Okenyi Kenechi
The biggest lie ever told in Nigeria is that the unity of the country is not negotiable.
The second biggest lie is that Northern Nigeria has more population than the South.
The third biggest lie is that Buhari has integrity.
If you ever believe any of these lies which have been used to perpetuate the biggest fraud ever known to mankind, then you are not different from those who think that a pastor can pray away HIV virus from a patient.
The biggest fraud that ever happened in Nigeria, happened under the Buhari’s administration which has gone the extra mile into seconding the adage that says “if you live long enough, you will see your role models become fraudsters”. We should not sugar-coat words in classifying the rot that is democracy in Nigeria. We should be brave enough to call it what it is: a fraud.
Every day, democracy in Nigeria continues to turn into a fraudulent tool for oppression and access to the public till. That is why the Saturday, February 23 presidential and national assembly elections were fantastically rigged. Not only did the president who lays claims to the purest form of integrity accepted the results but his men have been all over the media harassing his main challenger to concede.
The election did not only demystify many age-long myths about the country but also showed Nigeria struggling with where it is presently and where it ought to have been.
The orgy of violence that characterised the entire process was too dangerous to be desired. Boko Haram had launched attacks on Borno and Yobe states, preventing the governor of Yobe state from voting on the said day, yet both states posted more significant votes than peaceful states in the south and for the very first time, the armed forces, especially the Nigerian Army engaged openly in the destruction of electoral materials and supervised the writing of election results.
The processes of democracy take time. As days go into weeks, faults are spotted in a democratic processes which brings about reforms. In Nigeria, democracy is almost static devoid of any progress. The gains made are sharply revised by power-hungry and power-drunk government officials so as to enable their hold on to power. Isn’t this why the president declined to assent to the updated version of the electoral bill because it will block all their attempts to rig?
I monitored the election and I can tell you for free that we are a far cry from that which we claim to practice: democracy.
There was no election on the 23rd of February. What we had was an aberration of what we wanted. Results were written by the ruling party and where it did not have the power to write results using the military, the Independent National Electoral Commission disenfranchised voters through the late arrival of electoral materials and by non-functional card readers.
This was a rollback from the smooth elections of 2015 where despite promises made by the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, that the commission is ready for the elections, it reeked from lack of preparation.
The late arrival of electoral materials to polling units, non-functional card readers ensured that in Rivers State, voting did not start on time. Lack of adequate security and intimidation of voters by the army who killed 35 persons in Abonnema Town in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers was also a regular feature. That number of the dead in that town holds a heart-wrenching memory of a poorly conducted election.
In Ikwerre Local Government Area, the home of Buhari’s minister of Transportation and the Director-General of his re-election campaign, security agents destroyed ballot boxes, chased away ad-hoc staff of INEC. The same scenario played out in Okrika where the DPO of the police station in the area and an army captain led thugs to snatch electoral materials.
The case of Emohua Local Government was even more pathetic. After collation of results did not take place due to the activities of the army, the collation officer of the LGA turned up with 72,745 votes for the APC. The electoral officer of the local government denied the results, reiterating his earlier stance that elections did not take place. Their confessions are on video and have since gone viral on social media.
I have argued before that the people do not have to die to elect those who will lead them. But Nigeria’s Federal government has over time failed to implement relevant legislations and electoral laws that will ease up the burden on INEC, a burden that forces ballots to be snatched and security agencies to kill citizens. This is evident in the way President Muhammadu Buhari arrogantly refused to assent to the updated version of the electoral bill which would have among other things ensured the electronic transmission of votes to INEC database and curb the incidents of rigging.
It is a bumbling shame that politicians including the acclaimed man of integrity are proud of rigged elections. It is even a bigger shame that despite taking four years to prepare for the elections, INEC came out as ill-prepared for the process thereby opening it up for all forms of manipulation by the government.
But a rigged election is one thing while the people reacting to the heist after their votes did not count is another thing. Nigerians seem to be taking the outcome of the election gently, and their silence will enable Buhari to alter the Constitution and go for another term of four years.
The election was a return to the Maurice Iwu era where results were allocated without recourse to the proper votes cast. The figures produced by INEC chairman are at best conflicting.
According to INEC, the total number of registered voters: 82,344,107
Total number of accredited voters: 29,364,209
Total votes cast: 28,614,190
Total Valid votes: 27,324,583
Rejected votes: 1,289,607
The figures are in conflict with what INEC told the country before, that it registered a total of 84,004,084 voters. One question worth answering is where the commission got the new number of 82,344,107 as the total registered voters and where the balance of 1,659,977 voters went to.
Did they succeed in voting during that election? If the answer is yes, then where are their votes?
Secondly, INEC announced conflicting figures for the total accredited votes. Yet accreditation and voting happened simultaneously.
According to the commission, accredited voters stood at 29,364,209 and total votes cast 28,614,190. That is a difference of 750,019 voters. How about the voided votes of 1,289,607 which is a significant percentage of the total votes cast?
INEC and security agencies engaged in voter suppression in the South while there were massive turnouts in hostile areas like Borno, Yobe and Zamfara states. How will INEC explain the fact that in Yobe, a state governor could not vote due to insecurity but the state turned up over 600,000 votes while a peaceful Enugu with millions of registered voters turned up less?
How about Borno State where Boko Haram terrorists launched an attack on the morning of the election, sending fears down the hearts of the people but the state recorded over 900, 000 votes same as Lagos which had 6 million registered voters?
Electing Buhari in 2015 was riding on the back of a hungry tiger. That is what the APC with its hunger for power signifies but do you blame them? Nigerians are suffering and smiling, praying for a better day. But better days are not products of prayers but that of citizens vigilance and civil disobedience.
You are what you enable. That is why Buhari deserves a third term and possibly, he would get it and nothing will happen. If you don’t believe me, check the calibre of people elected as Senators and you will understand that you are even in a bigger mess with a legislature filled with failed governors.
