The Nigerian Constitutional Court this week confirmed the victory of Mohamed Bazoum in the presidential election. But Mahamane Ousmane, the failed candidate, continues to claim victory and even promises strong opposition.
So where does this impression of a generalization of losers questioning election results come from all over Africa?
Jean-Baptiste Placca: The challenges for the results, which must be taken seriously, must be credible, otherwise these challenges would become commonplace. It is to be hoped, for Mahamane Ousmane, that he himself is convinced that he has actually won this election, despite his disappointing points in the first round and the gathering in chorus of many important candidates for Mohamed Bazoum. If he does not have indisputable evidence of his victory, in addition to some isolated events, his refusal to admit defeat would only reinforce this unfortunate tendency to systematically question the results, which contributes to increasingly discrediting democracy in Africa. It is not just his victory that is being questioned. Its origin is also.
Isn’t that a little too much for Mohamed Bazoum?
There are undoubtedly many mistakes, but wanting to disqualify him on the pretext that he is not Nigerian gives the impression of a desperate attempt, apart from being a dangerous game, which we have experienced elsewhere on the continent. In the absence of an argument, it is appropriate to go and revive a challenger’s origin to make it, often on dubious grounds, an element of disqualification. Some may remember Kenneth Kaunda’s loss of nationality in 1999 in Zambia. It had been stated by a court on the orders of Frederick Chiluba, a trade unionist who became head of state, who wanted to end an overly famous predecessor, on the pretext that his parents had come from neighboring Malawi. Kenneth Kaunda was the father of Zambia’s independence! He had been head of state for twenty-seven long years! This pan-Africanist had welcomed, in Lusaka, the ANC, especially its armed wing, the MK, then in the fight against the apartheid regime, in South Africa. To tell such a man that he is a foreigner anywhere in Africa could only come from an angry political opponent, lacking historical feeling.
Mahamane Ousmane did not swing with these accusations …
No. He is a former head of state who has held a certain height since he was overthrown in a coup in 1996 due to the paralysis of the country, due to the strained relations he maintained at the time with a prime minister who then only tried to humiliate him, within the framework of a cohabitation shock. This man is today his main ally and even his only important ally. Some suggest that Ottoman’s struggle is less his own than that of the current ally, who would have other accounts to settle due to the disqualification of his candidacy following a conviction in a case that was theoretically not political.
Are these disqualifications not a problem in Niger and elsewhere?
All of these prominent politicians know better than anyone else the harm that politicians can do – and do – to each other, especially when they find their opponents a legal loophole. It is therefore up to those who consider themselves carriers of some of their people’s hopes not to be weakened by actions or mistakes that are likely to put them in a vulnerable situation. When you are a politician of a certain size, you should not venture into procedures that avoid a certain transparency.
