The US Abiding Democratic Leadership

Georgia Democratic candidate for the senate, Michele Nunn   (right), and her family during early voting in America's midterm   election

Adeola Akinremi, who was in the United States to observe the midterm elections, writes on why Nigeria must continue to see her democratisation process by emulating America's non-violent politics, especially as Nigeria returns to the polls next year

The battle for the control of the United States Senate, which climaxed with the election of more Republicans into the Senate last Tuesday, was hard fought. Not surprisingly though, one phrase seemed to characterise the months-long of frenetic campaign – vote not violence.
Perhaps, one of the most difficult challenges that most democrats faced going into the poll last week against their main challenger, the opposition Republican Party, otherwise known as the Grand Old Party (GOP) was what pollsters called the ‘Obama factor.’

The American President, Barack Obama, who is the leader of the Democratic Party, had battled a declining popularity rating among the electorate following attacks on his health care programme, Obamacare, by the GOP. Not only that, Obama had also been criticised for its slow response to ISIS and of course, the issue of gun control, among other factors.
Thus, for every political advert that came on air in the lead up to the midterm elections, there was an Obama in it, although Obama was not on the ballot. The Republicans simply put his policies there.

Consequently, Democrats running for one office or the other, especially the Senate had battle separating themselves from Obama. Some pointedly told the party leader not to appear at their campaigns. In other situations, candidates had to run counter advertisement to ads coming from the Republicans linking them with Obama.
In Kentucky State, for instance, Ms. Lundergan Alison Grimes, an attorney whose hope of wresting power from the U.S. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell – who had served 30 years in the Senate – suffered a setback for what her associates called ‘dark money of McConnell’ had to run adverts to dissociate herself from Obama’s policy on gun control.

“Mitch McConnell wants you to think that I am Barack Obama. I’m not Barack Obama. I disagree with him on guns, coal and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency),” the advertisement said as Grimes, a Democrat who ran for the Senate in Kentucky – a conservative, coal-mining state – fired many shots into the air to dissociate herself from gun control policy of President Obama in the face of negative advertisements launched against her by McConnell, who was eventually returned to the Senate.

No surprise, Ms Grimes worked hard to distance herself from the president, because in Kentucky, Obama’s ratings have sagged continuously since the last election. Mr. Obama lost his election in the state in 2008 and by 23 points in 2012.
Kentucky Democratic Party’s Political Director, Christian Motley, told THISDAY that “If you are running a campaign, you do go for what is popular. Views are different from across the region and you need to gauge the temperature of your community to draft a campaign.”

Motley was explaining the idea behind Grimes campaign that distanced her from Obama, even though they are in the same party.
However, in Nigeria, that is a difficult thing to do. Any candidate who dares to distance him/herself from the leader of his party based on policies, according to a Professor of History at the University of Texas, Prof. Toyin Falola, may be courting trouble for himself.
“That is a path to a dead end in Nigerian politics. Obama did not try to eliminate Grimes, or say no to her. He has even encouraged her. Politics is local. Obama is in DC, you are looking for power in your state. You have to do what will work at your local level to get to power. Once it is over, everybody gets back to one another. Everybody knows that you have to do what you have to do to get your votes.

“In Nigeria’s party politics, that will be an aberration.  Look at the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, for instance, who recently defected from the president’s party to the opposition party, and they removed his police escort?” he said.
Falola, who has followed political campaigns in Nigeria and the United States, said politics is pure business in Nigeria.
“Those who are into politics in Nigeria are into business. In other words, instead of looking for money elsewhere, they look for money in politics, so it is an investment in person, not an investment in the nation. To distance yourself from a party leader in Nigeria is an anathema, if you are going to continue in the same party and of course, for your political career to be preserved.
“So that competition is very personal, that if you lose, it is a colossal loss of investment. So, you are going to do everything to win an election,” Falola noted, advancing reasons for political violence in Nigeria’s democracy.

Perhaps, it’s noteworthy that the surge of negative advertisements seen during the 2014 America’s midterm elections, described as unprecedented in America’s history didn’t cause a provocation for any physical attack on candidates or their supporters. This, Falola said, set America apart from Nigeria in terms of politics.
“The framework to the cleavages – organised violence – is not there in American society as the Nigerian organised cleavages. The boundaries of state, as in Texas, or California or New York are not coterminous with the boundaries of ethnicity. So that you can’t just say as we do in Nigeria, that Sokoto is Muslim, it is Abia that is Christian,” he said.

