Whenever there is a contest, invariably there is a winner and a loser. Those on the losing side may consider their loss a major setback. Oftentimes, after a major setback, everyone feels the need to move on, but moving on is not as easy as it sounds. For most Nigerians who voted in this year’s election, moving on will be particularly difficult. According to the INEC results, 15,424,921 of Nigerian voters cast their vote for a presidential candidate who won. The loser got 12,853,162 of the votes. The winning margin being 2,571,759, votes.
For the losing side, coping with the loss of a contest in which they have invested so much prayers, energy, money, hope, and dreams would be hard enough, but the hardships triggered by the outcome of last year’s election on those whose candidates did not make it is much worse.
- To begin with, this was the most closely fought election in Nigeria’s 16-year old democracy.
- This was the most hotly contested election of them all, and the expense of energy, money, and prayer was greater, making the loss all the more hard to swallow.
- Thirdly, this was the most dramatic election to date, moving people’s emotions all over the place. Consider the range of emotions that this election has taken people through within the space of the two days of announcing the results – a feeling of joy at the first signs of victory, a feeling of fear, and then a feeling of resignation at the news that Mr. President His Excellence Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had accepted the results and congratulated the winner. The vicissitudes of emotion left many in a state of exhaustion.
Even so, the hardest feeling about the outcome of this election for those whose candidates did not win is undoubtedly the state of confusion they have been left in. The electoral system may have confused many by sending mixed messages, for example with the failure of card readers at quite a number of voting centers. As such, while people were emotionally prepared for the disappointment of losing the election, they were not at all emotionally prepared for the devastation of losing their trust in the promised efficiency and transparency of the electoral system. And whenever an election is conducted in such a way that the voters end up questioning the value of their votes, democracy has scored an own goal.
The political system has been the worst culprit at sending mixed and confusing messages to the electorate. Parties signed a pledge to keep the peace, but some of them still engaged in violent acts. Parties made promises of transparency, but most Nigerians are of the opinion that many were involved in duplicitous acts.
One would hope that the duplicity of all these systems and the confusion it has left in its wake would be checked by the credibility of the media, but that would be hoping for too much. Whether it was online, in print, on television, or on radio, the lines between news, gossip, propaganda, and lies were blurred in this election. We had media houses telling us that the results they were announcing were unofficial and should not be taken seriously, while at the same time telling us that the unofficial results were credible.
People can cope with losing an election, just as they have coped throughout life with losing greater treasures like a loved one, a job, a home or a friendship. What is difficult for them to cope with is the loss of trust in the integrity of systems and the outcomes they produce. People can cope with seeing another team win a game, so long as they trust that the game was won fairly. In an election, someone must win, and the rest must lose. But in an election, no one must lose confidence or trust in the systems entrusted to facilitate the contest. To lose confidence or faith is to lose too much, and this is the heavy price at which this election has come. As a result, millions of people are now asking questions that they have always asked:
- Is my vote worth casting if the system is skewered towards distorting the real outcome?
- Is God worth trusting if He did not answer my prayers for the system to work?
- Is the winner of this election worth respecting if he did win his victory fair and square?
- Is good worth fighting for if the system is too corrupt or broken to make progress?
There are no easy answers to these questions, and no easy path of recovery from the post-election trauma that has triggered these questions. As the lenten season of 2016 begins this Wednesday 10th February in the Catholic tradition with the comemuration of Ash Wednesday it is of note that there is hope in the God of the Cross and the Resurrection, for the death of Jesus reminds those who suffer loss that God does not waste a crushing defeat, just as the resurrection of Jesus reminds those who win that God does not despise a victory.
It is also important to remember that God’s mind is so much more vast than ours that while we tend to participate in an event like an election with the single purpose of winning, He on the other hand participates in the same event with multiple goals that may or may not include our definition of success.
God can participate in an election
- Either to expose evil,
- Or to thwart evil,
- Or to frustrate evil,
- Or to prevent evil,
- Or to do all of the above
- Or another range of purposes altogether.
Those whose candidates of choice did not win must not be so presumptuous as to think that the only thing God has prevented in this election is their candidate’s victory. God is bigger than our victories and our losses. How can you know that in subjecting your candidate to a bitter disappointment, the Lord has not prevented the whole country from plunging into anarchy either now or later had there been a different result?
The truth is that our feelings of devastation and jubilation react only to what we know, but we know only in part. We do not know what God knows, nor do we even know what it is we do not know. So if you are reeling from this loss or any other loss, or reeling from the feeling that the loss you have suffered seems unjust, trust the God of all comfort to comfort you with His presence and with the confidence that He knows all things and makes them beautiful in His time, in His way, and for His glory. Trust that He has done this for your good, and do not presume to know what your good is. Is this not the same God who stirred the Babylonians to ransack Jerusalem and take the Israelites to Babylon as slaves and captives for seven decades? Did that event not look unjust, harsh, and unreasonable? And yet as soon as it was done and many were left asking why God’s ears were deaf to their cries for victory against a formidable opponent, God sent Jeremiah to tell them: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. So put your faith in what He says, not what you see. May God bless our new president, keep our country safe, and comfort those who feel that they have lost, for He does not despise a broken heart. Give Him yours.