n the 2007 presidential elections in Nigeria, the top ten candidates were Umaru Yar'adua (PDP - 24,638,063), Mohammed Buhari (ANPP - 6,605,299), Atiku Abubakar (AC - 2,637,848), Orji Uzor Kalu (PPA - 608, 803), Attahiru Bafarawa (DPP - 289,224), Emeka Ojukwu (APGA - 155,947), Pere Ajuwa (AD - 89,241), Pat Utomi (ADC - 50,849), Birmi Olapere (NPC - 33,771) and Ambrose Owuru (HDP - 28,519).

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One shocking observation jumps out at anyone who has reviewed these results: Pat Utomi - arguably the most polished, urbane, articulate and (rhetorically) progressive candidate for the Nigerian presidency won less than 51,000 votes nationwide. There is even more dismal news. Osagie Obayuwana - a titan of the progressive movement and the candidate of the National Conscience Party obtained 8,229 votes - nationwide.

The Nigerian progressive cadre has traditionally waved such results away, arguing that it is not an accurate reflection of reality. It has become the culture of the progressives to blame every electoral defeat on rigging, and other shenanigans perpetrated by the "corrupt political elite". Yes, it is true that the 2007 elections were massively rigged, but that fact does not mean we should not learn vital lessons that will help us in understanding where we (the progressives) have gone wrong. In fact, when we deconstruct the mechanisms by which rigging occurs, we might quibble about the legitimacy of the magnitude of votes that the PDP, the ANPP, the AC and the other "politics as usual parties" might have polled, but we are left with little choice but to conclude that Utomi's poll numbers are likely to be reflective of the actual votes that he obtained nationwide.

The Mechanics of Rigging There are two principal ways in which rigging occurs. In one approach, already thumbed ballots are stuffed into ballot boxes, either prior to the commencement of voting or after the voting process, when the ballot boxes are en-route to the collation center. In the second (more brazen) approach, the ballot boxes do not even make it to the polling station. They are hijacked and thumbed full with a single candidate's ballots. For comic relief, the perpetrators of rigging approach 2 might decide to throw in a ballot or two for their opponents. But the results are also as comical - these characters obtain +99% electoral victories, in communities where they cannot dare walk without police protection. The first rigging approach is what commonly obtains in Nigeria. The second approach occurs as well, but its use is rare. In the 2007 elections, the gubernatorial contest in Anambra State was perhaps the most prominent example of the use of rigging approach 2. The most prominent case of rigging approach 1 was in Edo State, where the PDP's Osunbor had initially been declared Governor with a supposed vote tally of 329,740 votes (against Oshiomole's 166,577 votes). When all of the cases of ballot stuffing and multiple voting were resolved, Osunbor's tally had shrunk to 129,017, leading to the declaration of Adams Oshiomole as the duly elected governor.

If indeed rigging approach 1 was used in 2007, then we can surmise that Utomi indeed polled 50,849 votes - not just in Lagos Island, or Sapele, or Ikeja, but in all of Nigeria! We would also have to conclude that Adams Oshiomole got more votes in one state (Edo) than Utomi did in all of Nigeria. How do we rationalize this state of affairs?

Despite the fact that Nigerians will openly acknowledge the fact that progressives like Gani Fawehinmi, Pat Utomi, Osagie Obayuwana, Femi Falana, and others like them, play a positive role in national affairs, why is it that these personalities fail at the polls? Why are they (the progressives) unable to translate the goodwill that the populace has towards them into electoral victory? Do Nigerians have a dislike for good government? Do we (the Nigerian people) have a love affair with socio-political dysfunction? Are we so short sighted that we allow short term pecuniary gains to becloud our vision and lead us to make decisions which are damaging to ourselves and to the nation in the long run? And then we must ask the inevitable question - how was Oshiomole able to translate the goodwill that he had garnered as a progressive labor leader into victory in Edo State, when other progressives had failed to do the same? There are two reasons that I believe to be responsible for the electoral failings of the progressive class. These are (i) Credibility deficit (ii) Failure to understand how to engage the masses in an environment of political cynicism. I will discuss these in turn.