An expert in political communications and a lecturer at department of Mass Communications, the University of Benin, Dr. Daniel Ekhareafo, said though there is a polarisation in the American political system, the factor of violence as it is with the Nigerian politics is not possible in the United States based on how it is designed.
“The U.S. electoral system is designed to give option to the electorate to either keep a party or candidate in power after four years. So, midterm is measurement for that process. You realise that Americans engage themselves on issues when it is time for politics. Issues are raised, and the essence is to help the electorate decide on whom to vote for,” Ekharefo said.

To be sure, he made reference to campaigns in different battle states during the last midterm elections.
“The essence of campaigns in the U.S. elections really is not to demean an individual but to present the candidate in a light that reflects that this person is not the best person to rule us against the backdrop of what and what we have said against the individual.
“That’s exactly what brought the outcome of results we see in states like West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, Colorado, Iowa and other states where Democrats lost and Republicans made gains.

“So, you realise that because people have a level of awareness, violence is not the key to realise political goals because whether you engage in violence or not, it is the ballot paper that will inevitably decide who wins the elections. So, people can throw attacks at each other, especially what we call ‘political mudslinging’, but supporters of each candidate do not take to violence.
“This is simply because in the United States, laws are well respected. People have respect for the law and the dignity of the human person. Against this backdrop, if you feel aggrieved, the best thing you can do is to take the individual to court on the basis of the allegations that are made against you. You don’t resort to self-help.

“In Nigeria, we resort to violence, because we believe that those who are very strong and powerful should oppress those who don’t have as much power as they do. So, the simple reason why the Americans are not taking to violence is because the level of voters’ education is very high. They respect their laws and have values for the individual.”
Falola however added that there was also vested interest by the Americans. “There are vested economic class interests that hold Americans back from political violence. So, you may dislike a political party, you may not like the person in power, but you understand that political instability will affect you, so quickly, in terms of your own economic interests. That interest is much hidden, and is most manifested by the Wall Street.

“So, you have your retirements, your pensions; you have your pay. So individuals, no matter how angry they may be, have a stake in the maintenance of that political stability because the bottom line is how politics is crafted to capitalism, at various levels, both in subtle and unsubtle manner and that is a critical point.
“Now those who see politics as business are going to instigate. They call into personal savage, the cleavages grounded on ethnicity and religion. So, they invoke Christianity, invoke Islam, invoke Yoruba, there is Hausa, there is Igbo. So, how do you advise somebody who has sold his house just to go into politics; someone who gets loan to buy party ticket at a huge cost?

“If two of you are running to become senators representing Edo State, for instance, you know there is one person standing in the way of your ambition, which is your opponent, so you know if you are able to eliminate your opponent, you will become a senator, and you know that both you and your opponent, it is not as if you have the interest of Edo State in mind, you only have your interest in mind. That is how politicians in Nigeria think that makes them bring violence into the game,” Falola explained.
True, Nigeria has seen a wave of violence in recent times, yet elections are still three months away. But the American democracy to which Nigeria is an adherent has been devoid of violence despite the surge in negative adverts that ruled its airwaves while the midterm elections lasted.

An international negotiator and political strategist, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said it all comes down to tolerance and respect for dignity of life.
“Our politicians are not groomed in the art of real politicking. They wake up from their sleep, print posters and march some youths unto the road using money to unleash violence on their opponents, create an atmosphere for chaos so that votes of the people will not count,” he said adding that “there is need for political tolerance where free speech is protected and no one feels provoked to the extent of unleashing physical attack on the other.”

Nigeria’s History of Political Violence
Since independence, violence has dogged the turf of Nigerian politics and the spate of violence has continued to increase from one election cycle to the other. Typically, violence known with Nigerian politics surfaced before, during and after elections. Past election cycles have featured political assassinations, voter intimidation, intra and interparty clashes as well as communal unrest.
In recent years, the post 2011 election violence was a watershed. Hundreds of people died and property worth billions of naira were reportedly destroyed in a riot that lasted three days.

According to the Human Rights Watch, the victims were killed in three days of rioting in 12 northern states, in which Nigeria's state and federal authorities delayed investigation and prosecution of those who allegedly orchestrated and carried out the crimes.
"The April elections were heralded as among the fairest in Nigeria's history, but they also were among the bloodiest," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The violence began with widespread protests by supporters of the main opposition candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim from the Congress for Progressive Change, following the re-election of incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the south, who was the candidate for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

“The protests degenerated into violent riots or sectarian killings in the northern states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. Relief officials estimated that more than 65,000 people have been displaced.”
However, the presidential election divided Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines. As election results trickled in on April 17, 2011 and it became clear that Buhari had lost, his supporters took to the streets of northern towns and cities to protest what they alleged to be the rigging of the results.
That recurring decimal may have been activated with election-related violence that have been witnessed this year alone in places like Rivers, Osun, Ogun, Edo, Ekiti, Nasarawa and lately, Delta State, where lives have been lost and wanton destruction of property have been experienced.

