By Kenneth Agwu
Why will men fight and suffer to advance the interests of their masters, who fling them aside when they have no further use of them? – Arthur Findlay
And so Nigeria’s gubernatorial election held on Saturday, March 9, 2019. The earliest indication that all did not begin with the voters’ apathy at the heels of disappointing Presidential and National Assembly elections earlier held on Saturday, February 23, 2019. Although there were allegations of election padding, falsification of results and pockets of violence here and there in the February elections but those were child’s play in contrast to what happened at the Guber polls.
In his mindboggling article “Militia” on The Nation of Monday, March 11, 2019, Sam Omatseye presented a clear picture of the Guber election in his own region of Niger Delta. He wrote, “We call it election but rather than vote, we tote AK 47. Before that, there were campaigns, rallies, posters, songs and dances, party names and emblems, rhetoric and barnstorming. It swings from fanfare to a fair of death and rancor. It ends not as a democracy, but impunity.
“It is a ceremony of violence plus the blood, especially the blood. Polls in Nigeria now bow to blood. That is because elections are about violence. This rite seemed a right for all regions before, and many citizens often retreated to their holy hills for safety.” However, after the 2015 General elections, the unexpected outcome of the incumbent President Jonathan conceding defeat to General Buhari seemed to have emboldened Nigerians that their votes were beginning to count.
Many heeded the clarion call to go and register and obtain their voters’ cards from the INEC. Many rejoiced and were confident that forthwith, Nigerians could truly choose their leaders devoid of undue manipulation by the elites who are often guilty of electoral robbery. But the indication that the outing may not be as smooth as planned started when the APC-led government under President Muhammadu Buhari began to exhibit undemocratic tendencies, for instance, defying court orders.
That wasn’t all. The abundance of life promised Nigerians during the build-up to 2015 election by the APC, soon turned to a mirage as none of those were forthcoming. What wasn’t in short supply, however, was blame game and loud mulling about our inglorious past under the PDP watch. Initially, most Nigerians were prepared to give President Buhari some benefits of doubt giving the rot he met in the system notwithstanding, he was expected to right the wrongs in the system speedily.
For over three years, the situation did not significantly improve rather it deteriorated to the point that PDP which Nigerians thought they were done with suddenly became the darling of Nigerians on the understanding that when presented with two evils, you settle for the lesser one. Although President Buhari has touted his desire in following Jonathan’s example to bequeath to Nigerians a legacy of free, fair and credible elections, facts on the ground suggest that the exact opposite is what he has done.
In The Nation cited earlier, Omatseye informs us that “Since 1999, it has not been the people’s wish that matters, but gangrene from a gang of elite hoodlums. They have no respect for democracy or the coercion of conscience. They want power and they snatch it, and they amass wealth, weapons, street never-do-wells, and what is left is the Churchillian blood, tears, sweat, and toil. Except that Churchill meant it in the language of sacrifice to country.
“But in Niger Delta, politicians want it for personal gain, group interest, to ransack and flog the region to its knees and cart away the resources. All the states in the Niger Delta but two can only legitimate polls by gangsterism. I wonder what the people, the helpless underlings of society think of democracy. They see it as a system of violence, by violence for booty. So, whoever represents anyone there must not be seen to have earned it from the authentic hearts of the people.”
Surely, this is a sad commentary on our hard earned democracy. From the reports across the States, all the electoral gains of President Jonathan’s era have been sorely lost on the altar of incompetence, greed and lost for power and wealth by politicians and their collaborators. One just needs to cast the mind back to Rivers and Akwa Ibom States. In Rivers, it was a military operation, not an election. Gunshots were all over, properties were damaged and human lives lost.
In Uyo as in Port Harcourt, Warri and Yenagoa, INEC offices were reportedly blown off by hoodlums. So it is a democracy by fiat fueled by guns bombs and machetes. In Sapele, Omatseye told us that gunmen shattered the calm election queue by a rat-tat-tat of guns. Voters scampered away, a few fell and died, blood colored the pristine sand, screams upturned the morning air. Ballot boxes were destroyed and the instruments of power mingled with blood and sand.
