‘Kill them’: Drumbeats of war as rhetoric of power (I)

By the time this column appears on Sunday, 16 August, the people of Osun would have voted. The ballot boxes would have closed, the votes would have been counted and the political gladiators will be facing democracy’s oldest instruction: someone wins; someone loses; both remain citizens. That simple democratic proposition has often struggled to survive the Nigerian political imagination.

The latest disturbance comes from Senator Francis Fadahunsi, whose viral campaign video has placed the words “kill them” at the centre of the Osun electoral conversation. Reports attribute to the Senator a call to supporters to kill Accord Party members and an assertion that even if they came to the polling station with voter cards, “we won’t allow them to vote.” The Senator has subsequently explained that he meant “kill Accord with votes, not violence.” That explanation belongs to the record and should be considered alongside the original recording, its context and the full circumstances surrounding it. The National Human Rights Commission has nevertheless called for his suspension, arrest and investigation, while the matter has generated a formal demand for police action. The law must determine the legal consequences. WordMatters must examine the words. And these words cannot be understood adequately as an isolated outburst. They belong to a longer Nigerian continuum.

The first great drumbeat came from the ‘Wild Wild West’ of the First Republic. The Western Region crisis of 1965 transformed political rivalry into frightening…