In about two weeks, precisely 14 February 2015, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, will go to the polls to elect its president. The election is perhaps the most closely contested election since its independence from the British in 1960.  

The two presidential front runners--Messrs Goodluck Jonathan, the incumbent president of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Muhammadu Buhari of the main opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC)--couldn’t have been more different, in personality, character and what they represent. In spite of these glaring differences, the choice of who becomes the president come February is a Sisyphean task for the average Nigerian electorate. It is unsurprising, given the chequered past of the country, its unenviable present and its uncertain future. Further, one only needs to plumb the surface to reveal the geo-ethno-religious fault-lines that have dogged its every step from its creation in 1914 and the twists and turns of its various attempts at governance. These fault-lines perennially morph into chasms with each successive tussle for the control of the centre--associated with the control of its significant oil resources. Its successive leaders have been driven not by a call to public service or a vision-driven leadership but the ultimate relish--control and administration of the oil wealth to benefit their progenies, friends, families and a coterie committed to the rentier project.

In Mr Buhari, there are hardly agnostic electorates of note. His stern, ascetic physiognomy is the nearest thing to a totem for his party and supporters. Further, his idiosyncratic diagnosis of the problem with Nigeria and the prescribed panacea--moral management of the unruly (which includes almost anyone that dissented)--have been held aloft by friends and supporters as evidence of character and proven track record of the man.

To his foes--mainly Nigerian political elite--he is anachronistic, cantankerous, heavy handed, intolerant of dissent in public and political spaces and cannot be trusted not to rock the political ship that is bereft of a destination; but at least keeps its political passengers cosy and comfy. The more vociferous and visible opponents of Mr Buhari who are overly concerned about what may become of them, given the acrid aroma of corruption that serenade their personal and political life have devised vicious strategy to chip away his carefully cultivated cult-like figure.

His wider intolerance of dissent and opposition is now hitched onto religious wagon of intolerance of the Christian faith. In a closely contested presidential election, and in a country where religion is a major fault-line, that shackle carries with it a significant political liability for Mr Buhari. His past utterances--particularly when taken out of context--as regards adoption of Sharia law and its administration, make it difficult for him to unshackle himself from the label of a bigot.

Of some importance is the question mark and controversy surrounding his educational attainment. Perhaps Mr Buhari and his handlers should have handled the matter better. It goes without saying that Mr Buhari didn’t just crawl out of the woodworks; he was a public officer known to all Nigerians. His keen intellect has never been called to question until now. His records with regards training and attendance of international courses as a military officer are well known to friends and foes.

Further, his opponents have dredged up his record while he was an executive chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF)--a multi-billion dollar government initiative set up by a previous military leader to alleviate poverty of its citizenry and promote economic growth and development across the various regions of the country. They argued that Mr Buhari’s stint at PTF was marred by poor leadership, weak governance and sectional bias that favoured northerners.

The vitriolic and vicious attacks on the integrity of Mr Buhari seem to give credence to the fact that besides Mr Buhari, the distinguishing differences between the two major parties is wafer thin. Further, the paucity of any significant positive campaign by the ruling party--in spite of being in power since the beginning of the fourth republic--may be understood as a subliminal communication that it has very little to show for its period in government apart from squandered opportunities; a lack of political empathy on the plight of its citizens paralysed by poverty; and a lack of control and the insecurity ravaging swathes of north eastern part of the country.

It is surprising that the opposition--for some reasons--has largely refrained from attacking the personal integrity of Mr Jonathan, other than accuse him of incompetence, inept leadership and lack of compassion and humanity, given his belated tepid response to the abduction of the Chibok girls by Boko Haram. This in some ways mirrors the Republican Party’s refusal to attack Mr Dukakis’ medical history--he suffered from major depressive illness--in 1988 presidential election. When Ronald Reagan was asked if his party was going to use this history against Dukakis, he glibly responded: ain’t got nothing against an invalid.

Notwithstanding that the momentum is with Mr Buhari and his message of change is more attractive and has more traction than the status quo that Mr Jonathan represents, the power of incumbency in Nigeria’s political history is a very powerful single proposition that the opposition will discountenance at their peril.

Given the very polarised nature of this campaign season, the narrow margin of the electability of the two front runners and the winner-takes-it-all--a characteristic of presidential system of government--it is perilously possible that come February 2015, there may be no official winner acceptable to either of the supporters of the two leaders. To further complicate matters, the country’s electoral commission, The Independent Electoral Commission has warned that in the event of no clear winner in the first round, it may not be able to conduct a run-off election within the seven days stipulated by the amended 2010 Electoral Act.

Nigeria is apparently perching on a precipice and an accident could occur at that dizzy height which could plunge the country into Hades. The best case scenario of such a cascade of events is Cote d’Ivoire in 2010. Worse still is an armed insurrection--along ethno-religious lines--that engulfs most parts of the country which would be an open invitation for a military intervention. This will be like 1966--a chequered period in Nigeria’s history--all over again. Mark Twain aptly put it: history does not repeat itself, it rhymes.

This pessimistic picture is not inevitable. It will only take both sides of the political divide to show a sense of duty that comes with their privileged position. A duty they owe to Nigerians. They ought to moderate the tone of their religious intolerance, reduce threats of violence with regard to outcome of the election and the political metabolic rate and rein in their supporters who display proclivity to casual violence without appreciating the wider ramifications of such gratuitous behaviour.

In my previous opinion article--2015: Time To Reappraise Current Paradigm (The Nigerian Guardian, 17 July 2014)--I argued that it is unlikely that Nigeria will cease to be a country in 2015, regardless of what political pundits say. This remains true. One cannot discountenance the resolve and resilence of the ordinary men and women who in their daily grind of life to eke out a meagre living see less of the contrived differences orchestrated by political jingoists, borne out of their primordial self interests. Further, as The Economist succinctly put it: Nigeria is a country where the best is impossible and the worst never happens. I believe that Nigeria will likely live to count its blessings and recount on how it found itself at a precipice and avoided a fatal accident--by a whisker.

By Dr Anayo Unachukwu

The author is based in the UK. He was a consultant psychiatrist at Ansel Clinic Nottingham, England.