Credibility Deficit
How can a progressive cadre have a credibility deficit? This statement would at first glance appear to be paradoxical. We must however go deeper than first glances if we must unravel the core issues that underlie the electoral failings of the Nigerian progressives. It is necessary to provide a context for how progressivism expended all of the credibility equity that it had with the Nigerian people. Following the aftermath of the June 12 crisis, there was a coalescing of the progressive (pro-democracy) forces in groups like NADECO. The progressives emerged from the Babangida years with their credibility largely intact. There is widespread agreement that Babangida's abrupt departure from power was facilitated by the dogged and principled refusal of the progressives to barter away the June 12 mandate. The problems came with the Abacha regime. Plagued with a crisis of legitimacy, Abacha reached out to several constituencies in an attempt to gain some legitimacy for his government. Not before Abacha, and not since has Nigeria seen a regime whose strivings for legitimacy caused it to reach out to real and sometimes contrived constituencies like traditional leaders, religious leaders, progressives, students, youth groups, elders, women, and every other conceivable grouping of individuals. Given that the custodianship of the June 12 mandate had devolved to the progressives, Abacha reasoned that more than any other group, the progressives held the keys to legitimizing his government. His pursuit of their endorsement was relentless.

The decision of many progressives such as Olu Onagoruwa, Lateef Jakande, Ebenezer Babatope and others, to join the Abacha government and the eventual discrediting of the progressive credentials of most of these individuals through their actions (and inactions) while in the Abacha cabinet was perhaps the biggest dent to the aura of progressivism in Nigerian politics. If the participation of the progressives in the Abacha regime began the spiral towards their discrediting as a people oriented group, it was the actions of the 'progressive' governors of the South West from 1999 to 2003 that dealt the fatal blow to progressive credibility. In the 1999 elections, all that was needed to win elections in the South West was to lay claim to being a progressive. It was a plus to also have NADECO roots, to have been in "exile" and to be an "Awoist". The progressives swept to a landslide victory in the South West but by 2003, it was clear that not one of these so called progressives was any better than any of the other rogues that were in office in the other states. The Nigerian people found out that their "progressive" governors were as corrupt as everyone else, and that not one of them stood out as a beacon for progress and development. If the arguments that progressives who worked in the Abacha regime posited was that they were merely functionaries in government and did not call the shots, the performance of the 'progressive' governors who held executive power put paid to that exculpatory argument. The discrediting of the progressive class was complete and Nigerians would never again accept at face value, any claims to progressivism as a substitute for a proven track record of people oriented service.

Failure to Understand how to Engage the masses in an Environment of Political Cynicism
There is a fatal error that progressives make. They assume that the fact that they are engaged in battles with the status quo and government, the fact that they undertake epic legal battles to enthrone democracy and sometimes spend time in jail as a result of their battles on the behalf of the people is sufficient reason for the masses to vote them into office. This would have been true in the past, but in the situation such as we are in today, where progressives suffer a credibility crisis, the masses want more than mere platitudes or speeches. They want more than the mere spouting of ideologies and theories. They want to see evidence that the progressive who is asking for their mandate can actually work to make life better for them in a concrete, measurable and obvious manner.

I challenge you (the reader) to speak with ten Nigerians. Ask them one single question about any progressive candidate: How has this candidate made life better for the people? The answers you will get will be illuminating. I have asked the same questions of Nigerians who span a broad cross section of ethnicities and religious affiliations. When the subjects of the inquiry are progressives like Gani Fawehinmi or Femi Falana, there is a clear recognition of the legal struggles that they have undertaken on the behalf of the Nigerian people. There is an awareness that they are speaking out on the behalf of many whose voices have been ignored for too long, but there is often an inability to make the necessary abstractions that make them (the masses) conclude that these actions ultimately affect their ability to feed their families, clothe their children, pay school fees and rents - the things that matter to everyday people. When Pat Utomi is the subject of the inquiry, there is a clear recognition of the man's accomplishments. A minority of persons - mostly the urbane business elite - are able to describe his broad vision for Nigeria. But with the masses, nothing much registers. Again there is a significant disconnect between the utterances of the man, and how those utterances and rhetoric would translate to food on the table, and fuel in the car of the average Nigerian. When the subject of the inquiry was Oshiomole, there was no ambiguity in the responses that people gave. There was a clear acknowledgement that the man's efforts were largely responsible for keeping fuel prices reasonable and affordable. Many Nigerians could directly link Oshiomole with actions that made life measurably better for them. There were a few people - usually the more politically engaged - who would argue that he could have gotten a better deal for the Nigerian people when he was NLC president, but that is an argument about levels of impact, not whether or not he made an impact in people's lives. This expectation that the masses must do the math for themselves, the idea that the Nigerian people must make the necessary abstractions that will demonstrate how progressive posturing and progressive rhetoric alone will necessarily imply progressive policies in government, is not just naïve, it is foolish. Yet the Nigerian progressive cadre continues to make the same errors over and over again.