What can we call these? An election or war? So, the truth is, despite claims to the contrary, 2019 general elections will go down in history as one of the worst and most compromised elections. Hitherto, after the blatant irregularities and violent deaths and riggings that marred the elections conducted by Prof. Maurice Iwu which many deemed then as the worst in Nigerian history, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu has finally taken the odium away from Prof Iwu.
Yes, the elections under his watch is a sham despite the billions spent and empty promises of INEC being adequately prepared for the polls. His hypocrisy to INEC preparedness came in his infamous cancellation of Presidential and National Assembly elections earlier billed for Saturday, February 16, 2019, just a few hours to the poll while Nigerians were asleep. That is wickedness in its highest form and obviously taken a people for a ride because we are docile masses of an enslaved nation.
How on earth could an electoral body not foresee that an election which she planned for over a year wouldn’t hold as earlier tabulated and then inform the citizens ahead of time? Did they think of inconveniences painfully imposed on voters who traveled miles so that they could vote in the belief that their votes would count? From the subsequent outcome after the Presidential poll, the most likely explanation one can muster is that rigging the election in favour of APC would have been tougher.
The Presidential candidate of PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has challenged the results of the election declared by INEC in the court and up till now, INEC is yet to furnish Nigerians with the authenticated copies of the results. Visibly angry over what they considered midday robbery of their votes by APC in collusion with INEC, most Nigerians refused to come out to vote in the subsequent elections and one dare asks, where were those fifteen million who voted for Buhari?
Granted that he even won in a landslide why were the governors of the same States where he recorded a high number of votes struggling to even retain their seats? Someone will say that in the Presidential poll Nigerians voted Mr. Integrity I agree but how comes the disparity between the results at the collations centers and the ones eventually churned out by INEC?
The rejection of results from Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Niger, Yobe, Gombe, Jigawa, Zamfara, Kogi, Rivers, Edo, Ekiti and Kwara amongst others by PDP is hinged on the allegation of altering the results. How about the attendant inclusiveness and suspensions of elections in some States where the main opposition party is leading? For instance: Benue inclusive; Kano inclusive; Adamawa inclusive; Plateau inclusive; Bauchi inclusive; Taraba suspended; Rivers suspended, and Kaduna robbed.
Earlier President Buhari has said, “I will not disrespect Nigerians by interfering with their choice to vote. Vote whoever you like across parties.” But looking at INEC response to his avowal under his very watch, it is clear that such avowal is an empty ritual meant to sooth festering wounds.
Do all these coalesce to an election that is to be described as free, fair and credible? Nigeria surely has a conundrum at hands in relation to elections. Until this is resolved, elections in Nigeria will always end in fiasco. Methink no other person than President Buhari was better poised to resolve the riddle, alas, mental weakness which resulted in the lack of strength of character merged to rob him the greatest opportunity of being Nigeria’s ideal leader.
He allowed parochial interest and vindictiveness to becloud his vision. He played into the hands of opportunists who caged him and forced his hands in the wrong way on several counts. He may have good intention to make Nigeria better but I remembered my principal those days in secondary school always telling us that there is no mark for good intention. Good intentions can only be judged through their attendant positive practical results.
I well know that leadership is quite complex and so I sympathize with our leaders. Nonetheless, the essence of leadership is to improve the quality of people’s standard of living. Those aspiring for leadership must consistently ask themselves, to what end? They shouldn’t pander with peoples’ blood to attain power as it has become rampant today.
Ironically, all these mayhems are perpetrated not by the children nor even the relatives of our political leaders who ordinarily are kept beyond harm’s way in advance but by the children of the oppressed whose futures have been stolen by same leaders urging them on at the offering of mere pittances. Oh, what a pity!
