How to become a Nigerian President (1)

Former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan and Nigeria's current President Muhammadu Buhari- Source Daily Post

Oladeinde Olawoyin

First, a caveat: you do not need any certificate to become president of Nigeria. There is what seems a national consensus to bully every certificate holder out of the presidential race, if we go by the 2015 national electoral template. So, in effect, one sure way of losing out in this ambition is to flaunt your academic certificates. If you are so unfortunate to possess any, quite sadly, make sure you hide them away from the Nigerian public; a NEPA bill is quite enough. Or, better still, your last bill from the Nigerian Water Corporation, NWC. I will come back to this.

There are two, to adopt a Nigerian lingo, tested-and-trusted ways of winning the presidential race by default in Nigeria. One, if you have been thrown into the gulag by the state before now––whether for legitimate or illegitimate reasons––you sure have higher chances of becoming our president. Two, if you are fortunate to be born into abject poverty, particularly if you grew up shoe-less in a backwater Nigerian community and you can milk out emotions with your background. While you do not have control over the latter, you sure have absolute control over the former. And, should it happen that you have not tasted the Nigerian prison life before now, you still have between now and February 2019 to navigate your ways to the gulag––whether deliberately or otherwise; no sacrifice should be too big for this grand ambition.

According to the finding of a widely publicised study, Nigerians are said to be the happiest people on earth. What the study failed to establish however is that during electioneering, Nigerians are equally the easiest to mesmerize on the planet. Perhaps due to their ever-happy nature, and maybe because with happiness comes blissful stupidity, they pay little attention to details. And herein lies your biggest strength as a presidential hopeful: do NOT make any promise to the Nigerian people, please. Let your party make all the promises. The whole shenanigan becomes much more potent if the party has a spokesperson who is no public communication LAI-bility. That way you could, in all honesty, denounce every unrealistic ‘manifestoe’ peddled online AFTER ––emphasis on the timing, please––you are elected. Afterall, if elementary biology lessons are valid, there is a wide gulf between the party and the candidate: the one is a non-living thing and thus have no mouth of its own to speak; the other is a living thing who never said anything.

Perhaps the most important electioneering strategy in Nigeria is to always, always avoid election debates. Avoiding election debate––that shouting match where everyone claims superior illogic–– is one sure way of keeping the people in the dark about the looming disaster that is about to hit them. There is the tendency to erroneously perceive debate as a platform to connect with the people but the danger is much more sinister than its overhyped advantage. Courtesy of the media, those purveyors of fake news, and their civil society partners, the debate is often a booby-trap put in place for unsuspecting politicians to televise their idiocy and idea bankruptcy on national television. Avoid them.

During electioneering, a brilliant way of not advancing any concrete developmental vision yet appearing as the messiah before the people is to adopt a forceful, revolutionary-sounding catchphrase. Like “Change!”, “Power!”, infact anything. Even “Pangolo!” Simply let it sound forcefully revolutionary. And for every two-hour campaign exercise, mouth these words for about 1 hour 56 minutes. I can assure you of one thing: Victoria Ascerta.

Now, while you are at it, never ever lose your loyal crowd. Every politician (depending on the personage he projects in the media and however radically contrasting that personage is to his real, authentic self) has its loyal crowd. And trust the ever-loyal, recession-stricken crowd, they will defend you with all their might––and even if they remain on fuel queues for three days, they would surmount all of their energies to hail you when your convoy of AC-ied Prado Jeeps moves around them. Such is the intensity of their loyalty.

Be careful with sensational media headlines. Avoid ALL newspapers like plague because as you would come to realise after few years of your exemplary leadership, ALL newspapers would appear as though they are being sponsored by the opposition. And if you choose to read them out of magnanimity, avoid their hard-hitting, headache-inducing editorials. Simply limit yourself to their cartoon sections––particularly the ones that treat stuff far away from national importance, like sensual issues of the ‘other room’.

If you are seeking re-election, there is the possibility that your unprecedented level of achievements would appear non-existent before the people, especially when your kinsmen either choose to bomb the nation into another year or they seek to reverse all your gains in agriculture with their genocidal attacks on the food basket of the nation. But because beyond the online outrage and initial gra-gra, the Nigerian voter is pathetically amnesiac, and because the opposition folks must have been made spineless by the anti-graft campaign, there is always a way out.

So even without any certificate, just relax because, ceteris paribus, you have the baton already for a fresh 4-year term. Given what the experience has been in the last couple of years, there is the tendency for Nigerians to be wary of certificate-less candidates. But ultimately, with the absence of direction in the public domain, coupled with endless fixation on decisions taken more than two years ago, and, of course, the absence of any serious public conversation on possible alternatives, it remains unclear whether the Nigerian mumu has no sequel. Relax, man.