Nigeria is a place where historically we do not take psychological and psychiatric health into significant consideration; today, it is now commonplace to hear of these concerns in social media, offices, markets, viewing centers, clubs, bars, religious houses, brothels, airports, motor parks, commercial vehicles, barracks, cells, prisons, royal houses, and dormitories, except in mortuaries and burial grounds, in talks about the 2023 presidential elections.
Each time the names, voices, and images of Atiku and Tinubu are present in the daily lives of Nigerians, they appear to encounter negative effects, both bodily and emotionally.
Let’s note that Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos governor and current APC presidential flagbearer, and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Abubakar Atiku, a former vice president who has been running for president for decades.
All over Nigeria, fear is in the air, and it is growing as the election approaches, as political names like Atiku and Tinubu are mentioned as those who are known for occasionally fanning the flames of disunity. As men accustomed to issues of election militarization and the appearance of unfairness and corruption.
But this time the people are ready to face and shock them and their allies.
Tinubu and Atiku are watching the polls and the surrounding discussions all over the country, and they see a “small person” named Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, whom they dismiss but who has taken the lead in the race to become the country’s president. But the people see Obi as one who gives us hope as this is a turning point like never before in Nigeria’s recent history.
These two typical political demagogues can see that there is unbelievable hatred for them among most Nigerians, both openly and quietly.
Tinubu and Atiku understand the shifting dynamics within the country.
They observe that Nigerians are less divided than before, but they are not perplexed by the tactics of buying votes with cash, as seen with many delegates being bought over with cash during the primaries—delegates selling their votes. They are not baffled by the ugly habits of ballot box snatching and violence, manipulated media reports, known acts of writing results, or votes canceled or canceled by timid and corrupt judges.
We are aware of known acts of thousands of thugs, armed with machetes, sticks, and other weapons, including knives, surrounding each of the polling units, corrupt law enforcement and security officials looking away, and crooked election assistants helping to rig and confirm the false results.
There is new concern among typical old politicians about the new election technology from the National Electoral Commission, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) for the 2023 election.
With these systems, results can no longer be easily written at night, and even if there are some flaws and failures in these new election technologies, they won’t easily fall victim to the dark games of typical politicians. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and the Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) will enhance the transparency of election results and raise public confidence in electoral outcomes.
In recent elections, the acts of the dark game included falsification of votes at polling units, falsification of the number of accredited voters, collation of false results, defacement of results, computational errors, substitution of results sheets, forging of results sheets, snatching and destruction of results sheets, making declarations and returns unwillingly while result collation was still in progress, and poor recordkeeping. All of these will be bygones now, at least for the most part.
Obi has become a symbol of change for young and old alike, a name associated with someone who understands their problems, someone who can move the country forward regardless of region, tribe, ethnicity, or dialect; people from all walks of life are coming together and asking for a patriot, and Obi is that person.
So, let me say that these two wealthy septuagenarian political veterans, who had been on the political scene for more than three decades and were aware of these dark games in Nigerian politics, now recognize that their names are associated with stressors for many people. Most Nigerians, particularly the average ones, appeared to be experiencing an increase in physical and psychological symptoms such as overeating, headaches, irregular heartbeats, hypertension, diabetes, chest stress, indigestion, stomach pain, discomfort, fear, despair, hopelessness, regret, distress, anger, depression, horror, trauma, thoughts of running away or giving up, and even suicidal ideation. Yet they are still bent on governing a nation where most of the people reject them and don’t want anything to do with them.
The stress of being a Nigerian under the present administration is getting worse.
Many Nigerians see themselves as having been in an environment of physical and psychological stress for the last few years, and they know that with the coming of another old-fashioned do-or-die political politician, their susceptibility to stress-related occurrences will magnify. God, forbid they are saying as they compete and work tirelessly for Obi’s victory.
The name Obi strikes many Nigerians as standing out as an example of hope, wellness, and stability for the Nigerian people across all regions, and there is no way Atiku and Tinubu may not be deeply distressed about the aura around Obi, and I hope this distress does not cause them sudden or accumulated physical and emotional doom and breakdown in the coming weeks and months right before the elections.
Many Nigerians see these two old-fashioned politicians as symbols of tribal and financial extremism and disunity. They are willing to side with Obi by any means necessary, even if it means risking everything, as those who believe they can use fear, money, and violence to gain control should be aware that they can also be victims of election-fueled violence. Nigerians in the majority love Obi as a skillful non-demagogue who gives people who feel powerless a sense of collective strength, hope, sanity, and leadership. Let all of us be very careful. Let us stand up and say, “Enough is enough.”
Prof John Egbeazien Oshodi, an American-based forensic/clinical/legal psychologist, wrote in via info@teuopen.university
