly confirms that crude oil continues to dominate export receipts. By every metric of equity and economic logic, a region that sustains the national purse deserves first-rate consideration in the allocation of infrastructure, not afterthoughts and tokenism.
Road infrastructure is not largesse to be dispensed by favour; it is the skeleton upon which commerce, cohesion, and citizenship hang. When contracts are concentrated in one geopolitical zone while other zones are left to contend with craters, it erodes trust in the federation itself. The World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update [June 2023] estimated that poor transport connectivity inflates the cost of moving goods by up to 40 per cent and costs the Nigerian economy an estimated $1.5 billion annually in lost man-hours and vehicle maintenance. If we profess to be one country, then equity must be the compass that guides key institutions before any project is executed. Development must spread round, not pool in one place as though other regions do not matter.
There is also a grave security dimension that can no longer be ignored. The deplorable condition of federal roads has become a veritable enabler of criminality. The NBS Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey reported over 2.5 million incidents of kidnapping-related occurrences nationally, with transport workers identifying bad road spots as prime ambush points. When vehicles are forced to crawl at 10 kilometres per hour through failed sections at Auchi, Sapele Road, or Eleme, they become sitting ducks for armed gangs. Fixing bad roads, therefore, is not merely about convenience; it is about safeguarding lives.
By his intervention, Senator Oshiomhole has hit the nail on the head and reminded Minister Umahi of a fundamental constitutional truth: public office is held in trust. The Ministry of Works is not a personal estate where contracts are awarded according to whim or political convenience. It is a national institution funded by the collective resources of Nigerians, including the oil and gas rents from the very communities whose roads are now neglected. The Minister must demonstrate balance, transparency, and a pan-Nigerian outlook in the distribution of projects that impact the daily existence of citizens. Selective neglect breeds suspicion, and suspicion is corrosive at a time when the nation is preaching unity, oneness, equity, and justice.
Consequently, the National Assembly must go beyond rhetoric and assert its oversight powers with vigour. Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution [as amended] empower the legislature to investigate and expose any maladministration in the execution of federal projects. If an office holder is not acting rightly, it is the duty of the Senate and the House of Representatives to call him to order. Oversight must not be reduced to budget approval ceremonies; it must translate to field verification, public hearings, and insistence that the Federal Character principle, as enshrined in Section 14(3) of the Constitution, reflects in road awards.
Let the Auchi-Okene, Benin-Warri, Benin-Asaba, and Eleme East-West gangways be restored to motorable dignity. Let priority be given to completing existing, economically vital roads before embarking on new ones. If those who, through their resources, sustain the federation are sidelined in the distribution of tangible dividends, it tells poorly of our nationhood. Bad roads must be fixed, and they must be fixed now, with fairness as the guiding standard.
