By MacDonald Ebere

Over the years, I have come to realise that many Nigerians are often traumatised by elections. These elections come with their pressures. The stakes are usually very high – both emotionally and financially. They are often winner-takes-all kind of scenarios, and are not helped by ethnic and religious tensions.

If you add the slipperiness of some politicians and the gullibility of some voters, then you have a perfect recipe for collective anxieties. But should elections and our democracy be such humongous psychological burdens? What can be done to save us from the angst and anguish of our politics?

Politics in a “true” democracy is like a market exchange where the bargain is about good governance.

In this bargain, vote is the currency of the exchange. Whoever has more votes carries the day. Politicians are the bidders, while voters are offering the vote. The politicians try to win over the voters through the electoral promises of good governance.  The voters cast their votes on the basis of their judgments of who among the politicians holds better promise for them. Election then is the marketplace and the platform of this contestation and exchange. It’s a fascinating scenario because in this analogy we see clearly what the stakes are and what the role of each player is.

Each player needs the other because in this political marketplace none of the actors can do without the other. The politicians need the voters; the voters in turn need good leaders that will emerge at the conclusion of the political exercise. That is what it is, no matter what some people might say. The bidders know too well that their wishes only come through when voters as critical stakeholders support them and vote for them. It is a common narrative in Nigeria that politicians can do without the voters. That is not correct.  Those who are active politicians know that attracting votes is not easy at all. They work very hard to get it.

In fact in Nigeria today, the politicians work harder than the electorates in this marketplace of politics. Now, we are in another cycle of elections. We see the politicians travelling to every part of the country or states, engaging in wide consultations, having long meetings, building alliances and bridges, wooing stakeholders and seeking support from constituencies. The politicians are busy day and night to realise their dreams. The ongoing party primaries, in view of the 2023 elections, is a litmus test of the amount of work politicians are doing to become party flag-bearers for the different elective positions. If it were easy, if they have a shortcut, they wouldn’t put themselves through such stress.

The electorates also have their own responsibilities in this electoral equation, as described already. For this marketplace to be maximally beneficial to everybody, we all must play our respective roles. For the political marketplace to be able to deliver not just governance but good governance, we all have our roles to play, whether as bidders for or as sellers.  It is important that we all understand this to help us make a decision to get involved in seeing that our political processes are successful by delivering good governance.

Voters elect those who occupy political offices to deliver good governance, protect installed facilities in communities and continue their participation as watchdogs. Voters have to critically examine the promises of all contesting politicians in the light of good governance and the expected dividends of democracy. Unfortunately, the dominant narrative in our country is where the bidders are projected as having the sole responsibility to deliver good governance, while the people, the voters, just sit back and do nothing.

I think that the politician and the voter must remain mindful of this contractual relationship. It is not right for the voter as seller to simply sit back and relax; s/he must continue to play an active part in the political process by doing all he/she should as a voter to see that his interests are represented well through good governance. Even if a politician fails the voter by not redeeming his pledges during the first time, should the voter allow himself to be deceived a second time when the politician comes back to bid for votes for a possible second term?  Such a time is a good payback time, I suppose. As the Igbo people say, only a fool lets the same stick poke him oIn the same eye twice. The voter has enormous power.

When a state government, for instance, fulfils its electoral promises by installing some facilities in communities, the communities should look after the facilities against vandalisation. The protection of installed facilities or infrastructure is the responsibility of the community or the neighbourhood where the installation has been made. It is painful to see that electrical installations or hospital equipment or even roofs and windows of school blocks put in place by governments, which are dividends of democracy to a community, are neglected and sometimes left to be stolen under the watch of the community. This is not a good development at all; and communities are worse off for it. In order to prevent such backwardness, communities should protect their own dividends of democracy.

How many voters ever listen to budget announcements? In the budget, the government outlines the capital projects that are to be executed in communities or locations. But many voters are not interested in the activities of government. They just vote and turn their back on the system. The contracts are awarded to companies belonging to members of the communities. The people should show greater commitments and ensure that these awarded contracts are executed, since they are the ones to enjoy it.  It doesn’t help anybody if these contractors receive money and refuse to carry out contracts as expected. Unfortunately, vandals are protected by the same community members who are supposed to be beneficiaries of projects.

The people should rise up and play their active roles in order for democracy to work. Voting is one of such important responsibility. But it doesn’t end there. They must continue to actively participate in the political process. This way the politicians and voters will, respectively, do their bits so that the political space as a market place will be beneficial to both voters and politicians who solicit for votes. It is this mutually beneficial and reinforcing relationship that can save us from the onslaught of election anxieties.

MacDonald Ebere holds a PhD in political philosophy and writes from Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.