Election 2023: Imbibing the culture of accepting electoral defeat

Accepting defeat in elections is not something candidates in African elections have traditionally been very good at. Unfortunately, refusal to accept a result often leads to protracted battles in court, on the streets, or in the worst cases a military crackdown.

This was why when  Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan magnanimously threw in the towel to challenger Muhammadu Buhari after the latter’s stunning victory in the 2015 presidential election, he joined a growing list of African leaders whom humbly admitted “the game is up.”

“I thank all Nigerians once again for the great opportunity I was given to lead this country,” a sombre Jonathan said in his concession speech. “I have conveyed my personal best wishes to General Muhammadu Buhari.”

This is a rare speech from an incumbent in a continent still getting used to winner-takes-all electoral contests, and where power has frequently changed hands at the barrel of a gun.

This trend has become a source of worry to lovers of Africa on why it’s so. Could it be due to the emphasis in traditional African societies on consensus over competition or that losing political office can mean the difference between sleeping in a palace or a shack?

Contestants (losers) or defeated leaders need to know when it is time to pack their bags and leave the stage in the spirit of moving the nation forward.

When former Ivory Coast President, Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede to Alassane Ouattara in 2010, re-igniting a civil war, one of Gbagbo’s most high profile campaigners, Reggae star, Alpha Blondy publicly urged him to play fair and hand over, which he called bluff and he is now facing war crimes charges in The Hague for that reason.

In 2012, Senegal’s former President Abdoulaye Wade  became the first West African leader to concede defeat when he was defeated by former protege Macky Sall, enabling Sall to proclaim that, “the big winner…is the Senegalese people,” attributing the victory to the electorate.

In Southern Africa too,  a “big man” was told by the electorate through their votes that he was no longer popular, and had to accept their verdict without questioning.

Ex-Malawian president, Bakili Muluzi, ran against dictator Hastings Banda in 1994 and succeeded in ending his 33-year-rule.

Zambia’s Rupiah Banda drew more than a few tears when, on losing his presidency to Michael Sata in 2011, he told the nation, “I have no ill feeling in my heart,” what a strong message.

“I wish him well in his years as president,” he continued. “Now is the time for a new leader. My time is done. It is time for me to say goodbye.”  These are the kind of utterances we expect from our contestants.

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar in a BBC interview said if he loses the February 25 presidential election, he would take it as his fate, because “I am not the first loser neither am I going to be the last.”

“That is my fate, I take it in very good faith I am not the first loser neither am I going to be the last,” he said.

The presidential and the national assembly elections came up on Saturday, February 25, while that of governorship and  state assemblies are expected to hold on Saturday, March 11. No fewer than 12,000 candidates sponsored by 18 political parties will contest for 109 Senatorial seats, 360 House of Representatives memberships, 993 State House of Assembly positions, 28 governorships, and the lone office of the President. An estimated 95 million registered voters are also expected to cast their ballots in 176,846 polling units across 774 local government areas in the country. Though, the turnout was not in anyway close to the registered voters in the just concluded election of Saturday.

It is still doubtful at a difficult period like this in the history of our nation, if these office seekers recognise the enormity of the challenges ahead, or that they are even thinking of solutions to such challenges. We feel if sincerely they’re vying to fix the “abnormalities” in the land, the contest would not be as fierce as this. And that is why many believe most of them are contesting for personal aggrandisement.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has repeatedly talked about the commission’s commitment to a credible and verifiable election process supported by technology, “which guarantees transparent accreditation and upload of polling unit results for citizens to view in real-time on election day.” He has also reaffirmed that the deployment of a Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) remain sacrosanct. And that we have seen deployed in the just concluded election.

This has been welcomed and embraced by many stakeholders, considering it as a game changer in Nigeria’s electoral process.

INEC has gone these great lengths to deploy technology for the purpose of restoring integrity to the electoral process in Nigeria.

The truth of the matter is, no matter how credible an election is, if losers (which we would always have as long as there are contestants) opt to discredit the outcome, democracy is imperiled. That was the key message from the dialogue session of the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Alumni Association (2022), Nigeria, held in Abuja.

