By Ikechukwu Amaechi
In recent times, I have asked myself why anyone should bother about Nigeria since no matter how hard you try, evil still triumphs.
For the first time in recent history, Nigerians from all walks of life, having agreed that military rule was an aberration, and their hopes buoyed by the assurances of the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that their votes in the 2023 elections will not only be counted but will count in determining who superintends over their affairs, came out in their numbers to make a difference.
It was a crusade. The enthusiasm was overwhelming and even Nigerians in
the Diaspora were caught in the frenzy.
And then the anti-climax. INEC
wilfully violated its own regulations and protocols and conducted elections
that the outcome will continue to haunt the chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu,
for life no matter how hard he tries to keep a straight face.
Presidential candidates of the
two main opposition parties – Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic
Party and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party – went to court and both the
Presidential Election Petitions Court, PEPC, and the Supreme Court not only
ridiculed their petitions but contemptuously ruled that whatever INEC says was
the result of the poll remains the result. Period!
The PEPC specifically ruled that
electronic transmission of results was not expressly provided for in the
Electoral Act but merely mentioned in the guidelines and manual of INEC, and
therefore, not sufficient ground to challenge the outcome of the presidential
election. The Supreme Court agreed and by so doing wittingly threw Nigeria’s
democracy under the bus.
The same thing happened during
the February 23, 2019 presidential election, in which INEC declared then
President, Muhammadu Buhari, of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the
winner, claiming that he polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rival,
Atiku, who allegedly polled 11,262,978 votes.
But Atiku and the PDP, in their
petition filed on March 18, 2019 to challenge the outcome of the polls,
contended that “from the data” obtained from INEC’s server, “the true, actual
and correct results” showed that they polled a total of 18,356,732 votes to
defeat Buhari whom they said scored 16,741,430 votes. And all Atiku and the PDP
wanted was for the Court to grant them access to the server to prove their
case.
Curiously, INEC demurred,
insisting that it had no electronic server. The courts agreed and threw away
Atiku’s petition. How INEC could claim that it had no server where election
results are stored to be retrieved when needed was a puerile lie that made no
sense to anyone except their Lordships.
But it was an attempt to
forestall such odious theatrics in the future that Nigerians clamoured for a
new Electoral Act prior to the 2023 elections with electronic transmission of
results at the centre of such clamour. Yet, INEC aborted what everyone agreed
was going to be game changer after spending billions of tax payers’ money which
it has not accounted for and will not account for.
As if to mock Nigerians, this self-same Yakubu, on October 14, made a
volte face, claiming that electronic transmission of results is backed by law,
vowing that results of the November 11 governorship elections in Imo, Bayelsa
and Kogi states would be transmitted electronically to its Result Viewing
Portal, IReV, in real time.
Earlier, perhaps erring on the
side of caution, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, for Bayelsa State,
Obo Effanga, had during an interactive session with religious leaders and
faith-based organisations, said the Commission planned to transmit results of
Bayelsa election manually.
But addressing journalists in
Kogi State, Yakubu urged Nigerians to disregard Effanga. “The method is as
provided by law; electronic accreditation, electronic upload of results on the
IREV portal and that is why we are doing this mock. So, please disregard
whatever was reported about what the REC was said to have said in Bayelsa.”
Really?
Yes, the Supreme Court has ruled
and those who “won” have derisively asked those who “lost” to appeal to God.
But no one, no matter how powerful, can mock God. But it is a pyrrhic victory
because as Obi noted on November 6: “The Supreme Court exhibited a disturbing
aversion to public opinion just as it abandoned its responsibility as a court
of law and policy… the Court’s decision contradicts the overwhelming evidence
of election rigging, false claim of a technical glitch, substantial non-compliance
with rules set by INEC itself as well as matters of perjury, identity theft,
and forgery.”
Even as weighty as those
allegations are and, therefore, shouldn’t be treated with levity in any society
that lays claim to decency, as Obi further noted, more appalling is the fact
that “the Supreme Court judgement wilfully condoned breaches of the
Constitution relative to established qualifications and parameters for
candidates in presidential elections.”
This is tragic for Nigeria’s
democracy in many ways. Nobody could have put it any better. Even the seven
justices of the Supreme Court deep down know that they sacrificed Nigeria’s
fledgling democracy on the altar of political expediency. And it is not going
to get any better. What the country’s apex court succeeded in doing is to tell
anyone going for elections to make sure that it ends in the field. “Whatever it
takes, make sure that the umpire announces you the winner. Take no prisoners,
go for the kill,” is the message.
Is it any wonder that Nigerian
politicians no longer bother with the electorate? While the politically naïve
tries to convince the electorate to vote for them, which was what the likes of
Peter Obi did, the “astute” politicians go for security agencies particularly
the police and Department of State Services, DSS, and INEC officials.
That is why Bayelsa, Imo and
Kogi states have suddenly become theatres of war because of the off-season
governorship elections on November 11. In the political calculations of the
gladiators, what matters most is who controls the security agencies and INEC.
It will be worse in 2027 when
the election will be superintended by an INEC chairman appointed by the
incumbent president, who owes maximum loyalty to his benefactor, and also the
Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, who enlisted in the Nigeria
Police Force on March 3, 1990 and nine years after as a deputy superintendent
of Police, was appointed the chief security officer to the then governor of
Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, who as President took him to Abuja as IGP.
Truth be told, this is not
democracy and Nigerians know it. This sham is not sustainable and Nigeria
cannot make any progress on this trajectory of lies and deceit. And this is not
wishing the country any bad. It is just a statement of fact.
Some of our Christian friends
particularly from the South-West remind some of us they erroneously misconstrue
as being against President Tinubu that the Bible enjoins us to pray for our
leaders so that they can rule us in the fear of God.
But I thought we also prayed for
President Muhammadu Buhari and we are all living witnesses to the extent he
ruled us in the fear of God.
They conveniently forget that
the same Bible that tells us to pray for our leaders also admonishes us in
Proverbs 14:34 that, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to
any people.”
When a man gets to power not
with the mandate of the people but his own machinations, he owes the people no
obligations and has no fear of God in him.
Sadly those making these
hare-brained claims know the truth but would rather wallow in self-deception,
which according to the Greek philosopher, Plato, “is the worst kind of
deception” because no one can escape from the lies he tells himself.
“The consequences of
self-deception are disastrous for my life, since living a lie is a source of
temporary joy and constant unhappiness,” Plato further said.
Those who deny the reality of
what happened in this election cycle are walloping in self-sabotage and
betrayal because they are denying the truth staring them in the face. Nigeria
and its democracy are worse for it, not Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar.
*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche
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