By Valentine Obienyem
The last election in Nigeria was the worst in its electoral history. Have you asked yourself why it was only APC and Sen. Ahmed Bola Tinubu that failed to condemn non-transmission of results from the polling booths to the central server even before the results were announced? The election has created deep divisions among Nigerians, who belong to diverse ethnic and religious groups because Tinubu charged his supporters to secure victory for him by any means possible. Alas, we have seen how his followers used the ethnic and religious card, Ayo masquerade festival, guns, cudgels, threats, and psychological warfare to secure unmerited victory for him.
The unconscionable action of Tinubu was a clear example of his readiness to bring Nigeria down owing to his vaulting political ambition. The practical disfranchisement of Nigerians had removed the mental stimulus that comes from free political activity and a widespread sense of liberty and power.
Today, Nigerians feel that they are no longer free. He is not done yet; his destruction of Nigeria goes on apiece. He has succeeded in pitching Nigerians, including the members of the epistolary family, against one another. With his attitude and desperation to acquire political power at any cost, it is safe to assume that he is ready to lead the country to an ignominious bondage, if not political cul-de-sac.His being
comfortable in the company of political myrmidons like Fani Kayode,
Festus Keyamo, and Bayo Onanuga, is a classic exemplification of this adage,
“birds of a feather…” I call three of them the Odysseus of our time. Those in
love with classics will recall that Odysseus would hardly speak without lying,
or act without treachery. To this “Odysseuan” inclination, some Nigerians add
an unabashed mendacity.
Why would old
men tell lies or engage in acts of dissimulation of facts
without compunction? Why would they deliberately turn white to green and are
supposedly comfortable with themselves? They represent the inveterate
dishonesty of mankind. All their efforts are geared at trying to present
a flawed presidential election, which is, unarguably, the worst in our
political annals, as the freest and fairest presidential election that has ever
taken place in Nigeria.
Doubtless,
Mr. Peter Obi ran the most engaging campaign. He traversed all the
states. And, in some cases, he visited three or four towns in each
of the states. His campaign speeches were polyphonic sermons calling the nation
to progressive ideas, with clear roadmap of how he would move the country from
consumption to production. With his evident distaste for the crudities of
political strife, those that are desirous of the good of the country supported
and followed him.
On the
contrary, the supporters of Tinubu are mostly those looking fretfully for what
they will gain. For these people, it does not matter if an ex-convict or a drug
baron becomes the president of the country.
Having seen Obi as the symbol of what is lacking in Nigeria, most Nigerians, wearied of the ugly status quo, started expressing their support for him through the ubiquitous “Obi-dient” movement. How do we define the “Obi-dient” movement? They represent a flame that set the mind of Nigerians afire with the dream of political emancipation. What some do not realise is that “Obi-dient” has become a byword for all those who are disappointed with the condition of Nigeria, which include a sizable proportion of the elderly demograph.
We tend to ascribe
the “Obi-dients’” zealotry to the youth population of the group because
they are naturally more impulsive, inflexible in resolution, resourcefully
minded and always rearing to go just as the elders of today reared to go in the
60s. Who loves what is happening In Nigeria? Who wants an Escobar to become his
President? Who enjoyed the stultifying effect, which the recurrence of
Buhari’s ill health had on governance in his almost eight regrettable years in
the saddle of leadership? The prospect of our having a similar dose of Buhari’s
political maladministration is threatening to repeat itself on a more sinister
proportion?
At
every stage of the election, the principals, including Mr. President and the
INEC chairman assured us of its sanctity. At last, Nigerians were ready
to freely choose their leaders. However, as soon as the election started, it
became obvious that all they did: the speeches, the monetary policies and the
promises were subterfuges to deceive the people. Sad to observe that after the
election, all the forces that had been beaten down by the former President
Goodluck Jonathan – ballot snatching, re-writing of results, shedding of blood,
non-interference by the Presidency – are rampantly resurgent. What manner
of country are we building for posterity?
