2019: Is Buhari Deliberately Running To Lose?

By Richard Maduku

There is hardly any good thing that we Africans don’t corrupt. Sometimes, we practise only the negative aspect of almost every good thing. Clocks or watches for instance, are meant to ensure punctuality but in Africa they are used mostly for the opposite. It is called African Time. The Internet is meant for fast communication but in Nigeria many youths have turned it into a farm where they reap what they did not sow. It is called yahoo yahoo. Churches have been so corrupted in Africa especially in Nigeria that our traditional shamans blush with envy at the tricks church leaders of today play in order to exhort money from their gullible members.

*President Muhammadu Buhari 

 Democracy in most African countries has also been badly mangled due to the way most sitting Presidents or Heads of Government in Africa operate. They don’t only harass prominent members of the opposition in their respective countries they also brazenly rig supposedly democratic elections in order to remain in office. This has in turn made winning a re-election by a sitting President to be viewed with utmost suspicion. As a result, whether an election was free and fair, a sitting President conceding defeat was now more acceptable to the world especially to the West. 

US On Uganda's Presidential Elections

Press Statement

*Museveni and Obama

The United States commends the Ugandan people for participating actively and peacefully in the February 18 elections. While the vote occurred without major unrest, we must acknowledge numerous reports of irregularities and official conduct that are deeply inconsistent with international standards and expectations for any democratic process.

Delays in the delivery of voting materials, reports of pre-checked ballots and vote buying, ongoing blockage of social media sites, and excessive use of force by the police, collectively undermine the integrity of the electoral process. The Ugandan people deserved better. We are also concerned by the continued house arrest of opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye. We call for his immediate release and the restoration of access to all social media sites.

We encourage those who wish to contest the election results to do so peacefully and in accordance with Uganda’s laws and judicial process, and urge the Ugandan government to respect the rights and freedoms of its people and refrain from interference in those processes.

Mark C. Toner

Washington, DC

February 20, 2016