Politicians, please stop these threats

NIGERIANS have endured harrowing experiences on the tortuous road of political violence, voter intimidation and electoral manipulation. It is unacceptable for anyone holding public office to be adding fuel to an already combustible political atmosphere. As the country gradually approaches the 2027 general election, politicians ought to be reducing the heat of adverse political discourse. The recent inflammatory statement attributed to the chairman of Kuje Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Danjuma Shekwolo, is deeply disturbing and deserves unequivocal condemnation.

Speaking while hosting the leadership and candidates of the FCT Youth Network, Mr. Shekwolo reportedly told residents of his council that they must support the All Progressives Congress (APC) or leave the area. “I have said in my area council, it is either you’re doing APC or leave the area council,” he declared. He was apparently justifying his position by pointing to the developmental efforts of the President Bola Tinubu and those of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike. That is an alarming utterance to make, for in Nigeria’s constitutional democracy, citizenship is not a tenancy agreement issued at the pleasure of a political party. Neither is residency in any part of the country conditional upon voting for the party in power. The Nigerian constitution guarantees citizens’ fundamental rights, including freedom of association and freedom of movement. A local government chairman simply cannot transform his political preference into a compulsory creed for the people he is meant to serve.

The strong reaction from Amnesty International is understandable. The organisation warned that tying residency in Kuje to membership of or support for a political party amounts to an attack on fundamental freedoms and a potential call to violence. Local authorities must also take such warnings seriously. There is an old African proverb that says, “When an elder threatens a child with violence, the child does not know whether the threat is a joke.” Political leaders must understand that words spoken from positions of authority have consequences. A chairman may imagine that he is merely making a political statement, but there are always political thugs, desperate loyalists, and other impressionable persons who may interpret such declarations as permission to act according to the force or violence presupposed in the unguarded statement. This is precisely why the language of political leadership matters. As George Orwell warned in his celebrated essay Politics and the English Language, political language has the potency to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. The danger begins when words are stripped of their consequences and when intimidation is dressed up as ordinary politicking. The chairman of a local government is, in a way of speaking, the father of all within his jurisdiction. He may canvass, persuade, plead, and campaign for his political party. He may point to roads constructed, schools renovated, healthcare facilities improved, or other achievements realised in his administration and ask the electorate to reward the party at the ballot box. That is healthy politics. That is fair democracy. But threatening citizens with eviction because they refuse to vote for one’s party is arrogant cruelty and misuse of power.

How did the country get to this point where Nigerians could be made to feel that their right to live and work in a particular place depends on how they vote? Why have Nigerian politicians become so intolerant of political disagreement that cordial persuasion is increasingly being replaced by brutal intimidation? These questions must trouble every patriotic Nigerian. Democracy is fundamentally about choice. John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, argued that “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” A politician who cannot tolerate a dissenting voice is not demonstrating strength; he is exposing the poverty of his political argument and political clout. Public office should make Nigerian politicians more conscious of restraint, not less. Consequently, the ballot box must remain a sanctuary of free choice. A voter should be able to support any lawful political platform without fearing the loss of his home, employment, business, or physical safety. Anything that seeks to compel a voter through threats, intimidation or coercion is an assault on the spirit of free elections. The great Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, captured the essence of political responsibility when he observed that “one of the truest tests of integrity is the blunt refusal to be compromised.” Nigerian political actors must demonstrate that integrity by refusing to compromise the democratic rights of citizens for temporary electoral advantage.

Threats of this nature belong to the same disturbing fold as voter intimidation and, in a broader sense, pre-election vote buying. While vote buying attempts to purchase consent with money or material inducements, intimidation seeks to obtain it through fear. Both undermine the authenticity of electoral choice and the freeness of the electoral process. And fear is a particularly dangerous political instrument. As Edmund Burke clearly put it, “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” When the person making the threat occupies public office, the ordinary citizen cannot simply dismiss the words as empty rhetoric. The imbalance of power gives the statement an altogether heavy weight.

Nigerian politicians across parties must therefore resist the temptation to weaponise their offices. This is not in respect of the ruling party alone. Similar tendencies have manifested across the nation’s political spectrum, with politicians at different levels deploying threats, inducements, ethnic rhetoric, and other coercive methods to secure electoral advantage. What is wrong remains wrong regardless of the political party involved. There is a lesson in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.” Those entrusted with public authority must remember that power is a responsibility, not a licence to intimidate. Security agencies must also address these negative tendencies before they metastasize into violence. The police should invite the Kuje council chairman to explain his statement and establish whether any offence has been committed already. Public office does not confer immunity from accountability. If threats were made, the appropriate authorities must investigate them according to law.

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Also, citizens who feel threatened should seek redress through the courts and other lawful institutions. The constitution and the courts exist precisely because no public official should be allowed to become judge, jury, and enforcer of his own political will. Nigerian politicians must understand that the preservation of peace is not merely the responsibility of security agencies. Political leaders themselves have a duty to ensure that their words do not become sparks in a country already carrying the dry tinder of political, ethnic, and economic grievances. Nigeria does not need political fatwas ahead of the 2027 general elections. It needs competition without coercion, persuasion without intimidation, and campaigns based on ideas, performance, and credible programmes. Politicians should tell Nigerians what they have done, what they intend to do, and why they deserve another mandate.

The road to 2027 must not become a passage of fear. It should be a democratic contest in which parties contest for the confidence of citizens rather than demand their submission. The political class should remember the words of Abraham Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Nigeria is already too bruised and too burdened to tolerate political actors who deliberately deepen the atmosphere of fear. Nigerian politicians should woo the voters, persuade them, convince them, and earn their votes through performance and impeccable character. The electorate should not be threatened. Nigeria has had more than enough of fear. What it desperately needs now is freedom for eligible voters to choose freely. That is the essence of constitutional democracy.