As political parties conducted their primary elections across the country ahead of the 2027 general elections, video clips showing an unusual form of headcount at venues of APC direct primaries continued to trend. Such videos showed party members lined up behind the poster of their preferred aspirant while headcounts were taken. This method is excellent for transparency, except that the counting did not follow the normal arithmetic progression we are familiar with, rather numbers progressed in such a magical manner that 100 came after 15 and 300 came after 101 and so on. While allowing for the possibility of mischievous editing of the videos, one cannot deny that the phenomenon of magic numbers is in no way too strange in our clime.
Magic numbers are a regular occurrence at all levels of our institutional processes – elections, census, contract awards, payrolls, etc. It is one symptom that very empirically evidences our perennial collective ailment. It is a testimony of how much our system is deeply soaked in dishonesty and corruption.
In human society, numbers are important for exactness in claims, therefore crucial for transparent dealings – as the saying goes, “numbers don’t lie.” But in a bizarre situation whereby numbers lie, they become an instrument of distortion and destruction.
Back to the primary elections; the magic number phenomenon is not restricted to one political party – it is something that has continued to manifest among our various parties over the years. This is why hardly any political party concludes its primaries without serious controversies. We have seen this in all the major parties that have concluded their primaries this time – APC, ADC, APGA, NDC, and PDP. In a trending video, a headcount at a purported NDC primary election venue exhibited the same magic arithmetic that made mockery of the value of numbers.
Indeed, hardly can any political party in the country be absolved of the accusation of manipulating numbers in their primary election process. We have always lived with this reality; it is nothing new. The only difference this time is that parties have adopted direct primaries in line with the amended electoral act which has necessitated queueing up and open headcount as against the old days of indirect primaries where though numbers may not be directly manipulated but were often indirectly influenced through practices such as manipulation of delegate lists and inducement of delegates.
Incidentally, as the magic numbers from the primary elections continued to create a sensation, Umuahia, the Abia state capital, was witnessing the celebration of Prof. Nnenna Oti for her famed resistance to magic numbers. Oti, former Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), was the returning officer for Abia governorship election in 2023, and was said to have uncompromisingly stood against falsification of figures. The Alex Otti-led government of the state has now named the newly built magnificent bus station at Umuahia after her, finally placing an official seal on the wide public acclaim that has informally gone to the woman.
However, the deafening ovation which Oti has been receiving since 2023 is something that should worry more than it excites us. It is evidence of the reality that our society has so much descended into anomie that what should be a routine public service standard has become a rare act of heroism. In countries with strong democratic traditions, no one will be celebrated for counting and recording the correct number of votes. There will be no buzz about an electoral officer getting their arithmetic right, but conversely, there will be serious ripples if they give out magic numbers.
This is not to downplay whatever personal moral principles Prof. Oti may have demonstrated in the 2023 election, but to simply point out that her glorification is an indirect admission of how deeply we have sunk into the nadir of moral decadence. We have got so used to evil that we are shocked by any manifestation of good. I have written in this column about how I told someone that I secured a federal government job without going through the usual “man-know-man” route and the person described it as impossible. You can’t blame a person like this given that favouritism in public recruitment has been so normalized that any suggestion of otherwise evokes shock and disbelief. So, if a public official in charge of recruitment advertises vacancies and manages to fill the positions based solely on merit, such an official will automatically become a hero like Oti having done something we are not used to. But in reality, they have only followed what should ordinarily be considered a routine procedure – assuming we are living in a sane space.
There is so much evil in the land that we are now inoculated against it; it no longer outrages us. We are no longer surprised by evil, but by good. In many instances, doing the right thing appears anomalous because evil has become normalized. A colleague told me of how people deride his in-law who is a professor of many years at a public university for his modest lifestyle. Having held several “juicy” positions and being close to past Vice Chancellors at the institution, they expect him to have amassed a lot of money like others of similar standing. Cases like this typify the truth in the common saying that ours is the only country where one apologises for doing the right thing.
Normalisation of evil means that evil has become a way of life; it has become institutionalised. What that implies is that for one to do the right thing, one has to flow against the tide. For a public officer to work the right thing, they often have to move against the system. In some high-stake instances, they have to fight battles – sometimes fierce battles – to have their way. This makes it easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing in Nigeria. And this is why the likes of Oti will always be celebrated, and which summarises how deeply buried we are in the systemic anomie.
The most important factor responsible for this situation is the inability of the institutions to appropriately reward conduct – positive and negative. While the Abia State government has rewarded Prof. Oti for her honesty, has there been a corresponding punishment for those who compromised and returned magic numbers in that election? Impunity perpetuates wrongdoing, and this is clearly reflected in how party officials produced “magic numbers” in full public view and before camera lenses. These widely circulated videos have largely become a form of social media entertainment rather than credible evidence that anti-corruption agencies should urgently seize for investigation, and where appropriate, the apprehension and prosecution of those involved.
This brings us to the hard truth: our problem in this country is that we have not built an institutional system that consistently encourages good conduct from both leaders and the masses alike. As I have always argued, this should be the most important agenda of our electoral discourse. It should even precede discussions about economic policies and similar issues, because for any policy to be effectively implemented, the system must be sound – institutions must be strong enough and healthy enough to support such implementation. In this country, well-intentioned policies have often failed because they were frustrated by weak institutions and a dysfunctional system. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, any election candidate seeking to sound credible on economic or social policy must first establish credibility on institutional reform and system rebuilding. It is the institutions that will drive such policies.
Unfortunately, institution-building has not taken centre stage – not in this election, and not in previous ones. It is time to reverse this trend.
Henry Chigozie Duru teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
