Nigeria’s Last General Departs the Political Stage

Yesterday, Nigeria’s presidency passed from a former general to a man who had fought as a pro-democracy activist in the 1990s. For the first time since the end of the army’s rule in 1999, Nigeria’s February presidential election had no candidates with a military background. But despite the contrast between their backgrounds, the outgoing and incoming leaders have been close allies—and the new government is likely to keep some of the old one’s bad habits. The transition is set to be messy and complicated, both politically and legally.

With five presidents now sworn in since the restoration of Nigerian democracy in 1999, there’s renewed confidence in the stability of civilian rule. And with Bola Tinubu’s ascension, there seems to be an end to the succession of ex-military leaders at the top.

But along with the cautious optimism of a stable democracy is the perceptible fragility of the country’s social and political fabric. The government’s mandate is wobbly—the opposition combined got more votes than the winning team.

After eight years in power, Muhammadu Buhari handed over the presidency on Monday to Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and once a senator in the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic. Tinubu was first elected senator in 1992, under the transition program of the military government of Ibrahim Babangida, whose 1993 presidential election was then annulled. Tinubu was then elected the governor of Lagos State when the military finally left in 1999.

Tinubu and Buhari are from the same party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), formed as a merger of Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria, Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change, and a number of breakaway politicians from other prominent parties in 2010. Together, they did the impossible in 2015, when Buhari dislodged the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which had held power since 1999.

After the 2015 victory, Tinubu stayed in the background, supporting Buhari’s work and laying the foundation for his own personal ascension, which has now paid off—even sometimes at the expense of his own earlier reputation as a staunch opponent to military force and federal intrusion in state affairs. Nigeria is a federal republic, like the United States, with ostensible demarcation between the powers of the federal and state governments. That line has not always been respected by past administrations; hence Tinubu’s improved reputation when, from 1999 to 2007, his Alliance for Democracy party fought the PDP federal government on almost every notable issue of significance, from the creation of state-level governments to the allocation of resources. The rallying cry then was “true federalism.”

But in October 2020, when a grassroots protest against the excesses of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) paramilitary force made the Lagos government uncomfortable, the federal government sent soldiers to shoot at protesters; and Tinubu, whose house was a few yards away from the violence, responded with tepid vituperations that blamed the protestors instead.

Technically, this year’s presidential vote hasn’t been completely resolved. Nigeria’s complicated system means that the resolution of the election tribunals where the challengers have taken their complaints will not happen until a few months into the new administration. Still, last week, as stated in the transition rules, Buhari conferred the highest honors in the land, Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) and Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON), on Tinubu and his deputy.

In the past, the Nigerian Supreme Court has reversed the wins of governors accused of cheating, but it has never done so for a presidential election.

The biggest controversy at the heart of the current challenge, spearheaded by Labour Party candidate Peter Obi, is over the federal capital territory (FCT), in which the capital Abuja is located. The issue is whether the FCT is just another state of the country, where a candidate may or may not win the statutory 25 percent of the votes, or—because of its role as the federal capital—a crucial part of any winning coalition. Nigeria’s constitution says a presidential candidate has to not only win the most votes but also win not less than 25 percent of votes cast in two-thirds of the 36 states and the FCT. The question is what exactly the meaning of that “and” is.

Is the FCT effectively the 37th state, meaning the candidate just has to win 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of the states and the FCT, combined; or does the candidate, as Obi and his supporters argue, have to win 25 percent of the votes in two-thirds of the states and separately win at least 25 percent of the FCT votes? Obi argues that, because Tinubu did not win 25 percent of the FCT, the election results should be declared inconclusive.

This debate has never happened before, as past presidents have won at least 25 percent of the votes in the FCT. Tinubu’s APC won only 19 percent.

According to Obi and his supporters, because of this deficiency—even though Tinubu won the plurality over the PDP—he has not satisfied the constitutional requirement. The text of the constitution, after all, says that candidates must win 25 percent of the votes in two-thirds of the states and the FCT. The role of that conjunction, as either a mandatory requirement or an afterthought, will have to be determined either by the election tribunal or the Supreme Court, or both.

The Labour Party received a new lease of life when Obi became its flagbearer after his exit from the PDP. With a coalition of youthful support from around the country, disillusionment about the two main parties (APC and PDP), and a personal charisma, Obi did the impossible: winning a majority in Lagos State even though it is Tinubu’s home state, winning seats in the House of Representatives and Senate, and dislodging many incumbent candidates around the country. This was not enough however, according to the election commission, to win him the presidency.

Obi is not just going after that tricky conjunction in the constitution; he is also pursuing reports of irregularities and intimidation during the elections. Obi also argues that Tinubu’s encounter with the criminal justice system in the United States, when he lived in Chicago and had to forfeit money as a result of an FBI investigation into money laundering in 1993, disqualifies him from running in the first place. Obi has been given three weeks to establish his case.

None of this has prevented world leaders from congratulating the president-elect, in spite of protests by prominent Nigerians and public opinion. U.S. President Joe Biden made a public statement of congratulations to Tinubu and sent a presidential delegation to the inauguration. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all, and the Nigerian constitution, created by the military in the late ‘90s, makes no provision for a lacuna in the transition of governance from one administration to the other.

Buhari, who struggled to keep a firm handle on the insecurity that has plagued the country, was eager to leave Abuja for his farm “as far away as possible” from the nation’s capital. Security will be one of the biggest challenges for his successor to tackle, along with questions about the huge debts incurred (mostly from China) to shore up Nigeria’s infrastructure, the educational system, high inflation, the petrol subsidy, and a fractured sense of community among the country’s many ethnic groups.

The APC did its part to make those divisions worse during the election. Some voters were intimidated and prevented from voting, especially in Lagos, because they looked like Igbo people or otherwise appeared to support Obi, who is of Igbo ethnic origin and whose unexpected rise had rattled the political elites afraid of losing power. Ethnic suspicions and divisions have been an underlying threat to the country’s social fabric for a long time.

How should ethnic minorities feel under the rule of a party not shy to openly discriminate to win power? How will the administration deal with the secessionist agitations around the country, and the feeling of despair from those who felt cheated in the election? What is the hope for a corruption-free environment under a man not known for openness and accountability? And how should Nigerians feel about the next four years under a president with obviously failing health?

Optimists point to the economic successes of the Tinubu administration, and successive governments, when he was governor of Lagos State, hoping to see the same at the federal level. Africa’s largest private petrol refinery, which came from Tinubu’s vision of empowering Lagos to host such private initiatives, was commissioned last week. The APC has also invested a lot in infrastructure, from new trains to new roads and bridges around the country.

But the new president’s health is frail, just like that of the outgoing one. Both Tinubu and Buhari, being very old men, have spent months abroad for medical attention. And the result from Tinubu’s earlier stewardship at the state level is mixed, at best. On one hand are the obvious strides in infrastructure, free enterprise, and a stable political system; on the other is the obvious patronage system that has kept all subsequent leaders of the state under Tinubu’s personal grip, leading to charges of corruption.

As the Tinubu administration begins, the opposition has chosen a cautious “wait and see” approach, hoping the tribunal goes its way. The alternative to the hope of an unprecedented legal reversal is a gloomy surrender to four years of hopelessness, which benefits no one. However fragile democracy remains, it is still intact.