I am sitting in a hotel in Abuja, watching the television, in keeping with the restrictions on movement in the capital on election day. I flip between local stations (NTA and AIT) and CNN and listen to whatever presenter seems most enthusiastic. I’m restless and I flip channels nervously. The tension is palpable. But it’s positive.
The headlines sum it up - out with the old, in with the new - Nigeria is changing. It’s as if the very ground is moving beneath our feet. Is this how it happens? Is this what change feels like? Canadians have not witnessed a change like this, certainly not in my lifetime. So I’m watching and waiting.My first time in Nigeria was a little less than a year ago. I arrived in Lagos and stayed for a few months as a researcher and conflict analyst. I learned to decipher the pidgin on the radio, I developed a taste for akara for breakfast, and I adjusted (for the most part) to the frequent electricity blackouts that have an almost human sense for when the best parts of a movie are.
One of my most vivid memories of my brief first stay was of coming out onto the balcony of our office building to watch a protest of residents of Lekki peninsula. They were protesting the establishment of toll booths and the erection of a fence along the highway forcing indigenes to pay to leave their communities on the beach and enter their places of work. Men and women marched, slowing or stopping traffic completely to let their banners drape over the front windshields before the car could drive free of the mass of marchers. A good tactic I thought, no driver could fail to read their slogans that way.
“The police will come soon”, my Nigerian colleagues all said, shaking their head. “What will they do?” I asked with some hesitation, recalling the news in the paper the day before about a police officer shooting a bus driver dead for driving through without paying the bribe expected. They shrug their shoulders, not willing to speculate, but clearly fearing the worst.
I went out and took some leaflets from passing women protestors. One had her baby strapped to her back and shouted in unison with fellow marchers - what an education in democracy that child is receiving, I thought. Then I could see my driver, K, running through the crowd. K is an indigene in Lekki, he and his brothers rode horses and made money taking visitors on rides along the beach before he took a job as a driver. He had hopes to start a business of his own one day, printing and selling phone cards. “Fashola has agreed to meet the protestors!”. K shouts. He is smiling broadly and says he’s going to join his friends for the event.
Later I learn from K and the papers that Governor Fashola of Lagos State did indeed meet with protestors and agreed to delay the toll implementation and would meet with them later to negotiate a further agreement. For K this was a victory, regardless of what the end result would be. It was a clear sign that Lagos was changing - leading the way in democracy. People are still being shot by police, who expect bribes maybe because their pay check is not sufficient to feed their family or maybe because they are just angry at being ignored by drivers, but at least the leader of the state was willing to stop and listen.
Ezenwa Nwagu, political analyst for AIT is optimistic that this is what the country needs; clear leadership. He tells me, “If a leader comes into the office at 7:00 in the morning every morning, he is setting an example. After some time his employees will do the same, without him directing them to do so.” According to Nwagu’s theory, this is what defines this new type of leadership in Nigeria. A leader that leads by example, not by decree.
Goodluck Jonathan pledged to Nigerians that he does not have a foreign bank account. This is impressive by any standards, this is quite unbelievable by Nigerian standards. If this is true Jonathan is sending a message to the whole country: I believe in Nigeria and I have an interest in making sure Nigeria succeeds. If it’s not true, well, at least he has the right idea, and he still has time to make it true. In any case he is not forcing all politicians to do the same, he is simply allowing his actions to speak for themselves, this is the idea behind his election campaign promising a “Breath of Fresh Air”.
One of the most frequent analyses I hear from Nigerians about their country is that Nigeria must undergo a shift in culture - away from patronage and away from political and ethical lethargy. “This culture of corruption must go.”
I’ve come to Abuja frequently since my initial stay in Lagos and have watched the build up towards elections and with it what by many accounts is being described as a change in attitude if not culture. People have developed a sense of trust, albeit reluctantly, in this election process.
“Jega was appointed by the president”, complains my taxi driver of President Jonathan’s appointment of INEC Chairman Prof Attahiru Jega, “this is not the most impartial way to do it, but Jega has done a good job” he concedes. Indeed, despite some setbacks and a few bouts of violence, Jega has served as a leader who gets the job done. Or at least that is what we are all hoping, as the day of presidential elections draws to a close.
Ultimately, leaders must lead someone and Nigerians are proving to be willing and enthusiastic citizens. Just like the protestors of Lekki peninsula last summer, citizens across the country are coming out not only to exercise their legal right to vote, but to share in this profound shift in outlook. As one AIT pundit on television observed, “citizens are bringing out tents, bottles of water - they’re sharing. This is a celebration of citizenship.”
The power went out in the hotel around 5:30pm so I walked outside to watch an approaching storm on the horizon and was just in time to hear a resounding cry from somewhere a block away. The cheering spread like wildfire until it reached our compound and I found myself laughing and sharing in the jubilation of the whole hotel staff out in the hotel parking lot. Someone had released information that PDP, or more specifically, Goodluck Jonathan had won the majority of Abuja. It was far too early to know this, I thought, but no one around me shared my scepticism. What makes you happy? I asked one young woman over the chants and beeping of car horns, “I am Jonathan” she yelled, to which someone gleefully replied “goodluck me, goodluck Nigeria!”
I am an outsider with a limited view of what is happening in Nigeria, just glimpses through a window, but I’m also an optimist. It remains to be seen if Jonathan can make good on all this enthusiasm, but one thing is clear, it’s a leader Nigeria is voting for and vote they did.
As a storm brewed on the horizon late on Saturday afternoon you could feel the electricity in the air and I wondered whether Nigerians themselves didn’t invoke this storm with their passion. They certainly seemed capable this afternoon, and I was happy, happy for Nigeria and happy that I could as an outsider enjoy this moment in history as I stood there in a windy parking lot, breathing in the fresh air.
Vanessa Alexander
16 April, 2011
Abuja, Nigeria
