What Kind Of Election Is This? - Nigeria’s 2015 Polls Tears Families Apart

The 2015 election in Nigeria will go down in history as one with very unique tendencies. It was the first time where the difference between the major contending parties was very a minimal. The voting pattern was very unpredictable and the final outcome was too close to call.

It was an election that came with different undertones and coloration. The campaigns and the heat it generated plus the massive funds deployed were unprecedented. The passion among the people was electrifying and contagious as almost everyone was eager to have a say on who assume diverse positions, especially the presidential seat.

Though the level of voter awareness was awesome and good, the election caused other problems, especially divisive trends like never before.

Relationships and friendships that have been built over many years were brought to an abrupt   end and strained. The animosities generated by the election even torn the fabric of the church in Nigeria apart. Pastors called themselves names; some nearly exchanged blows; and many severed relationships as if the 2015 polls ended spiritually in them.

Speaking to LifeWay, Rev. William Bendega said, “Never before in the history of the church in Nigeria have people of God been so polarized and divided along political lines. The differences in political persuasions have been so strong, so vehement and so violent…”

If pastors, the church and religious organizations could fight because of election, what do you except to happen to families? What do we expect families to do? Indeed, several families were hit by a strange “political bullet” that left many homes in bitterness.

What an election? But can Nigeria ever survive another election like the 2015 polls?

Stories abound were couples quarreled and fought themselves before and during the election, and a wife allegedly stabbed her husband to death in the name of election. It was a harvest of tragedies and cacophonous tale of unpleasant incidences everywhere, and the family was the worse hit by this strange election.

In one instance at Kosofe area of Lagos, Oluwatoyin, a public school teacher, who is the mother of her home was watching a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign rally on AIT when her husband arrived home and insisted the television be tuned to TVC where an APC issues was been discussed. An argument ensued, and the wife reminded her husband that she was the one who bought plasma flatscreen TV from her school cooperative society. In his rage and perhaps to assert who the true man in the house is, Olubayo, Oluwatoyin’s husband threw his shoe at the TV and shattered the screen, which fell and break the glass cabinet causing pieces of splinter glass to ricochet across the living room injuring two little children and Oluwatoyin.

The trouble that followed could best be imagined. Yet this was once a loving couple admired by neighbours.

At Egbeda, Lagos, another couple bitterly exchanged words over the wife’s insistence to vote for the candidate she preferred. The husband being from a different part of the country would have none of this and told his wife to either vote his candidate or go marry her preferred candidate whom he called her kinsman.  The fight that followed attracted neighbours and extended families.

Though President Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammed Buhari of APC signed a peace accord to shun violence and bitterness during and after the election (which perhaps ensured relative calm), the peace brokered between this estranged couple by extended families only ended with the couple sleeping in different rooms. The political parties have moved on without the usual tribunals that trail elections bothering them, yet this family is still nursing the wounds of the election war.

Election of Death

In the case of Onyiyechi, the polls did not only tear their home to shred, it brought death and the end of a bright future for a young couple at Ejigbo, a suburb of Lagos State.

26 years old pregnant Onyiyechi was arrested for allegedly stabbing her husband to death for not supporting the candidate she wanted. While the husband was said to have decided to vote for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the wife, Onyiyechi, voted for Buhari.

According to a neighbour, “We were outside preparing to go and cast our votes when the couple started shouting at each other…We thought it was an ordinary argument until we stopped hearing their voices. We thought they had stopped the argument until the wife ran outside, shouting for help saying that her husband was dead.

We did not understand how someone we just heard his voice would just die until we rushed inside his room and he was in the pool of his blood. It was at that time that the wife said she allegedly killed him with a kitchen knife.

The irony of this matter is that she is not a trouble-maker. She has never beaten a little child, let alone fight with any neighbour. Again on that day, we saw both of them together. They were seen sitting outside, one hour before the incident occurred”.

What could have happened to this couple? What could have swiftly moved them from being a seemingly loving united couple to a violent and cruel one? Is there something about the 2015 polls?

As of the moment, Buhari is basking in the euphoria of his victory at the polls while Goodluck Jonathan is receiving accolade for being a statesman. But what is the testimony of this couple? The young man at best would be moved from the Isolo General Hospital morgue to be buried somewhere perhaps without an epitaph. And the pregnant wife remains a guest of the police. All these, in the name of election!

The fear of its aftermath of the 2015 election because of the animosity it evoked caused many people to relocate their families to perceived safer locations. But this was what brought sorrow and tears to a family living at Ikoyi.  Their kids were moved to take cover at an apartment at Faluyi Igbo Efon area of Lekki, when an inferno caused by a cooking gas burnt two of the children to death.

Speaking on the incidence, Mr. Ibrahim Farinloye, the Spokesperson South-west National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said, “When the fire started at about 6.30am, evacuation of the occupants by neighbours was done but no one gave information about the visiting children who were said to be hiding under a bed.

It was later that their host remembered the children but it was late already. Other affected victims who sustained major burns are being treated at various hospitals around.”

In a related 2015 poll tragedy suffered by a family, the Olu of Epe, Oba Sefiu Olatunji Adewale lost his first son, Prince Aremo Azeez Adewale in a boat accident as they ferried from Marine Road to Mahusa (the other side of the water) to vote. 

The wife of the Crown Prince wife was said to have registered across the sea and the husband insisted he wouldn’t allow her to go alone. 

The boat capsized with eight people on board, including the paddler and his two sons – only one survived. Muiz Bello, aspirant of Epe LGA chairmanship candidate was also involved in the tragedy. The crown prince, his wife, Bello and three others drowned before help came.

Bitter tales abound in several homes following 2015 elections. Many relationships were either affected negatively or completely ruined. But the sad part of it is that, many of these feuding couples and relationships do not have direct link with the political parties they break their homes for. 

I wonder if the political parties and politicians ever did visit any of these families to console with them. But the question is now is, would you fight your spouse if he/she decides to support another candidate/party? 

According to Mrs. Esther, a business woman who have been married for over ten years, “if a husband insist the wife support his candidate of choice, I advice that she should make him understand and see reasons why she wants the alternative person without raising ego or letting it lead to quarrel or fight. But if the man insists, the wife should just lie low for peace to reign. She should follow her husband’s wish because the home and marriage come first. If there is no peace in the home of what use would the election result bring to you?”

Yes, the elections have been won and lost. But must couples and families essentially support and vote for the same candidates? And can we indeed survive another election in Nigeria like the 2015 polls?