As Nigeria moves within an inch of 2023 general elections fears run rife that the exercise of democratic freedom will again be restricted via various anomalies such as vote buying, results’ falsification, ballot stuffing, under-age voting, violence and false declaration of results designed to substitute personal or partisan benefits as the senators elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress are reportedly dead against the electronic transmission of results from polling centres to INEC portals and collation centres.
To assuage the fears of the populace and contrary to the infamous resolution adopted by the above-named, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has reassured a beleaguered nation in a newspaper report, The Punch to be precise published on Sunday July 18th, 2021 that electronic transmission of results is possible.
This reassurance by Nigeria’s electoral umpire – the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) thus serves as an insurance against fraud by perpetrators who shift tactics in a bid to consolidate their hold on power having seen how triumphantly the electronic transmission of results from polling zones to INEC portals and collation centres paid off in the Edo 2020 governorship elections that ultimately had the choice of the people declared elected in spite of the post-election legal battles by naysayers to have the supreme wish of Edo people annulled like a marriage and ultimately bastardized.
The electoral reforms undertaken by Prof Mahmood Yakubu prior to the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Ondo States was a litmus test and an eye-opener that something good could come out of Nazareth or put differently that something good could in deed again come out of Nigeria’s INEC as against the gross irregularities under Prof. Attahiru Jega in 2015 that marred and eventually subverted the integrity of our electoral process.
The position of the ruling-party incumbents on electronic transmission of results is not only disheartening, disappointing but alarming.
In modern democracies, leaders the world over have evolved from stone-age voting. That, I am sure, was the line toed by Prof Mahmood in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections rather than the former to scuttle the credibility of the process.
One therefore wonders the rationale behind gunning for electoral authoritarian regime by instrumentality of a planned altered voter-registration lists and rigged vote tabulations which their staunch opposition to electronic transmission of results represents.
We love Nigeria and therefore want the best for our country. Nigerians need not retain the services of a seer to decipher the physical position unanimously adopted or what is being communicated by the bulk of the ruling party incumbents at the expense of a transparent electoral process.
It is obvious that the country’s governing party – the All Progressives Congress – under Buhari has failed Nigeria abysmally on all fronts ranging from security, economy, to the provision of service infrastructures which makes it scared of its own shadows in 2023 general elections.
Results of opinion polls conducted in the not-too-distant past show that over 85% of Nigerians want a reversion to the status quo ante – the lost golden age under the erstwhile ruling party when Nigeria rose from behind, overtook South Africa to become Africa’s largest economy. Life, you know as well as I know, was much better and in fact super abundant than it is today which prepared the ground for a mass Hegira home by many of us who had left the country in droves in Nigeria’s darkest hour under the jackboot of the military.
Today, Nigerians groan under the yoke of insecurity which has turned the country to a scene of carnage. On the north-eastern flank of Nigeria rages a bloody insurgency which the ruling party while in the opposition said it could end in its first six months in office but today it has unbelievably dragged on for over 6 years with government troops losing the fight at every turn. In the North-Central bandits hold sway with rivers of blood painting the land red. Only a few days ago a Nigerian fighter jet probably on reconnaissance was shot out of the sky by bandits somewhere in Zamfara State. Many rural communities in the desert cotton fields of northern Nigeria have been sacked by armed herders and bandits. Parents live in perpetual fear that their children would be kidnapped in schools. True to their fears many have been abducted with the Federal and various states’ governments paying ransom to secure their release thus making it a lucrative business in the region.
Down south it is a whole whirlwind of issues as she is caught in an agonizing web of subjugation lifetrap by a band of Janjaweed armed militias from Futta Jalon who masquerade as pastorialists under the alleged watch and tacit backing of the Abuja regime.
The infamous style of governance by the Abuja policy makers who often conduct themselves like Olympian gods in the Greek mythology doubtless created the Nnamdi Kanus and Sunday Igbohos that now threaten the country with imminent disintegration – a country which a breed of noble bloods fought to keep as one indivisible entity in the Gowonist days.
Today there is hunger in the land. Farmers can no more go to the fields to till and cultivate the fields across Nigeria and this has resulted in food shortage. Where it is available the cost is prohibitive thus foisting the devil’s alternative – crash diet – on many families across Nigeria.
Only 6 days ago Nigeria was reported by Development Studies – a UK-based think tank, as the second poorest country in the world in terms of food affordability amidst inflation that has spiked double digits. The Naria, our monetary unit has plummeted against all currencies in the international market contrary to campaign promises by the governing party while in the opposition to make the Naria equal in value to the US Dollar. Alas, the reverse has become the case as the Naria now exchanged for over N500 to the US dollar as against N150 or much less in the Jonathan days.
Official figures released by Nigeria’s Debt Management Office as of March 2021 showed that her total public debt stock stood at N33:107 trillion whose repayment would be pretty difficult considering the dwindling oil revenues.
Nigeria, a debtor nation in fact already saddled by a massive debt burden still makes plans to borrow $6.2 billion! Into what dangers have they led us? This question often agitates this writer!
The APC-led Federal Government sags under credibility deficit. They did promise to rebuild Nigeria with world-class service infrastructures but what we see today on the ground is better imagined than real. Our roads are so much in bad shape that motoring on it could force expectant mothers to involuntary abortion. Our roads, bad as they are, have metamorphosed to valleys of death with the criminal activities of bandits and kidnappers.
One could recall from dim memory prior to 2015 federal elections, Babatunde Fashola while Lagos helmsman did expressly say the former ruling party should be voted out for Nigeria to have stable electricity. What is it like today with power supply increasingly becoming a rarity in many communities across Nigeria? Our people depend largely on water sourced from boreholes as water boards have suffered terminal decline.
How has the economy fared under the APC-controlled Federal Government? To say the economy is in shambles would be an understatement because there is no denying the fact today that the economy is not only in shambles but in a jumble of retrogression.
Under the Abuja regime Nigeria has become a cash cow in the hands of fantastically corrupt officials who often find soft-landing in the All Progressives Congress (APC). This is a party that did say every machinery would be set in motion to make corruption non-existent but to our chagrin the hydra-headed monster drains our wealth under Buhari’s watch – the self-styled anti-graft Tzar – keeps us trapped in poverty resulting in underinvestment in basic infrastructures thereby bringing about a variety of bottlenecks on many economic fronts.
From the foregoing, every sane person knows where the pendulum would certainly swing under a transparent electoral process come 2023 having lived through the PDP and APC days as Nigeria drifts perilously into yet another outpost of tyranny under the latter’s control.
President Buhari though apparently well-intentioned has lost the fight to stabilize Nigeria through his failings and the terrible failings of his party and trusted lieutenants which is on the ascending order of magnitude.
It is no surprise the APC federal lawmakers in the Red Chambers had no option but to speak with one voice the way they did against the electronic transmission of election results since it is obvious the party has become unpopular with Nigerians and therefore riding for a fall come 2023 because of its abysmal failures.
Nigeria with a population of over 211 million is bigger than any individual or partisan interests and President Buhari would be indelibly writing his name in gold with a firm resolve to toe the line of Prof. Mamood Yakubu via neutrality and non-intererence in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.
Iyoha John Darlington, a former governorship candidate in the Edo 2020 governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) is a writer, social activist and public commentator on national and global issues.