Let us go back to the Nigerian people for a minute and attempt a cursory psychoanalysis of their condition. They have witnessed incredible rape and abuse. They have come to realize that there is no single sector of society that has readymade answers to the challenges that face the nation. They have seen rapacious politicians loot and plunder the national treasury. They have seen military rulers come and go, looting the treasury with ruthless efficiency and they have come to realize that the military is as corrupt as the political class. They have seen their trust in the progressive cadre betrayed. And like all scorned lovers eventually do, they have stopped believing the wooing and the dalliance. They want to see actions, not words. They have developed a healthy cynicism for all politicians. To protect themselves from the endless cycles of disappointment that seems to have become their lot, they have taken the default position that every politician is a liar and a thief - and they have good reason to do so. For after all, they have seen the Onagoruwas and the Babatopes of the world - who were undeniably titans of progressive rhetoric in their heydays - fall by the wayside. In this atmosphere of political cynicism, the people adopt an attitude of "show me the goods". Where a candidate has no track record of actions (not mere words or rhetoric) of service that impact the lives of the people, they (the masses) conclude that there is no evidence that such a person will deliver on their promises if elected.

Such cynicism saves the people from suffering disappointment, but as we are well aware, such cynicism also breeds future despair and causes even more inept and self centered leaders to emerge. When the people take the attitude that all of the politicians that have presented themselves to the electorate are in politics to corruptly enrich themselves, they conclude inevitably that the best way to ensure that they get a piece of the pie - the dividends of democracy as we have now come to call it - is to take whatever they can, while they can. In such an environment, the politician who spends the most is more likely to win. That is why the Adedibus and the Sarakis of the world were able to carve out political dynasties by developing a network of patronage in their respective constituencies. However, the election of people like Oshiomole also indicates that the Nigerian people are no fools. They are sophisticated political actors, with an ability to alter their strategies when the contextual environment changes. When dependable and reliable people - centered leaders emerge, the Nigerian people will support them - just as the good people of Edo State supported Oshiomole.

Post Script
I will repeat a notion that I alluded to earlier that all peoples, in all nations, vote for their wallets. No one votes for ideologies. In fact, all ideologies are merely summaries of how political actors intend to affect the wallets of their constituents. Socialists believe the state should take an active role in determining how capital is deployed and how returns are shared, while capitalists believe the markets should play that role, free from the interventions of the state. If ever there was an ideology that people voted for, it would be one that I refer to as "foodism". A more theoretically correct terminology might be welfarism. Regardless of what we call it, the notion that both words seek to describe is the idea that good policies are those which provide the greatest good for the most people. Policies and the attendant ideologies that inform them are meaningless if the actions that they induce do not enable the majority of people to satisfy their basic needs, and lead decent lives.

There is widespread agreement amongst observers that Obama's victory in the US elections were helped primarily by the problems being faced by the American economy. Obama's plans seemed more likely to be able to place America on the path to economic recovery and that was sufficient to trump all of the various factors that made people believe a black president would not be elected in the USA. Nigerians are no different in this regard. They are also interested in pocket book economics - and the candidate who best demonstrates an ability to engage at that concrete functional level is more likely to be successful.

It would of course be naive to imagine that rigging cannot alter the outcome of elections. It almost did in Edo state. But there is a difference in how the people take the theft of a mandate that they have given to someone that they truly believe will make a difference in their lives and how they treat a mandate they have given to the lesser of two evils. In the former scenario, they protect the mandate with their blood and their very lives. In the latter, they display a deliberately callous indifference to the outcome. There are two years to the 2011 elections, and it is time for Nigeria's progressive class to begin crafting strategies for engaging more purposefully with the Nigerian masses. Words and mere rhetoric will not suffice. Press conferences and communiqués are no longer adequate. We must engage with the people in a manner that enables them to see that what we offer is new, different and genuine. We must provide them with an opportunity to vet us, to test us, and to see that we are worthy of their trust. We must no longer stand on our podiums and platforms, postulating and lecturing. We must roll up our sleeves, and joint the people in their trenches. We must desist from laying the blame for our failures to excite and engage the populace on the masses themselves. A people do not always get the type of leadership they deserve. They sometimes get the type of leadership they do not deserve when those who should offer an alternative vision for the future fail to connect and to engage with them. We must learn the right lessons from our failings, and our singular success. That introspection must throw up concrete ideas and strategies. Naturally, our concrete ideas for engagement are of course not issues that will be discussed in public forums. They are our strategies of war. And like all war strategies, they must be kept close to the chest - away from all retrogressive, reactionary, and prying eyes.

Dr Fabiyi is a former President of the University of Lagos Students' Union (ULSU)