“When such violence happened, police don’t do good job and in most cases they become active participants, supporting one side against the other, so there bound to be a reoccurrence,” said a retired police commissioner, who maintained that “It’s the way our country’s politics runs and that is why you see military men and police going into politics immediately after retirement. They have worked for someone not the nation during service.”

With Nigeria’s history of electoral violence, there are anxieties among the populace about the 2015 election. Indeed, the way political parties have handled defections raised significant concerns about the possibility of hostilities. As such, to break the cycle of election-related violence, analysts said non-partisan community leaders must become proactive in providing early warnings to youths, often used to instigate violence while there must be deliberate effort early on conflict resolution, among others.

Dark-Money Phenomenon
One of the things that shape the American elections nowadays is dark-money spending. This money is not covered by American disclosure rules, expected to inform the public of who is paying to influence their vote. In the electioneering that ended last Tuesday, a splurge in negative advertisement campaign was aided by dark-money.

A record estimate of $4 billion in spending was calculated for America’s 2014 midterm elections. One quarter of that money, some $1billion, came from anonymous, so-called dark money groups. THISDAY’s interviews with more than a dozen Americans in states where the election was keenly contested like Kentucky and Georgia discovered that dark-money was a critical factor in the just-concluded elections.

Professor Robert Guttman, who teaches courses on politics, the media and foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Government, told THISDAY that “the name of the game here is money. You need to have money or have people who have the money behind you.”
The triangular effects of that, according to Guttman, who once tried to capture the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate from Indianan in 1986, but lost out, are money, message and vote.

Conversely, in America’s elections, dark-money is not bribe or votes buying, but majorly for ads campaigns intended to swing the votes. Dark-money was effectively used in places like Kentucky, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, and New Hampshire to break the ties between Democratic and Republican candidates in the lead up to the Election Day.

Most cash was reportedly in the hands of Republicans with more outside interest groups donating money to their campaigns without restriction.
“You can’t use the dark-money to buy vote like handing out money to citizens to vote, but you can use it to influence the direction of election with ads. Dark-money has been a big factor in this election.

“We have seen negative ads targeting opponents from one candidate to the other. Candidates are raising fund to produce negative advertisements. There has been increasing trend in the Senate to target each other’s leaders. This began in 2004,” Al Cross, a long-time political reporter and the Director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, explained to THISDAY.

Considering its impact, Joseph Gerth, a political writer of The Courier-Journal, Kentucky’s largest newspapers said, “The negative ads definitely have their impacts. In Kentucky alone, over $50 million dollars was spent on ads by Senator Mitch McConnell. The Supreme Court opened the door for the ads, because the first amendment provides for free speech and political speech is protected, so it’s up to voters to say I believe this or that. It doesn’t go beyond that.”

Dark-money and Nigerian Politics
Interestingly, dark-money has surfaced in Nigerian politics as well in recent times with candidates getting money from outside interest groups to buy nomination forms and prepare for electioneering. Perhaps the hard nut of the Nigerian politics is that dark-money often ends up in building war chest for politicians to bribe voters and electoral officers, stockpiling guns for violence and creating teams of attorneys that will counsel them on court actions for political gridlock.
Said Dr. Ekhareafo: “The simple reason is that Nigerian politics is money-politics and not issue-based. It is money-politics because political positions have a lot of monetary gains attached to them. So, because of the high price at stake, people are prepared to do everything possible to get such positions.

“I have it on record that in the last elections, one of the current senate committee chairmen, who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), snatched ballot box in the last general elections in his state and his boys were beating those in the opposition.
“In Delta State, another lawmaker carried gun and was threatening people in the last election. This is all because they want to get power. So, the simple reason we take to violence here is because there is money in politics and because of this high price at stake, people are prepared to kill individuals to get this positions.”

Ekhareafo, who teaches courses on society and political communications at the University of Benin and had conducted research on ‘one-man, one-vote political campaign in Nigeria,’ added: “We don’t have respect for human life. The worth of the human life in Nigeria is nothing. People can kill and get away with it in the name of politics.

