An Open Letter To His Excellency,
Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd)
Chairman, National Peace Committee; His Excellency, Mr Thabo Mbeki, Head, Commonwealth Observation Team And His Lordship, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, Convener, National Peace Committee & Coordinator, Kukah Leadership Centre.
Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, on Wednesday, 22nd February 2023, the 18 presidential candidates running in this year’s general election signed a peace accord in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, at the instance of the National Peace Committee in conjunction with the Kukah Leadership Centre.
As usual, the essence of the peace accord was to commit them in advance to accepting the outcome of the presidential election to be held three days later, being 25th February 2023.
Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, recall that the three of you, alongside President Muhammadu Buhari and some other international diplomats and observers, were physically present to witness the signing of the peace pact.
Also recall that some of you made brief speeches in which you encouraged the presidential candidates to respect the pact by accepting the result of the election which you were very careful to describe – in anticipation – as free, fair and peaceful.
For record purposes, may I further recall that while addressing the presidential candidates in your capacity as chairman of the National Peace
Committee, Your Excellency, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd), made it crystal clear that the presidential candidates should accept the result of the presidential election only when it is adjudged to be free, fair and credible.
Part of that historic speech you made, Your Excellency, reads:
“Now that the elections are only a few hours away, we are here to witness the second signing of the National Peace Accord to commit the presidential candidates and their party chairmen to accept the outcome of the elections as long as it is adjudged to be free, fair, and credible, and to seek legitimate and peaceful means of addressing any concern that may arise thereafter.”
Your speech Your Excellency presupposes that where the election is not free, fair and credible, the presidential candidates will not be bound to accept its result.
Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, the presidential election of February 25, 2023, was not free, fair, peaceful and credible.
As you may be aware, the media is already awash with reports of the late arrival of electoral materials to the polling units (which His Excellency Mr Thabo Mbeki also observed when he visited a particular polling unit in Abuja), non-appearance of the Labour Party logo on some ballot papers, non-availability of the presidential ballot papers in some polling units, technical fault of some BVAS machines and refusal of INEC officials to upload results of the presidential election on their BVAS machines at the polling units after counting the votes in the presence of voters who also took record of the actual figures of such results. Even in my own village of Amaibo Nguru in Ngor Okpala LGA of Imo State, INEC officials refused to upload the result of the presidential election into their BVAS machine after counting the ballot papers that showed the Labour Party winning with a wide margin at the unit.
Other ills that characterised the presidential election of last Saturday include thuggery, violence and ballot box snatching, among others.
You may also have heard of reports of real results being manipulated by INEC in connivance with certain politicians and gifted same to another favoured candidate. It is now clear to the Nigerian electorate that it is to enable them to perpetrate this nauseating malpractice that INEC and its officials refused to upload the results of the election at polling units.
Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, to be more specific, prior to the presidential election of February 25, 2023, Nigerians, peeved by years of excruciating suffering, hardship, hunger, poverty, high-level corruption and criminality and with a bleak future staring them in the face caused by skyrocketing national debt profile and recurrent galloping inflation coupled with the current high petrol price and naira scarcity, vowed to get things right with their permanent voter’s cards (PVCs) this time around and demonstrated it by trooping out en masse on Saturday to vote for Dr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
It is on record, Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, that Dr Peter Obi won the presidential election in virtually all the polling units in the South-East, South-South, South-West, North-Central, and many polling units in the North-East and North-West. It is important to note here that the Nigerian masses, especially the youths, for the first in the history of this nation, united in one purpose, trooped out to vote massively for a presidential candidate of their choice, overlooking those perennial, backward, anti-national divisive monsters of tribe, ethnicity and religion but rather driven by their belief in the candidate’s moral rectitude and sincere change ideology which to them signal a great paradigm shift from the old status quo that has plagued our polity for years.
It is therefore imperative Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, that you use the auspices of your noble offices as globally respected elder statesmen and passionate peace advocates to implore INEC to withdraw or cancel the manipulated results it announced to Nigerians and re-upload its BVAS machines with the original results of the presidential election as announced at the polling units in the presence of the voters and also announce same to Nigerians and the world who are currently watching this show of shame with disgust.
This is the only way INEC can correct this ongoing electoral anomaly, impunity and rape of democracy which its leadership swore to protect.
It is by announcing the original results of the presidential election that INEC, which is supposed to be an unbiased umpire, can redeem its now battered image and the image of the Nigerian Nation that it has unpatriotically tarnished before the international community.
It is by announcing the original results of the presidential election that Nigeria’s status as the largest democracy in Africa can be justified.
It is only by announcing the original results of the presidential election that President Muhammadu Buhari’s effort at leaving behind a legacy of free, fair, safe, credible election can be sustained, a legacy in which he reiterated his interest during the signing of the peace accord on Wednesday, 22nd February 2023, thus:
“I am aware of the deep concerns that have been raised about the conduct of the 2023 general elections and the outcomes they may throw up. However, since my assumption into office, my government has worked so hard to ensure that we pass on a legacy of free, fair, credible, safe, and peaceful elections. We will continue to act with neutrality and allow the rule of law to take precedence over political expediency. We have demonstrated that with the off-cycle elections in Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states. We allowed Nigerians to decide who should govern them. We are committed to this legacy till the very last day of my administration.”
By not announcing the original results of the presidential election, it will simply mean that INEC is working against the actualisation of this good legacy of President Muhammadu Buhari and by extension the revered Council of State of which Your Excellency, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, is a member.
By not announcing the original results of the presidential election, INEC will be subverting the will of the already disenchanted, angry Nigerian masses and provoking them to think of alternative ways to actualise their collective mandate as demonstrated on Saturday, February 25, 2023. INEC should therefore be held responsible for whatever comes out of such alternative self-help measures if it adamantly refuses to do the needful and goes ahead to thwart the will of the Nigerian masses as it is doing now.
Conclusion
Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, the foregoing shows that suspicion, confusion, transgression and doubt are still hanging in the air over the conduct of last Saturday’s presidential election, a development that could threaten the peace that you are working hard to achieve in our beloved country.
This, therefore, entails that you work harder to ensure that peace reigns in the country, and it is a known fact all over the world that the only thing that can guarantee peace is justice. This is why the late American civil rights activist, Dr Martin Luther King Jr said:
“Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice.”
Thus, pressuring any aggrieved presidential candidate that feels robbed, conspired against, manipulated or rigged against to accept the result of the election and congratulate whoever INEC favoured to emerge winner without first correcting the glaring anomalies witnessed on Saturday will not be the best way to achieve peace in these circumstances and Nigerians will not expect Your Excellencies and Your Lordship or any other elder statesman or member of the National Peace Committee who loves justice to do that.
Rather, Nigerians will be impressed with your respected committee and accord you more honour and reverence if you can lend your statesmanly voices to the condemnations trailing the now widely reported irregularities that characterised the presidential election of February 25, 2023, and urging INEC to release the original results.
Your Excellencies and Your Lordship, in getting INEC to announce the original results of the presidential election and ensuring that the will of Nigerians is not perverted, subverted, thwarted, short-changed or suppressed, you will go down in history as the real champions of democracy, justice and peace and posterity will not only judge you well but will forever hold you in great awe and esteem.
Kindly accept the assurances of my highest regards.
Yours faithfully,
Kelechi Sam Esogwa-Amadi
Media consultant
& A concerned Nigerian citizen
