The Monthly Three: The Elections 2023 Edition

This month, we discuss the recently concluded national elections in Nigeria, mainly focusing on youth-led political movements, cults of personality, and acts of faith. Also, some new music!

New month, new Three! Thanks for reading, sharing and subscribing. Let’s get to it. Previous editions here and here.

A note: Nigeria has had quite a February, but keep in mind, dear reader, that this is a culture newsletter. As such, there will be nothing about dodgy vote counts, nothing about fuel scarcity or cash fiascos, nothing about Labor Party’s chances in the upcoming Lagos’ gubernatorial elections. Follow me on Twitter for those. 

On Obi, political movements, and acts of faith

During the EndSARS protests, I wrote that what we were seeing was a movement that was essentially an “adhocracy”, a term I borrowed from Zeynep Tufekci’s 2017 book Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protests where people created makeshift organisations to ensure the impromptu protest movement they were creating could run. When EndSARS came to a brutal end at the hands of the military on Oct 20, 2020, it was clear that people were angry and restless for change. Nigeria’s young people had all this energy and passion, but the political environment was not built for their influence. As young people did before, they built another adhocracy that contributed immensely to the growth of Peter Obi’s candidacy through the then-fledgling Labour Party from a distant third, to a formidable threat to Nigeria’s two major parties.

I think Obi is worth a dedicated mention here because of the youth-driven movement around his candidacy and what it managed to inspire in a most nakedly cynical of election periods, even by Nigerian standards. Nigeria is just coming to the end of eight years of a shambolic Buhari presidency that has had us backed into a corner like Mike Tyson in his prime, pounding us with blow after blow of dysfunction and failure. Like I wrote a couple of editions ago in an essay on movements in Nigeria, “the machine for Peter Obi is a community of people who have chosen Peter Obi as a figure representing what they see as a departure from politics as usual.” This movement for Obi would not have taken off as much if Obi was a Vice Presidential candidate under the main opposition party PDP, or if EndSARS itself never happened. 

President Buhari before his eight-year presidency was arguably the one politician in Nigeria who commanded huge organic popularity from people who believed in him. Belief in Buhari as a changemaker was hinged on his ascetic public image, which drove many people to hope that he could get hard things done for the country’s overall good, improve national security, and reduce corruption. Buhari’s reticence added to his mystique and allowed people to project these hopes on him. By contrast, the growth of Obi’s popularity in the campaign months was driven by what he did say, his seeming accessibility and the simple, down-to-earth manner of his relations with Nigerians that belies his grand wealth and status. Obi is not an ascetic like Buhari, but he does present himself simply, always wearing a black buttoned shirt or black kaftan. He has a reputation for frugality, but is known as a hugely successful businessman who made his money through trackable means well before his time in government. 

What has won over the huge numbers of people who believe in Obi is the energy with which he has engaged the electorate throughout the campaign. His campaign has been marked by his willingness to speak off-the-cuff to people in public fora across the country, not just as stakeholder groups to be bargained with, but as citizens who are interested in a better country. In Obi, we see something of the balance one must strike to be a popular figure in Nigeria: elite yet down-home, wealthy enough to be an aspirational figure yet smart enough not to wear in a manner that distances, a willingness to meet people where they are while still keeping one’s exalted position. It’s the kind of a balance that successful pentecostal pastors know more than anyone else how to strike well.

It’s hard to talk about cultural happenings during the election without talking about tribalism and religion. It’s undeniable that a big part of many people’s push for Obi – a Christian man from the southeast – is rejecting the leading party APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket and the main opposition party PDP’s presenting a northern Muslim presidential candidate after eight years a previous northern Muslim one. It was a move that parties presented less as an ethno-religious slight than as a matter of pragmatism in their hopes to get votes and interest from the huge population of northern Muslims. Tribalism and religious bigotry in Nigeria’s politics provides easy identifiers that give cover for a politics that compels, rather than courts, its audience. These identifiers demand loyalty, rather than accountability, from its audience, making it completely incompatible with a democracy if you are looking for democracy to yield development outcomes through governance.

