For God, Homeland and Marabout: #NigeriaDecides2023, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
In Nigeria, the presidential villa has long been an infirmary… Unsurprisingly, presidential wizards are in high demand. With both leading candidates well into their 70s and signs of severe physical degeneration around one in particular, Nigeria's presidential election due in February 2023 could make these political wizards even richer. It's all for God and country.
Democratic politics is by far the most brutal competitive sport invented. Unlike other sports where the combination of individual skill, perspiration, inspiration and experience or team ethic can be decisive, results in politics can depend on externalities unrelated to these, such as security services, voters, media, electoral management bodies or all of the above.
To deal with these uncertainties, political competitors are still hard at work mobilizing all possible available aid. In Europe and the Americas, algorithms are now playing a major role in the design and deployment of micro-targeting solutions that seek to uniquely personalize the electoral experience, much in the same way that retailers do. for the average consumer.
Throughout Africa, the belief is widely touted that "power comes from God" and "He gives it to whomever He wills". This, however, has never stopped men who seek power from rigging elections, stuffing ballot boxes, bribing election arbiters, or buying off the judges who adjudicate election disputes. Presumably, all of these count as instruments in God's arsenal. They are by no means the only ones.
In his 2015 study on democracy in Africa, Nic Cheeseman of the University of Oxford explains that "since pre-colonial times, the widespread belief in an invisible kingdom - which exists parallel to the visible world and can act on it - conferred considerable power upon those believed capable of wielding occult power. Ebenezer Obadare of the University of Kansas adds that "religion and religious agents and factors continue to affect (African) politics".
The belief around Africa that presidents and aspirants need such powers to stay in power is often deeply held. Politicians, for the most part, are awake when ordinary humans are asleep, without necessarily being asleep when others are awake. They sleep little and cannot be sure that their efforts will be rewarded with anything other than public rejection.
Being a chronically sleep-deprived community, their need for doctors and unseen powers would seem both logical and natural. Those currently seeking the presidency anywhere in Africa would surely be well advised to amp up their spiritual fortifications as they embark on their pursuits. The record of some of their most famous African predecessors in this endeavor deserves a brief reminder.
Many people are willing to swear that when the current Nigerian presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, announced in August 2017 that rats and rodents had forced the president to work from home, long before COVID- 19 did not make this practice fashionable, it was to put a pleasant face to the advice of presidential marabouts whose diagnosis of General Muhammadu Buhari's ill health was so...
In Nigeria, the presidential villa has long been an infirmary… Unsurprisingly, presidential wizards are in high demand. With both leading candidates well into their 70s and signs of severe physical degeneration around one in particular, Nigeria's presidential election due in February 2023 could make these political wizards even richer. It's all for God and country.
Democratic politics is by far the most brutal competitive sport invented. Unlike other sports where the combination of individual skill, perspiration, inspiration and experience or team ethic can be decisive, results in politics can depend on externalities unrelated to these, such as security services, voters, media, electoral management bodies or all of the above.
To deal with these uncertainties, political competitors are still hard at work mobilizing all possible available aid. In Europe and the Americas, algorithms are now playing a major role in the design and deployment of micro-targeting solutions that seek to uniquely personalize the electoral experience, much in the same way that retailers do. for the average consumer.
Throughout Africa, the belief is widely touted that "power comes from God" and "He gives it to whomever He wills". This, however, has never stopped men who seek power from rigging elections, stuffing ballot boxes, bribing election arbiters, or buying off the judges who adjudicate election disputes. Presumably, all of these count as instruments in God's arsenal. They are by no means the only ones.
In his 2015 study on democracy in Africa, Nic Cheeseman of the University of Oxford explains that "since pre-colonial times, the widespread belief in an invisible kingdom - which exists parallel to the visible world and can act on it - conferred considerable power upon those believed capable of wielding occult power. Ebenezer Obadare of the University of Kansas adds that "religion and religious agents and factors continue to affect (African) politics".
The belief around Africa that presidents and aspirants need such powers to stay in power is often deeply held. Politicians, for the most part, are awake when ordinary humans are asleep, without necessarily being asleep when others are awake. They sleep little and cannot be sure that their efforts will be rewarded with anything other than public rejection.
Being a chronically sleep-deprived community, their need for doctors and unseen powers would seem both logical and natural. Those currently seeking the presidency anywhere in Africa would surely be well advised to amp up their spiritual fortifications as they embark on their pursuits. The record of some of their most famous African predecessors in this endeavor deserves a brief reminder.
Many people are willing to swear that when the current Nigerian presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, announced in August 2017 that rats and rodents had forced the president to work from home, long before COVID- 19 did not make this practice fashionable, it was to put a pleasant face to the advice of presidential marabouts whose diagnosis of General Muhammadu Buhari's ill health was so...
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