It’s often during moments of hardship that we discover just how fragmented our empathy has become. In Nigeria, when university lecturers raise their voices against delayed salaries, neglected welfare, or crumbling educational infrastructure, the usual public chorus returns with a familiar rebuke: “Weren’t you the ones who helped politicians rig elections?”
By Bagudu Mohammed
This accusation has become a convenient shorthand—a sweeping judgment tossed at an entire academic community whose crime is serving as returning officers during elections. Now, amid the deafening silence of unpaid wages dragging well past the 10th of each month—yes, even during sacred holidays like Eid el-Kabir—our professors are once again starving, and the world barely blinks.
Imagine waiting, not for a miracle, but for what is rightfully yours. Many academic staff clung to hope up to the eve of Sallah, checking their phones, hoping against the odds that their bank alerts would arrive. None came. Not a single kobo. Eventually, they gave up—not out of peace, but exhaustion—and scrambled for last-minute alternatives to celebrate a festival that, for many, turned into a day of quiet mourning. Still, a large portion of the public shows no empathy. Instead, they parrot a narrative that these same scholars are complicit in birthing the very governments that now mock them.
But is this fair? Is it just?
A few days ago, when news broke about the abduction of the Zamfara governor’s brother, some online commenters saw it not as a tragedy, but as karmic retribution—“They’re paying for their sins,” they claimed. In response, I wrote: “Sad news! But if this teaches us anything, it’s that the myth that only the poor suffer insecurity is a dangerous illusion. In Nigeria, no one is truly safe. Bandits don’t care about tribe, status, or political affiliation. Today’s victim could be tomorrow’s accuser. Empathy should not be selective.”
What goes around, indeed, comes around.
It’s this dangerous habit of stereotyping—the sweeping generalizations, the tribal blame games, the emotional judgments—that gradually eats away at the foundation of any society. When we condemn a whole class of people based on isolated roles or imagined sins, we end up building a world where no one is safe from the same judgment.
Consider the accusations that university vice-chancellors rig elections. A VC’s role is primarily ceremonial in election collation—they receive tallied results already endorsed by agents at polling units, wards, and local governments. Any manipulation at their level would be absurdly easy to detect. And yet, they are crucified.
Take Professor Tanko Ishaya, Vice Chancellor of the University of Jos. After he announced results for the Nasarawa governorship election, he was vilified by many. Never mind that in the same election cycle, he declared the opposition party victorious in the presidential vote. Facts are no match for emotion and groupthink.
It’s a dangerous precedent. Today it’s the professors. Tomorrow it will be the corps members, the polling agents, and the NYSC ad-hoc staff. Are they not also part of the machinery? Are they all complicit, too? Or should we continue to cherry-pick our villains, depending on how we feel?
The 2023 general elections showed that this country is in a deep crisis of sincerity. With over 93 million registered voters, only about 25 million turned out—barely 26%. The rest? Silent bystanders. Spectators expecting a perfect system, they couldn’t bother to participate in. In states like Rivers, Bayelsa, and Lagos, turnout was alarmingly low. And yet, when results are declared, these same absentees are often the loudest critics.
If truth be told, most Nigerians don’t believe in free and fair elections. We simply want our preferred candidate to win—by any means necessary. When they do, we call it “the will of the people.” When they don’t, it’s “rigged.”
So, who rigs elections in Nigeria?
It starts with the voters themselves—those who sell their votes, intimidate others, or serve as pawns for political thugs. It includes party agents who agree to compromise results, the security agents who look the other way, the citizens who reward only the richest candidates with their ballots, and the so-called observers who return home and tweet conspiracies. It’s a system of shared guilt—interwoven complicity. And the professors? They’re often the last ones in the chain, yet the first to be judged.
We can’t continue to judge elections solely by whether they favoured our side. We can’t keep pretending that some Nigerians are saints while others are perpetual sinners. The truth is murky. Every party, every agent, every region, every voter—everyone has stains on their hands.
So when you hear people say, “The professors rigged it,” ask: Where were the party agents at the polling units? Who tallied the votes at the local level? And more importantly: Did the rest of us do any better?
What we’re witnessing isn’t justice. It’s jungle justice. A dangerous narrative where guilt is assigned not by proof, but by convenience. Where entire regions are blamed for national crises. Where insecurity in one area sparks outrage, but the same violence elsewhere is met with indifference because the perpetrators belong to a more “acceptable” group.
It’s the same thinking that makes us say, “This tribe can’t be trusted with power,” or “This religion is the root of our problems.” And yet, leadership changes hands, tribes rotate in power, governments come and go—and still, the problems persist. Worse, even.
As the actress Hadiza Gabon once posted: “Sinners calling others sinners for sinning differently.”
That’s the heart of the matter.
We have turned judgment into a tool of tribal loyalty and political bitterness. But when the dust settles, and the circle turns, the very same standard we weaponized against others will be used against us. And no one will be left to plead our case.
In the end, perhaps the true danger isn’t that professors are accused of electoral fraud. It’s that we, as a society, are losing our ability to see nuance, to understand systems, to separate fact from emotion, and worst of all, to care for each other beyond the politics of blame.
Because in a land ruled by stereotypes, no one is truly innocent. Only the next scapegoat in waiting.
Mohammed can be reached at bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com and 07034943575