There are still questions swirling over the election results and faulty vote counting, but for me and for the purposes of this essay the most important thing about Obi’s campaign was the widening of our collective political imagination in a most bleak time in our politics. I was dubious on Obi’s chances of victory, but I enjoyed watching people dare to dream. I enjoyed watching young people be taken seriously by someone who says he wants to lead them to something better than where they currently are. I think it is important that Obi ran a campaign where he courted the electorate with ideas and consideration, and went as far as he did. It signals that enough Nigerians are ready for a politics that goes beyond the search for easy tribal alliances and want leaders that truly give a damn about them. 

Voting Obi was an act of faith for many Nigerians, both an expression of frustration and a test of the wingspan to see how far our efforts as a people can move the boulder of political stagnation. People mobilized and built community around their frustration and desire to change politics, and it made more of an impact than many people thought was possible. I think that’s remarkable regardless of what one thinks of the man himself, largely because of what it tells us about ourselves. I feared I would not see such an act of faith in Nigeria again after the brutal finality of Oct 20, 2020, but I should have known that, like my friend Fizzy said to me after the elections, energy never completely goes away. It just gets transformed into something else.  

An Interlude

If you’re not on that new Lojay, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. After teasing us for so long, the man finally dropped a follow-up to LV and ATTN EP, and he doesn’t disappoint. Can’t pick a favorite, either. It’s that good. 

My last couple of gym sessions have seen Ajebutter22’s new album Soundtrack to the Good Life on rotation. Ajebutter fully leans into the Rick Ross luxury rap thing (not as skillfully, but still) and serves up a chilled out escape from Naija wahala. Koromone’s spoken word piece “Soft Life Manifestations” is the perfect alley-oop to the Soft Life, and it rolls on pretty pleasantly from there. 

I’m still burrowing into Masego’s newest, but I’m enjoying it so far. I’ve always dug his musicianship, the way he melds r’n’b, hiphop and jazz. The music is well-done, thoughtful and personal, but not up its own ass. The songs take on his different parts of his life, such as reflections on his life as an artist on ‘Remembering Sundays’ and ‘Who Cares Anyway’, experiences with women like on ‘You Never Visit Me’ and ‘Afraid of Water’. My favorite songs so far are ‘You Never Visit Me’, ‘Remembering Sundays’, ‘Say You Want Me,’ and ‘Two Sides’. If you’re down for something chilled out, you should give this one a spin.

Radio Silence

I’ve seen a few pieces of commentary online on the fact that some of Nigerian music’s biggest names did not comment at all on the elections. What made the silence remarkable to me is that Davido, Don Jazzy, Burna Boy and Wizkid all commented on #EndSARS. Burna made a song called October 20, 2020. Wizkid joined the London #EndSARS protests. Davido had direct engagements with the Chief of Police and partook in the protests in Lagos, along with lots of other Nollywood and Naija music artists. Tiwa Savage had asked Beyonce to voice support on #EndSars. During EndSARS, they seemed pulled in by a willingness to express solidarity with other young Nigerians, a core constituent that contributed to their current status as superstars. Why the silence now?

We are a long way away from the time of Nigerian pop music when popular artists routinely made politically-conscious music. In the military era where the divisions between government and civilian population was thick and red, the music oscillated easily between the playful and the political. As our politics and local economies became more of a shitshow and our artists became more popular globally, our music became more and more a place of escape from our desperately awful socio-political existence. Even our clubs and partying have only seemed to become more lavish and hedonistic the more shitty things have gotten, our attempts at escape more elaborate and inviting with each passing year. I once asked a Nollywood filmmaker friend why so many films focused so much on the wealthiest Nigerians and not enough on lower-income people, and his response was “nobody wants to watch stories about poverty.” Similarly, logic goes, nobody wants to listen to music about the shit realities they live in everyday, and the entertainers we look to for escapism probably don’t want to reflect anything of our realities either. 

All I’ve got on this are questions (if you have answers or insights, share in the comments!), and I should note that I believe that our biggest music stars are private citizens and can sing or talk about whatever they want. They are also free to choose not to vote or make any political statements at all. Besides, it’s not like nobody has lent a voice; people like Simi, Adekunle Gold, Falz, Johnny Drille, MI, Zlatan, and others have spoken about the elections. At the same time, I won’t discount the importance of having our top music stars weigh in – even if in a nonpartisan fashion –  about elections, though. Nobody should feel like they must, but I have to wonder what changed between 2020 and now that has suddenly made them unwilling to speak up.

Until next time.