IF social media was to be believed, last weekend’s elections in Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country — were nothing less than a coronation of the supposedly popular candidate, Peter Obi, who was being marketed as the best thing since sliced bread.
But other than a relatively fresh face and a broad smile, he did not have anything to sell — no structures, no ideas and no policies.
Nothing!
He was just popular for being popular.
Youthful Nigerian netizens, smitten by a relatively younger presidential aspirant, whipped up a frenzy on social media, creating the impression that Obi would mop the floor with seasoned political contenders such as Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
They caricatured Tinubu as a doddering, senile man who is often out of it, while canonising Obi as the political messiah.
The prophets also joined in the frenzy by telling all those who cared to listen that Obi was God’s preferred candidate.
Really?
In Isaiah 55: 8-10, God reminds us: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
However, when the results of the February 25 plebiscite finally came, the 61-year-old Obi polled 2,7 million less than the declared winner, Tinubu, the 70-year-old American-educated Lagosian, who has for long been considered the political grandmaster of Nigerian politics.
The reality left the starry-eyed legion of Obidients — as Obi’s disciples are called — slack-jawed, proving yet again that politics is not a beauty pageant. Kikikiki.
With the illusory bubble burst by the stark reality of the electoral loss, it proved too much for the politician to stomach at a press briefing on Thursday, as he could not help but shed tears.
Who says big boys don’t cry? Kikikiki.
But he still believes he has a chance to claim the presidency through the courts, as he claims he has all the evidence needed to prove the election was rigged on an industrial scale.
Well, the Bishop wishes him luck.
Ritual
It seems disputing unfavourable electoral outcomes has become a veritable international ritual.
Last year, serial loser and whiner, Raila Odinga, who felt he was entitled to be Kenya’s next leader, having tried four times before, refused to accept William Ruto’s win, claiming the results were a “mathematical absurdity that defies logic” — whatever that means. Kikikiki.
Actually, there was some pushing and shoving, as a scuffle broke out at the counting centre at the Bomas of Kenya on August 15, 2022, when Odinga’s supporters tried to block the electoral commission from announcing the final results.
Riot police had to be called into the tallying centre to eject the rabble-rousers.
It reminded Bishop Lazi of that 2018 stunt pulled by Morgan Komichi as he sought to block Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba from announcing the results.
As the Bishop writes this, Odinga is still huffing and puffing.
The same thing happened in Brazil in October last year after 77-year-old Lula da Silva outpolled Jair Bolsonaro (67) in a run-off in October.
The sulking politician initially wanted to challenge the results in court by alleging that a bug had affected more than 60 percent of the voting machines and tilted the elections in his rival’s favour. Kikikiki.
After realising his argument did not have any legs to stand on, he resorted to bussing his supporters to the capital, Brasilia, to demonstrate against the “stolen” elections.
On January 8 this year, violent protests took place at the country’s supreme court, congress and the presidential office (the Planalto Palace).
But it is the American presidential elections that gave the world a spectacle that was both entertaining and tragic.
After being thumped by the 80-year-old Joe Biden, the maverick Donald Trump (76) refused to concede by alleging the elections were rigged through ballot stuffing, dead voters and malicious voting-machine software that deleted or changed millions of his votes.
Through his incendiary rhetoric, the businessman-cum-politician incited his supporters into laying siege on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 during a joint session of congress convened to certify the results.
Six people died during skirmishes between the police and Trump’s merry band of rioters.
The disturbing video that captured the last moments of Ashli Babbitt — a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from Southern California, who was fatally shot while trying to gain entry into the Speaker’s Lobby through a broken window — still remains as an enduring reminder of the perils of disputed elections.
All along, we used to be told disputed elections were an African phenomenon which usually afflicted uncivilised communities that were unfamiliar with democratic practices and inherently given to settling political questions through violence.
For all his weaknesses, Joe Biden spoke something sensible in September last year when he said: “Democracy cannot survive — (this is) not a joke — when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win or they were cheated; that is not democracy . . . You can’t love your country only when you win . . .”
Mass delusions
But it now seems that having sore losers disputing elections all the time has invariably become the norm.
Maybe it is because of social media, which increasingly creates a virtual reality that is sustained by mass delusion and hypnotic psychosis.
Remember that the Bishop recently shared with you the enlightening work of American psychologist Professor Lee Ross from Stanford University, who coined the term “false consensus effect”, which is a logical fallacy that leads many people to see their own behavioural choices and judgements as relatively common and appropriate, while viewing alternative choices and judgements as uncommon, deviant or inappropriate.
In essence, it makes people overestimate how much other people agree with their own beliefs, behaviours, attitudes and values.
In some instances, it manifests in people who either think that others share their opinion on controversial topics or believe that the majority of people share their preferences.
Scientists opine that when we spend an inordinate amount of time in a closed group of family, friends and acquaintances who share similar opinions and beliefs, we start to think that their way of thinking is the majority opinion, which is not necessarily the case.
In other words, this theory of the false consensus effect defines the tendency to project our way of thinking onto others by making the presumption that they also think the same way we do.
People are often comforted when their views and opinions are seemingly validated through eco chambers.
This is exactly what happened in the lead-up to the February 25 elections in Nigeria, where social media created the perception that Obi was the overwhelming favourite to win the elections.
Of course, political connoisseurs knew this was not the case.
The fact that Obi actually managed to win in major centres such as Lagos and Abuja, which formed part of the closed group that shared the illusion — or delusion – of the politician’s popularity is instructive.
But the reality can be jarring, which explains why Obi, who went into the election expecting one outcome, had to turn on the waterworks last week.
Painful Lesson
Well, our friends in the CCC always think that Harare is Zimbabwe.
Just like Lagos and Abuja are not Nigeria, Harare — where Nelson Chamisa got the majority of his votes (548 895) to add to his overall tally of 2 151 927 — is not Zimbabwe.
Bishop Lazi has always counselled on the need to dispassionately look at the facts and numbers.
The political landscape has profoundly shifted from 2018 to date, as ZANU PF cadres have closed ranks after the seismic shift in power in 2017 that preceded the birth of the Second Republic.
For now, the CCC ill-informed strategy to deliver victory for young Chamisa seems to be premised on registering as many youths in cities, especially Harare, under the assumption they all support his party.
It is also illogical, if not preposterous, to think most youths live in urban areas.
Kindly note: 68 percent of Zimbabweans presently live in rural areas.
The biggest lesson we learn from Nigerian elections are that fantasies, illusions and biases can be soothing, but reality is often sobering.
But, as Joe Biden says, you cannot love your country only if you win.
Bishop out! – Sunday Mail
