Young Nigerians see hope of revolution fading

Nigerian youths hoped for a revolution, they got a déjà vu. With the election of 70-year-old Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the new president of Africa’s largest democracy and economy, not only does the same party remain in power under which Nigeria has slipped into deep malaise in recent years, but the old elite that has ruled the country for decades with a corrupt and loyalty-based system in a stranglehold.

The result does not seem completely final yet: the main opposition parties call the elections a “sham” and demand a new poll. They are expected to go to court in the coming days.

Their anger follows a more than messy ballot box, plagued by violence and logistical problems. The biggest disappointment was a new technology that promised transparency by sending the results digitally immediately after counting and making them publicly available. But he let it down at the supreme moment. Technical problems, it was said. Cheating, say the losing parties and their supporters.

Read also: Technical and logistical problems plague Nigerian elections

It marks a new phase in Nigeria’s most tense presidential election in two decades, with the emergence of a surprise third candidate in what is normally a predictable battle between the two sides that dominate the country. Young Nigerians flocked en masse to the 61-year-old Peter Obi of the small Labor Party, who had to deal with the old hierarchy for them. With 6.1 million votes, he finished just behind the number two, Atiku Abubakar.

But the established order proved, once again, too strong to break. For now, it is the All Progressives Congress (APC) of outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari that is winning. His successor and fellow party member Tinubu won less than a third of the electorate with 8.8 million votes. A monster task awaits him. In the eight years that former army general Buhari was in power, he brought the country to an economic abyss. Nigeria is poorer and more insecure than when he took office. Those who can, try to leave the country. Japan, they call it. To flee.

Disillusionment

Tinubu, former governor of Nigeria’s commercial heartland Lagos, promised in his campaign to tackle all these problems, but hardly made it clear how. The question is whether the aging politician has an answer to the disillusionment among his very young population – 70 percent of Nigerians are under thirty. It is feared that the energy many poured into Obi’s campaign could turn into destruction with his loss.

Read also: Nigerian youth hope for a ‘political revolution’

“We vacillate between extreme hope and extreme danger,” lawyer and activist Dele Farotimi previously warned NRC. “If the elections are not fair, the young people who now cling to their expectations have little to lose.”

The fact is that the enthusiasm for Obi’s campaign ultimately did not translate into a high turnout – which was also very low at 27 percent this election. This was partly due to logistical problems and the violence that was once again used as a strategy to prevent people from voting. Like in Lagos, where gunmen attacked polling stations in several places – places where the Labor candidate has a lot of supporters.

More than that, Nigerians simply seem to have lost faith in politics and elections. In particular, the hasty introduction of new banknotes, which Buhari authorized just before the elections, has driven people to despair in a country that runs on cash. Nigerians have been queuing for weeks at ATMs that do not dispense money: far too few of the new banknotes have been printed.

Read also: The ‘Giant of Africa’ goes to the polls

Hungry and angry

With no money for food, let alone transport, the question was who could come to the polling stations. “Nigerians are hungry and angry,” the newspaper wrote Premium Times into Monday her comment. “People have no money in their pockets, there is no fuel, no electricity,” said the paper, calling the hardship “unbearable and symbolic of Buhari’s failure.”

Tinubu does not seem to offer a new policy. The wealthy politician, whose health is the subject of much concern, has been a key figure in Nigerian politics for more than three decades. He is regarded as the ‘kingmaker’ and ‘Godfather of Lagos’ who, after his resignation as governor, still single-handedly chose his successors, and also managed to get others elected in strategic places. Like Buhari, in 2015. Now it was his turn.

With the huge party machine and deep pockets the APC can lean on nationwide, the odds were in Tinubu’s favor. As always, the party focused on loyalty based on religion, ethnicity and regional origin – still decisive in Nigeria. Partly because of this, the expected punishment for APC’s mismanagement of recent years, and especially the chaos surrounding the new banknotes, failed to materialize.

Read also: Completed ballot papers lie trampled in the gutter in Lagos

Nevertheless, the politician did suffer a sensitive defeat. Several ballot boxes were stolen and set on fire, but that didn’t prevent Peter Obi from winning in Lagos, where Tinubu’s face stared at residents from every lamppost and bus shelter. In his campaign, the politician boasted of his successes as governor of the city, whose economy is larger than that of most countries on the continent.

Those successes were real. For example, Tinubu was able to significantly increase the state’s revenues through more efficient tax collection (although there are allegations that some of this would end up in his pockets) and he swept through the bureaucracy.

No refineries

Such measures are also needed nationally. Nigeria is rich in oil, but the income from it has fallen sharply in recent years. Not only because an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the oil production in the troubled Delta is stolen, but also because Nigeria itself has no refineries: fuel has to be imported at increasingly higher prices.

What little oil money the government still earns is being spent on a fuel subsidy that, according to every financial institution, is unsustainable and cost the treasury about $10 billion last year. Meanwhile, Buhari, with the help of the Central Bank, let the national debt soar that about 80 percent of government revenue is spent on paying off debts, and not on the ailing education or the gaps in health care.

Tinubu says as president that he will abolish this subsidy (just like Buhari at the time). He also promises to tackle unemployment, which is now more than 30 percent, and to significantly expand the army in response to the increasing insecurity in the country. How he wants to finance this remains unclear for the time being. In previous interviews, the new president seemed to see few problems with his predecessor’s lending policy.

But before he gets there, Tinubu will have to bring a deeply divided country back together. In his nightly victory speech, he seemed aware of that task. “A lot of people are insecure, angry and hurt […] Let’s begin to heal and bring peace to our nation,” he said. He also addressed Nigeria’s youth: “I hear you loud and clear. Together we will move this nation like never before.”