The Candidate: An Incurable Optimist

The Candidate: An Incurable Optimist
By Sam Onimisi
It appears that candidates of elective offices are often so self-confident either of their suitability, competence or acceptability that they usually give no thought or room for failure. Of a truth, there is always an advantage in self-confidence or courage in life’s endeavors.
You don’t embark on ventures with an air of fear, inferiority or doubt and expect to prevail. Since everyone is poised to win and because only one could be declared a winner, there is always a tsunami when an incurable optimist loses a contest. Which suggests that there is the need for a balance in the quest for and the expectation of victory – bearing in mind those political competitors do not often go into contest with equal strength? There is always a difference, an advantage and some elements of luck which one candidate has over and above the other – but these are often hidden to those whose self-confidence is unreasonably high. And that is why when they lose, they hardly believe or accept their defeat.
The consequence is the violence, litigation and fractious reaction often associated with politics, thus making it look like a dirty game. The truth is that we always bring personal character and attributes into politics and we play it according to our values, in line with our self or group interests, with little or no regard for the interest of others. Where interests are opposed, conflict is bound to occur and where there is no prior agreement as to the rule of engagement, the result is more often than not, an open-ended tussle and a present continuous brouhaha. As it is with individuals, so it is with groups and just as personal characters reflect in politics, so group character exhibit itself in politics. Although government makes all the rules or laws to regulate inter-personal and inter-group relationship and competition, very often the individual or group character creeps in to distort and upset rules of engagement. There are groups who feel rightly or wrongly that they have absolute or divine right to rule over others. Some other groups think that they have more knowledge and so, have the right to rule more than others. Yet, there are groups who feel that it is their turn to rule and others must concede this and await their turns. Everyone and every side believe they have some rights that is superior to the rights of the others. And these claims are bound to clash except that only one competitor will emerge as winner at a time.
Where all sides to a claim is not ready to accept legitimate defeat, then there can be no peace or amity between and among the highly heterogeneous Nigerian society or any society for that matter. This is where the neutrality or impartiality of the electoral umpire, the judge and those with authority to do justice and ensure fairness and equity holds the key to peace. Once they appear to have compromised, and coupled with the unreasonably high optimism of the competitors to win by all means, what we see is cataclysm. That is why public institutions such as the judiciary, the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be led by men and women of impeccable character and reputation.
It is also necessary that the criteria for recruitment into these institutions must be of a high standard. But do we adhere to any rule here?
An instance of the incurable optimist is a chieftain of a Party with a popular presidential candidate who, long before the election, said that if his principal wins the race by 79% per cent, then he would cry wolf as he would know that rigging had taken place. Here is one who believes that the race has been won ever before it took place. What if at the end of the game, his principal lost? He would be beside himself in blind rage and will spread the rage, giving unsuspecting members of the public, invented reasons why they must reject the result. With such a bunch of fanatical supporters, electoral violence is not unexpected.
Not everyone will agree with my own tag on the rabble-rouser as some would call him; infact, some people are wondering why he has not been arrested for stirring up violence in advance by his incendiary speech. No matters how you wish to be victorious and regardless of your optimism, self-control and regard for the feeling of others are needed for a stable polity. Again, our freedom of speech and the right to our opinion stops where that of others begin, and since no one possess the monopoly of violence, self censorship is a pre-requisite to political leadership.
It is often said that every party or candidate rigs election in their area of relative strength. Whether this opinion makes sense or not is for rational minds to say. One would have thought that rigging takes place at the area of possible weak voters support and not where one is strong. How often do parties and candidates exaggerate their strength or support base? An optimist, especially the incurable type is prone to over exaggeration or hyperbole. It is like telling and repeating a lie and expecting it to turn out to be truth and when it doesn’t, you blame and quarrel with everyone except yourself. I know of an official of a party who, instead of concentrating on the strategies and tactics that could fetch his party victory, dwells on perceived rigging devices of his opponents. Taking advantage of his media reach, he reels out incredible details of what his “enemies” are planning to do and how they would do it. If by happenstance any of his imaginary allegations or what looks like it happens, then he would say “ I told you so” Many a times, the result of such wolf-cry is a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not saying that one cannot guestimate the moves of his opponent or predicts what he/she can do, based on one’s knowledge of the opponent. To some extent, it is possible, but in politics, nothing is absolutely sure! Just as it is impossible to read the thoughts of a person on his/her face, so it is to predict accurately the next move of your opponent. An ardent supporter today may turn out to be a vicious opponent the next day.
In politics, personal choice and interest and then group interest determines who, what and when to support or oppose. Those who are egocentric have no qualms shifting base, moving from one party to the other as it suits his/her personal interest or ambition. Even the most public-spirited politician may defect to another party when he discovers that his ideals have been neglected or jettison by his party or candidate. It is not a crime to move or change platform except when it is done in bad faith, although most often and regrettably, the Nigerian political terrain is foul with bad faith due to series of false starts and critical but negative interventions. We have heard, seen and felt the heat generated by candidates’ exhibition of over-confidence or assumption in the just concluded Parliamentary and Presidential elections where the stakes are high but localized. The contest demystified parties and candidates who thought and behaved as if they were the ones we are dying to have as our rulers. Now that winners and losers have emerged in what looked like a fair contest, the parties and their candidates could now do a post-mortem to know how and why they lost or won.
Again by the time you would be reading this piece, the Governorship election would have been held, won by some and lost by others as decided by the electorate. This is one poll in which the stake is the highest and over which much altercation had been experienced as to who had the right to contest or not. Each contestant had expended much of their resources; show cased their personalities and advertised their programmes, just to convince us of their desirability or capability. While it lasted, the campaign threatened to tear us apart, and a few bombs were thrown here and there just to scare the opponent(s) out of the race or to scare voters from the polling booths, to enhance some rigging experiments and devices. In all, heavens is yet to fall and may never fall to appease the presumptions of the incurable optimism of candidates or the candor with which campaigners went about their binge with reckless abandon.
The post election violence in some states of the Federation is as unfortunate as it is regrettable and unnecessary. Those with the mindset that no election would ever be free or fair may have decided to react in a certain manner if they and their ward lost in the contest. It is also a possibility that zoning or lack of it may have influenced rioters to act the way they did. Until proved otherwise, the 2011 general election was apparently free, fair and credible. Only verified and proved malpractices may reverse the result announced. Violence cannot reverse the mandate that has been freely given. The best reaction of the losers could well be a determination to put winners on their toes – democratically and make them attend to the needs of the electorate. Violence makes electoral loss even more painful and no more!