“The whole charade that happened at the Edo State House of Assembly recently was a struggle for who controls the state in terms of the executive and legislature. The essence of the violence was not because all of them were fighting for the interest of the people. The All Progressives Party faction was trying to protect the governor from the threat of the PDP faction to impeach the governor.
“And the PDP men felt that if we don’t use violence to scatter this APC people, the tendency is that they will continue to stay with the governor and we won’t have our way. So, the ultimate goal is who gets what so that the money will be shared accordingly.

“So, the reason we take into violence in Nigeria is because there is a prize of money at stake. It is this money that all of us are fighting for. People tell you it is because of service, but that’s rubbish. Those who have been elected, either in the legislative or executive arm, what kind of service have they rendered?
“In a year, they may not visit their constituency more than once or twice except there are elections coming up. So, the essence of violence is because people want to use unethical means to get into positions of authority.”

This egregious situation in the Nigerian politics was blamed on the absence of consensus on what path her democracy should follow. For instance, Falola, who coordinates USA Africa Dialogue series from his base in Texas, opined that America long ago built its democracy on consensus, which has not happened in Nigeria.
“Lack of a hegemonic consensus – consent by means of political and ideological leadership, based on shared understandings and priorities,” he said, “is the gloom of our politics. You know we are still struggling to come up with a consensus, maybe constitution. We just finished the national conference, what that means is that, as collective citizens, as fragments of the nation, we are still fighting for a hegemonic value that we will all subscribe to.

“The Americans resolved those hegemonic values in favour of liberal democracy and capitalism, so nobody is questioning that.  That ability to minimise that hegemonic value means that you are able to minimise what we call violence.”
Undoubtedly, the point of looking at how consensus is actually established in practice is to see that despite the fundamental difference in a country, consensus is used. Rightly, in the hegemonic consensus, the dominant groups make some concessions to satisfy the subordinate groups, but not such as to endanger their dominance.

“The language of consensus, according to political pundits, is a language of common interest expressed in universalist terms, though the structure of power underlying it is skewed in favour of the dominant groups.”
But Ekhareafo has an advice for Nigerian politicians and political supporters on the way forward: “For us to have violent-free elections, we must devalue the monetary benefits attached to political offices. If a senator or an honourable member earns as much as N45 million in a quarter, you will realise that everybody wants to be there.”

Election Night in America
On Tuesday, November 4, political parties in America set up victory parties within same neighbourhoods while they awaited result from across the states. Yes, the tension in Georgia, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Louisiana was there and it was palpable as the live transmission from different TV stations rolled out the statistics with computation of net gains by political parties.
There was nothing more than war of words inside Hyatt Regency, Atlanta, located on Peachtree Street, where the Georgia Democrats had set up its victory party and at National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame, where the Republicans were flaunting their assets. With final result out, it was time for the losers to congratulate the winners.
In Georgia, where Democrats and the Republicans keenly contested the Senate race that several polls had predicted could end up in run-off because of the candidates’ close race, it was the defeated Democratic Party candidate Mitchell Nunn, who first congratulated David Purdue, the elected Republican senator with whom she had exchanged bitter words during campaigns.

“I just talked to David Purdue and I offered him my very great congratulations as Georgia’s next U.S. Senator. I want to thank Purdue and Amanda Swafford (Libertarian candidate) for their commitment to public service and for a very spirited campaign.
“We not only accept election result, but we practise bridge-building and reconciliation and so, I offer my strongest support to David Purdue as he works to unite Georgia and to build bridges across the party lines and to serve all of the people of Georgia and I know he would try to do that,” said Nunn whose parents attended the meeting where she spoke.

In her concession speech, Nunn thanked supporters, saying they had changed politics in Georgia.
“We have changed politics in Georgia. We've reminded Georgia of what a two-party system looks like," Nunn said, adding: "We've lifted and advocated issues that matter to people in this country, whether it's raising minimum wage, whether it's pay equity for women, whether it's bipartisan immigration reform – these are just a few of the issues that we've helped remind people are at stake."
On the contrary, in Nigeria, when parties hold their meetings, be it convention or otherwise within the same neighbourhood, mayhem is often let lose. There have been cases of moles from other political parties branding in the name of a party just to cause violence.

Eze Onyekpere, a social justice advocate and attorney at law, who heads Centre for Social Justice in Lagos, said “The stakes are very high in Nigeria and it is a winner takes all scenario. The investments in politics are quite huge and people even borrow, sell houses and properties to contest elections.
“With this as a background, it is an investment that must be recouped with profit and the only way to recoup and get the profits is through winning the election or being declared the winner. So, you either win legally and legitimately or you manipulate the process so as to be declared the winner.

