ANGER is FUEL. It can spark a firestorm of revolution or ignite an inferno of destruction. We feel it and we want to do something. Throw fist. Hit the wall. Throw punches. Or deploy it in an election. As an emotion, anger is often classified as destructive – partly because it has capacity for destruction and harm – to oneself and others.
Dalai Lama and Daniel Goleman, in their groundbreaking and insightful book, Destructive Emotions identified anger, crave, and hatred as some of the most destructive of all emotions. Left unchecked and uncontrolled, anger can set a house on fire or a community ablaze. Taken together, anger and election can upturn the status quo or tear apart an establishment. In the last week Edo gubernatorial election, we saw anger in full swing.
“The best time to enjoy Nigeria is when elections are at hand”, Simon Kolawole noted in Electioneering Handbook for Nigeria, “We were created to play politics, to engage in intense politicking, to script, perform and watch political drama. We forget all our sorrows and dive into the fray headlong, jumping up and down, chitchatting morning, noon and night”.
As a matter of fact, there is no better way to sum up the attitude and disposition of most Nigerians to critical national issues than during elections where our sentiments and prejudices are always in complete display. Regardless of what a cup of rice is sold in the market or what a liter of premium motor spirit cost at filling stations, the electioneering period has a way of suspending the thinking faculty of most Nigerians. In part because the concept of contest, of having your favorite slug it out in a political dogfight, or electoral acrobatics all the while rooting for the victory of that favorite is steeped in raw, undiluted emotion.
In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely asserted that most of our choices from whom to vote for in an election to what to buy for dinner are sometimes predictably irrational: we overestimate the ability of a candidate because she is our choice and are blind to the reality of having guys on the other side of the political divide rule over us. Furtively, anger is not all doom and gloom. According to research, anger, like any form of emotions is energy, impatiently waiting to be channeled either rightly or wrongly, depending on the maturity of the one who’s angry. In politics, anger is an inevitable tool to stir up charged conversation, heated debate and pit people against each other.
As the last gubernatorial poll in Edo has revealed, election remains one of the most lethal weapons in the hands of politicians in dividing the people. I’m thinking of what Nigeria could have turned to suppose the same level of electoral optimism and enthusiasm that often trail periodic polls also accompanied our conducts post-election. Sadly, the reverse has always been the case. Politicians know what to say to trigger our anger. They know what to do bring the raw darkness in us. They know the button to press to push people to the cusp of religious and ethnic sentiment and prejudice. Time and again, they’ve perfected the art of exploiting our various and numerous fault lines.
In the build-up to the Edo governorship election for instance, Olumide Akpata, former NBA President and the candidate of the Labor Party went on a national television to say that journalist Rufai Oseni and social media influential, Tunde Ednut’s combined online survey have indicated that he was going to record a landslide victory at the poll. He spoke those words chillingly and with confidence of an assertive politician. The outcome of the election must have opened his eyes to the reality of politics.
Ultimately, the whole exercise went relatively free and peacefully though not without cases of vote buying. Interestingly, the Edo election wasn’t different from the typical electioneering activities in the country. Nothing special. Nothing spectacular. Just some bunches of politicians doing their thing without the utmost interests of the people at heart. For one, that election has shown a lot about the power of political strategy, weaponisation of anger and the danger of incumbency factor.
The PDP under Godwin Obaseki thought it could ride on the tide wave of socio-economic turmoil and upheaval of the President Tinubu’s APC to cajole and hoodwink the electorates. It thought the coast would be clear for the continuation of his agenda. Forgetting that the power dynamics that worked in favor of PDP in 2020 had changed and shifted. Perhaps, the combination and coalition of other power brokers this time, was formidable enough to stop Godwin Obaseki from having his ways. But what does it mean to deploy anger as an electoral tool and strategy in Nigeria? Outside Nigeria, deep in the US, the two leading candidates are rallying people to their respective causes. Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump have been on each other’s necks since July, each working tirelessly to win more liberal and undecided voters to their sides.
For Trump, he’s the only President and only candidate to slug it out with women in the history of the US politics. In 2016, he had Hillary Clinton to contend with. Although the former secretary of state won the popular votes, the decision of electoral college gave Trump all he needed to become an occupant of the White House. Like 2016, Trump is back in 2024 trying to outsmart, and outwit Kamala Harris whose foray in the race has upended what was considered a one-man show to the white house. Harris has brought some gravitas to the race. Trump is weaponizing immigration, economy and US global standing while Harris is passionate about reproductive health, democracy and American openness as a land of dreamers. But the race is close to be called.
In Edo, we saw how anger was directed and deployed to the Godwin Obaseki’s preferred candidate, Asue Ighodalo. We saw the anger of the monarchist against Obaseki. And finally, we saw the anger against unfair representation in politics. For the first time in 35 years, the people of Edo Central can now heave a sigh of relief that the question of marginalization that has been sustained for years has finally come to rest. Will that be said of Oyo state in 2027, too?
OYO101 is Muftau Gbadegesin’s opinion about issues affecting the Oyo state and is published every Saturday. He can be reached via @GbadeTheGreat on X, muftaugbadegesin@gmail.com, and 09065176850.