All in all,
as amply presented in his letter to President Joe Biden of America, Tinubu’s
“victory” did not follow due process. If such brazen robbery of the mandate of
the people by the magnificent thief is allowed to stand, others, as we
witnessed in the follow-up election, would try to profit from his example or
better his instruction.
I have read
many Nigerians lament about the election. As far as I am concerned, one of the
most reasonable is the analysis of Mr. Atedo Peterside. One could see in his
analysis a very committed and objective elder thinking about the future of his
country by not supporting anything that would endanger it. I have also listened
to the interventions of Pa Ayo Adebayo, who I call the number one “Obi-dient”,
when understood from the perspective of Nigerians who are exasperated with the
status quo and clamour for a change based on equity and justice. A few days
ago, we also listened to Prof. Wole Soyinka. His viewpoint aroused one of the
bitterest tempests the “Obi-dients” are still contending with.
For obvious
reasons, I am not in support of Soyinka’s bashing. Soyinka is among the revered
men of letters, who have brought honour to the country. I say this
with the greatest sense of responsibility. I have listened to him talk in
numerous fora. I was there when he spoke at Achebe’s colloquium at Brown
University. I was there when he addressed the Biennial African Philosophy World
Conference in Tanzania. Each time he spoke it appeared as if the rising sun
beamed from his hair; one could see the depth in him. His viewpoints are
always characterised by clarity and logic of thought, fitness and pungent of
phrase, especially when denouncing autocracy and bad government. The Prof. is
evidently a paragon of learning, a compendium of letters, a poet of parts and a
scholar of subtlety.
When
we read some of the things he did in his youth, including the seizure of a
radio station, we shall admit that he is also an incarnate Mars, dedicated to
war and delighting in it. Though he talks brilliantly about literature, but he
usually falls into a hundred errors when he wanders into politics as he did
recently.
While we take
exception to his stand, we must not forget his genius. It is on this that I
join Nigerians to condemn his reference to “Obi-dients” as fascists. I do
not personally know what he meant by that because fascism and dictatorship are
near alien. For me, fascism is more of the peculiar quality of a dictatorship
inclined towards suppression of the opposition, criticisms and promotion of
“divide et impera” (Divide and rule). By taking power by force using the
instrument of the state, trying to pitch the ethnic groups against one another,
who is more dictatorial and fascistic than Tinubu? This should be the central
question. We catch the colour of his spirit by his readiness to buy people’s
conscience by any means.
So,
rather than go after Soyinka, I think we have to mourn his inability to situate
fascism in its rightful context. It was so bad that he even joined them in
believing that the “Obi-dients” wants to control the judiciary. What did they
do other than suspect that the man who was shouting go to court may know
something we do not know that was pushing him towards that course of action.
What “Obi-dients” are doing is reminding the judiciary that it behoves them to
clear the mess created by politicians by being blind in dispensing justice.
The judiciary
is essentially an institution created as an arbiter of justice. Over the years
man was more barbaric than human. To transmit greed into thrift, violence into
argument, murder into litigation, and suicide into philosophy has been part of
the task of civilisation. To settle the case of Tinubu would have been through
duel with Obi or other primitive ways. However, by courtesy of civilisation we
now have the judiciary for that work. If the judiciary fails to do so, that would
be taking us back to the Stone Age.
Expectedly,
many people were shocked by his view- point. Coming at a time the Minister who
lies unsympathetically by means of pompous rhetoric was singing the song of
treason, at a time they badly doctored his video as to pass for fake and at a
time there appears to be a fresh understanding to employ all available
ammunition to run Obi out of town, one would wonder what is extreme about the
reactions of the “Obi-dients.”
But how do we
react to Soyinka as a person? Which of us has the commanding presence to match
him word for word? This is where the intervention of the future Nobel Laureate,
Chimamanda Adichie was soothing and welcome. Shocked by the crimes of Tinubu,
disheartened by the selfishness of his defenders and appalled by the
credulities of political engagements, she wrote her famous letter to Biden.