“The remuneration and emoluments of elected officers in Nigeria is very high and ranks among the highest in the world. When this is also backed by a regime of free flowing corruption, which makes a pauper an instant multi-millionaire, then the idea of conceding defeat is totally out of the picture. The fact that the electoral system is often manipulated also makes it difficult to concede defeat.
“Any person convinced that he lost elections through the vote will have no cause to complain but once, there is a semblance that the elections did not go by the rules, then violence and endless litigation comes to play. To forestall these occurrences, the electoral system should be improved to curtail irregularities and vote-rigging.”

The Science of Voters’ Turnout
Low turnout is often experienced during the midterm elections in America in which about 40 per cent of eligible voters actually cast their ballots compare to the presidential election, where more people turn out to vote. But the Americans are devising better ways to getting the citizens to vote – from the pulpit to the cinema hall.
For instance, on the eve of the election, on a road called Lukie in downtown Atlanta, the strong wave of the cold wind couldn’t deter hundreds of young eligible voters, who gathered for security screening for access in a concert organised by some young people to get out the votes.

At the concert, there were messages about issues that young people should consider such as tuition and employment when they go to poll to vote for the candidate for their choice. That seemed to be far from Nigeria’s political landscape at the moment, except for the use of young people in violence by politicians.
Corey Boone, the president of the Young Democrats of Georgia, said, “When young people know the issues that affect them, they will vote right. We are simply putting the issues in the front row of the campaign, job, tuition, health care and education.”

Besides, the political parties also took the advantage of what they called phone banking to convince people to vote. In Kentucky, David Harris, a regional field director for the Republican Party, told THISDAY how his team was cleaning up database of registered voters and calling them to get them to vote across the state for Republican candidates.
In the frenetic campaign for America’s 2014 midterm elections, the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia, the root of Martin Luther King’s social movement equally tagged along by organising what it called ‘souls to poll’.

“We have identified database of people and we are updating and cleaning up through phone calls so as to know who they are and their interest. We are asking them to vote,” he said.
Uche Okogie, a university scholar, thought Nigeria needed to advance its politics to reflect this standard. “The young demography in Nigeria is an advantage for any political party who can break way from violence mentality and bribe-for-vote idea that has been with us for years.

“If you go to these students in their universities with good record and plan of action, they will embrace you. The idea of cash-for-vote should be eliminated through party institutions by presenting credible candidates that can run a strong campaign based on integrity and good manifesto.”

As Sunday voting began for the first time in Georgia history, Ebenezer implemented the souls to the polls initiative. Ebenezer has always been engaged in the important work of making sure that everyone has fair and equal access to the voting booth. Ebenezer registers voters every Sunday.

However, this year, Ebenezer Baptist Church led a caravan of vehicles to the Adamsville Recreational Centre so that its Fulton County members could vote. Absentee and early voting were also encouraged.
“A mail-in March to the Auburn Avenue mailbox was held so that absentee voters could participate in the Souls to the Polls effort to be counted,” stated the November edition of the church journal.

Of course, its Senior Pastor, Rev. Raphael Warnock confirmed that when he said last Sunday that from the pulpit of his church on the famous Auburn Avenue, “We have increased the number of registered voters this year”.
In an earlier interview, Warnock had said “Voting for us (blacks) is not only a civic responsibility, it's is a sacred obligation. I often remind my parishioners that in a real sense our ballot is a blood-stained ballot. It's a right won and redeemed literally through the shedding of the blood of martyrs.”

A theologian with interest in church politics, Rev. Sam Ekpere, said Nigerian churches should begin to think in that direction as a way out of the recurrent political mess the country deals with each election cycle, where professionals hardly go out to vote.
Another take-away from the American elections borders on the role local governments played. In Fulton County, the election precinct report provided real-time monitoring of issues at the polls such as parking concerns, delays and turnouts which helped to promptly mobilise necessary support for voters.

Indeed, there were people in the situation room, taking calls and pointing voters in the direction of where they should go to vote. That happened only because the council’s electoral board composed of party representatives and appointed coordinator played independent role in electoral process. Can a local government be charged with such a responsibility in Nigeria? Maybe not!
Given a catalogue of America’s improving democratisation process, Nigeria certainly still has a long way to go and if the attitude of political players remains the same, the wait may as well take eternity.

Source: thisday