During the interactions, there was a profound contribution  made by Rolf Oslon  who said he was serving in Nigeria for a second time, having been the political/economic section chief at the U.S. Consulate in Lagos from 2011 to 2014. Apparently, based on his experience in the country, Oslon warned against an emerging trend as we inch towards the 2023 general election: “It is essential that candidates and their parties, as well as all their supporters seeking to help them win election, refrain from brash assertions of victory that suggest defeat is only possible if there is fraud. There is no true democratic election in which the outcome is foretold. Before I became a diplomat, I used to work in American politics in Washington, and I have witnessed numerous elections in which a particular candidate seemed certain to win, based on some combination of various factors, a very favourable partisan identification of voters in the district, city, or state; polling data that appeared to show a very large, insurmountable lead over the opponent; or perhaps the fact that the candidate was the incumbent, who had been elected to that same office, possibly several times. But in some cases, the very unexpected happens. That’s democracy. And candidates and parties that seek to run for public office must accept one fundamental truth, losing is always possible.

“If you’re not willing to accept the possibility that you might be defeated, then you should not be running for office in the first place. We therefore call on all parties, candidates, and their supporters to avoid language that tries to ‘guarantee’ victory. It is entirely reasonable to feel confident about your or your candidate’s chances, it’s up to you if you want to spend precious campaign time being confident rather than focusing on the hard work necessary to actually win, but no democracy, Nigeria’s included, is well-served if millions of its citizens believe only one legitimate outcome on election day is possible.

“Our contestants should steer clear of that kind of rhetoric, and Nigeria’s electoral process will be much the better for it.”

Anybody who has followed the rhetoric of the leading presidential contenders in Nigeria and their supporters cannot but agree with Olson, although there is a problem in his own backyard. Most countries, including Nigeria, look up to the U.S. as a beacon when it comes to democracy anchored on the rule of law. But even there, the integrity of elections is being questioned by a generation of bad losers.

Former President Donald Trump (who has declared his intention to run again in 2024) has made it clear that the only election he would consider credible is the one he wins. Not only does he have millions of supporters who believe everything he says, Nigerian politicians and their supporters are faithful disciples of the Trump doctrine when it comes to acceptance of electoral outcomes.

“Loser’s consent at most elections is fragile and when it is broken, the risk of political violence increases.”  It’s out of place for a loser at an election  to   “declare war on his country,” promising to make it “ungovernable.”

An attendee at an American right-wing rally once asked, “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” Piazza wrote on the danger posed to democracy and the rule of law when politicians and their supporters take every election as a zero-sum game, “a do or die” affair. This was the point made by Olson that we need to take seriously as we engage in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria.

INEC has promised and it is demonstrating prioritising election integrity, so that voters go to the polls knowing their votes will count. It’s a good thing to subscribe to the notion that the electoral process must be secure and fair from beginning to the end. However, our politicians and their supporters must also understand that democracy is not just a game of numbers as they glibly say when things go their way. It is also a process of inquiry by which consensus is formed for the advancement of society. To that extent, they must accept that every contest comes with two possibilities: ‘victory or defeat.’ And until they imbibe that spirit, there will always be a problem.

It is normal for office seekers to be optimistic of victory. It is also legitimate for the media and members of civil society to take sides. But when we begin to project that candidates can only lose elections if ‘rigged out,’ we are unwittingly putting the entire system in jeopardy.

The first leg of the elections is conducted already, and we earnestly await the results from the election umpire. When and after the results are declared by INEC, we enjoin our politicians to eschew politics of do or die. It’s not a time to resort to violence. We must do everything to guard against such hubris.

Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has laid a precedence that our politicians should follow. They are to accept the results in good fate, just like Alhaji Atiku Abubakar promised. Violence cannot in any way resolve issues. It will only compound it. As they say “two wrongs can never make a right,” and that’s even where there is a wrong in the first place. Most of the time, the “wrong” is presumed.