Employing
a prose sometimes involved or flowery, but for the most part eloquent and
vigorous, pungent and vivacious, and clear as a mountain
stream, she described with startling candour that characterises it to the
end, what some people are passing for election in fascinating details:
“Most egregious of all, the electoral commission reneged on its assurance to Nigerians. The presidential results were not uploaded in real time. Voters, understandably suspicious, reacted; videos from polling stations show voters shouting that results be uploaded right away. Many took cellphone photos of the result sheets. Curiously, many polling units were able to upload the results of the House and Senate elections, but not the presidential election. A relative who voted in Lagos told me, “We refused to leave the polling unit until the INEC staff uploaded the presidential result.
The poor guy kept trying and kept
getting an ‘error’ message. There was no network problem. I had internet on my
phone. My bank app was working. The Senate and House results were easily
uploaded. So why couldn’t the presidential results be uploaded on the same
system?” Some electoral workers in polling units claimed that they could not
upload results because they didn’t have a password, an excuse that voters
understood to be subterfuge. By the end of the day, it had become obvious that
something was terribly amiss.
“No
one was surprised when, by the morning of the 26th February, social media
became flooded with evidence of irregularities. Result sheets were now slowly
being uploaded on the INEC portal, and could be viewed by the public. Voters
compared their cellphone photos with the uploaded photos and saw alterations:
numbers crossed out and rewritten; some originally written in black ink had
been rewritten in blue, some blunderingly whited-out with Tipp-Ex. The election
had been not only rigged, but done in such a shoddy, shabby manner that it
insulted the intelligence of Nigerians.”
Many
Nigerians see her intervention as timely and apposite. At a time some
big, global voices were trying to sound funny, trying to still resentment by
muttering “treason”, her exhilarating pen entered like energising yeast into
the rising body of analysis of the Nigerian elections.
At home with Nigeria
and noting the weaknesses that has held her down, Chimamanda, in her
usual genial leisureliness, ventured into an area the epistolary
fraternity pretend not to hear about. Again, let us hear her:
“Compromised is a
ubiquitous word in Nigeria’s political landscape—it is used to mean “bribed”
but also “corrupted,” more generally. “They have been compromised,” Nigerians
will say, to explain so much that is wrong, from infrastructure failures to
unpaid pensions. Many believe that the INEC chair has been “compromised,” but
there is no evidence of the astronomical U.S.-dollar amounts he is rumored to
have received from the president-elect. The extremely wealthy Tinubu is himself
known to be an enthusiastic participant in the art of “compromising”; some
Nigerians call him a “drug baron” because, in 1993, he forfeited to the United
States government $460,000 of his income that a Chicago court determined to be
proceeds from heroin trafficking. Tinubu has strongly denied all charges of
corruption.”
Chimamanda spoke like
a person who was either in Nigeria or followed the election very closely. Many
Nigerians did likewise, including the Lord Justices. They do not live in other
planets, such that it is wrong to say that Alhaji Ahmed Datti statement was a
sort of gladiatorial challenge. Knowing fully what happened in Nigeria,
Nigerians are of the opinion that the case should be concluded before the 29th
of May. We cannot afford a character that has ugly baggage to become the
president of Nigeria even for a second. What moral authority would he have to
do many things a good president is expected to do, including fight against drug
trafficking?
The judiciary should
be encouraged to restore to Nigeria what they bargained for. Until this is
done, we must rank the election as among the darkest blot on elections’
record in Nigeria.
I, therefore, join
Chimamanda in urging Biden and other world leaders not to recognise or
congratulate Tinubu. Her conclusion is apt: “Congratulating its outcome,
President Biden, tarnishes America’s self-proclaimed commitment to democracy.
Please do not give the sheen of legitimacy to an illegitimate process.” Let
this speak to the conscience of other world leaders and, indeed, all men
of goodwill.
*Obienyem, Lawyer, prolific writer, Media Consultant wrote from Awka
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