“Let us conduct this contest in a manner that protects Nigeria, strengthens its democracy and allows the President to leave a legacy worthy of his years in the struggle”.
BY BABAFEMI OJUDU
Festus Keyamo, SAN, is someone for whom I have deep affection. Our friendship goes back to his days in Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s chambers, when scarcely a day passed without my visiting that remarkable gathering place of lawyers, activists and citizens seeking justice.
Festus was brilliant, articulate and fearless. He remains a man of considerable gifts. Whenever we meet, his greeting is invariably warm: “Egbon! Egbon!” It carries the affection and respect of a younger brother greeting an elder.
Our friendship was sufficiently close that, in 2009, I on behalf of my colleagues sold him a property in Wuse, Abuja, on exceptionally generous terms. Years later, I would again draw on his energy and courage, this time in the service of our party and the democratic contest.
During the campaign to elect General Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, Ekiti presented a formidable challenge to our supporters. Ayo Fayose was governor, and the atmosphere was such that even prominent members of our party were reluctant to visit the state and campaign. The ex-governors literally fled the state to preserve their lives . There were scarcely any visible activities for Buhari; putting up a poster could itself become a hazardous undertaking.
I knew the terrain and its dangers. Fayose and I had a long history of political confrontation, including the struggle that led to his removal from office and the subsequent senatorial election in which I defeated him.
Then came a telephone call from Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Femi, how can you be in Ekiti and the place be this quiet?”
I assured him that we would do something.
I convened a meeting of the Action Group, the caucus I led within our party. We considered a street rally but decided that the risk to our supporters was too great. We settled instead on an indoor gathering to encourage our members and prepare them for the election.
It was Festus I invited to address them. He did not hesitate.
We hired Christ School Hall, on the main road, about two hundred metres from the entrance to the governor’s office. We mobilised young people from across the state and made arrangements for their safety.
Festus arrived with his customary fire. He spoke with conviction and stirred an audience hungry for reassurance that they, too, had a right to participate in the politics of their country.
A week later, we organised a similar gathering for women. Uzo, a female party leader from Enugu State, and Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi helped to rouse another packed audience. Uzo also brought thousands of posters she had produced at her own expense for distribution across Ekiti.
At the election the matching order from our leader then was secure 25 percent for Buhari. We got 43 percent.
I recall these events because they speak to something larger than friendship. We were asserting the right to organise, to campaign and to offer citizens a choice. We believed that political power conferred no entitlement to silence opponents.
It is against that background that I find Festus’s recent declaration that “heavens will not fall” if Atiku Abubakar is absent from the presidential ballot deeply troubling.
I recognise the argument he was making: that court decisions must be respected, including when they go against powerful politicians. That principle deserves support. No candidate is above the law, and no political party should demand immunity from lawful scrutiny.
But respect for the judiciary also requires respect for the right of appeal and restraint while contested questions proceed through the courts. We should be careful that our language does not convey satisfaction at the prospect of narrowing the choices available to Nigerians.
The issue reaches beyond Atiku, the APC or any other party. It concerns public confidence in the fairness of the democratic process. Citizens must believe that the rules apply equally and that institutions serve the Republic without regard to who holds power.
Festus, you and I know what it meant to struggle for political space when those in authority would rather we remained silent. We must preserve that space for others, including those whose ambitions we oppose.
Barack Obama offered a reminder worth keeping before us when he described the citizen as holding “the most important office in a democracy.” That is where our attention must return: to the Nigerian whose right to choose gives public office its legitimacy.
If our party is to defeat its opponents, let it do so through persuasion, performance and the freely expressed will of the electorate. Let every lawful contestant have a fair opportunity to campaign. Let the institutions responsible for elections act impartially. And let every party accept the same standards before, during and after the vote.
These protections belong to all of us. Political fortunes change. A safeguard dismissed by those in power today may become the protection they desperately need tomorrow.
My appeal also comes from concern for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Whatever my disagreements with him, I bear him no ill will. We have shared struggles and a long political history. I want him to succeed in improving the lives of Nigerians, and I care about the democratic legacy he will leave.
Precisely because I care, I believe those around him owe him candid advice. They should help him preserve an atmosphere in which citizens can speak freely, opponents can compete lawfully and institutions can command trust. His reputation will be better served by the fairness of the process he upholds than by the sharpness of statements made in his defence.
A President’s legacy extends beyond an election result. It includes the strength of the institutions he leaves behind, the freedoms citizens enjoy under his watch and the confidence with which the country approaches its next transfer of power.
In his latest column, Olusegun Adeniyi makes a timely observation: “Heavens don’t fall in a day.” I share the concern behind those words.
A nation can lose its democratic bearings gradually: through the steady weakening of restraint, the normalisation of intolerance and the erosion of public faith that peaceful participation can produce change. The absence of an immediate crisis should never be mistaken for evidence that all is well.
Nigeria is under considerable strain. Those of us privileged to have a public voice must speak with an awareness of what our words can encourage, excuse or inflame. This responsibility rests on government and opposition alike.
Festus, my brother, I ask you to bring the courage I have long admired in you to this task. Defend the right of your opponents to participate with the same conviction with which you once defended ours. Counsel restraint where others urge triumphalism. Help keep open the democratic space we struggled to create.
Our generation has known the cost of losing that space. We owe younger Nigerians a country in which disagreement remains possible, elections remain meaningful and political defeat does not extinguish hope.
Let us conduct this contest in a manner that protects Nigeria, strengthens its democracy and allows the President to leave a legacy worthy of his years in the struggle.
When this election is over, we must still have a country to govern—and a democracy Nigerians can trust.