The Struggle For Nigeria’s Soul - The Way Forward

By

Dr. Jones Edobor

edobor@utanet.at

The events surrounding the present election season in Nigeria leaves any patriotic Nigerian wondering why Nigeria has been so unlucky with the kind of people at the realm of its affairs. It has degenerated into a season of lawlessness and utter disregard for the rule of law of unprecedented dimension. This development should give us Nigerians reasons for serious concern about the future of our beloved country. President Obasanjo and the INEC of Prof. Iwu have collectively brought Nigeria to near breaking point by unilaterally disqualifying and banning all serious opposition party candidates against all well intended good advices that their chosen path was morally wrong, if even, if their actions would have been covered by the legal system. To worsen, people have been telling them they had no powers to do so. It is indeed worrying that irrespective of who amongst Nigerians are appointed to lead any Institution, they soon connive with the ruling class to harm the interests of the common man. They soon see themselves to be above the law, operating without due process, becoming dictatorial, biased and reckless in most things they do. INEC has allowed itself through Prof. Iwu’s tendency to partisanship to be manoeuvred into becoming a main party in court cases against opposition parties of the PDP. They are guilty of making themselves the advocate of the PDP interests. They have dabbled into partisan politics, gambled and lost badly. In other developed countries of the world Prof. Iwu who has led INEC to these series of Court defeats would take responsibility for bringing the Organisation these unnecessary defeats and disrepute by resigning immediately. His controversial leadership has made the Organisation lose all its credibility, even in the eyes of those initially positively disposed to it. It is now no speculation to say that the preparation for the gubernatorial election of last Saturday has been the worst in Nigeria’s history. Prof. Iwu has lost all grounds to remain at the helm of INEC.

Now, if the reports and accounts of the several election observers, including the Governor of Anambra state, the opposition party leaders of Edo State, Ekiti State, Oyo State, Ogun State, Osun State, just to mention a few are true and correct, how could INEC officials be so daring as to declare PDP candidates winners in these States. In the anal of the history of Nigeria, election rigging has taken different forms, but have always been hidden somehow. What happened last Saturday is no rigging, but an affront to the Nigerian people and recklessness of the highest order! It is bewildering how these people genuinely expect the Nigerian people to accept this show of shame. If INEC officials had any sense for self respect and dignity, and had not deliberately created the chaos to create the atmosphere for what transpired, one would expect them, given the wide spread of malpractices with loads of babies on the final voter lists with uncountable people not being able to vote because their names were missing, the non existence of polling stations and the daylight robbery of ballot boxes across the country by armed men, to simply cancel all elections in the affected States. By cancelling the elections of such states INEC would be sending the right signals to all Nigerians that this kind of criminality shall henceforth not be accepted in any election, whether now or in the future. It should be expected that INEC would be particularly disturbed to observe that there seemed a pattern in the way the voting boxes were simultaneously snatched across the country, suggesting it was probably a planned and coordinated operation. INEC can not pretend that nothing has happened, when there were coordinated efforts to sabotage its efforts to give Nigeria a credible election. One would expect them to be interested in knowing who the sponsors of these criminal acts are! It is surprising that the “operation snatch the electoral boxes” could be carried out with such ease, when the President has been telling us that thousands of different guns and several millions of ammunitions were ordered for security agents to protect the polling stations and lives of innocent citizens. It’s baffling where all the security Agents were or were the polling Stations not protected? The apparent tactics of INEC to simply cancel a few wards and pretend and act as if it was business as usual by declaring winners, despite all the shortcomings is simply unacceptable. There is no guarantee that the wards cancelled would not have swung the votes in favour of the losers. Bottom-line is, if there are sufficient reasons to believe that there were massive irregularities in a State then the whole election in that State must be cancelled and a rerun organized.

Should the present administration and INEC leadership be unwilling to comply with the demands to have a rerun in such states, the opposition parties must quickly meet to seriously consider the option of withdrawing from the forthcoming presidential election. They would be not only very naïve but actually detached from reality to believe in any wonder in the forthcoming election, if the winner shall be determined by the same pattern. If Nigerians ever wanted any opportunity to reclaim the soul of Nigeria from the bondage of enemies of progress, they have now been served such opportunity on the platter of gold. The opposition parties must be resolute and statesmanlike to make the necessary sacrifice for Nigeria now. The fight for the soul of Nigeria must be fought and decided now once and for all. The Opposition parties should not let this opportunity slip-by by entering into some half-hearted compromise that would not seriously address and solve the problem of incumbency in Nigeria refusing to play by the rule that have so often lead to rigging and violence during election time. It is to be hoped that the opposition parties have now realized that under the present set-up there is no level playing ground for them and participating in the forthcoming presidential election shall be nothing but simply giving the PDP the platform to claim there was a democratic election. To move forward they must lead the Nigerians who are now willing to follow them to vehemently challenge the present modus operandi to change the current mind set before any credible election can take place. It does seem any other move would be in futility, as none of them will be declared winner, no matter how many votes they get – so why should they waste their time! 

To summarize, the opposition Parties may now consider doing the following:

1. If INEC does not on its own declare the whole election of last Saturday cancelled, given the judgement of yesterday by the Supreme Court that INEC had no powers to ban or disqualify any candidate, the Opposition can make that demand or at least demand for the cancellation and rerun of the election in all States where there are credible reasons to believe that the elections were marred, rigged, including the illegal removal of any ballot box whether many or just only one with ballots in them. They should include any State where intimidation of voters took place or where there is evidence that election did not take place in some wards. They must demand for full investigation, arrest and prosecution of anyone behind the criminal attacks and snatching of ballot boxes. They must send those signals unambiguously with all clarity that henceforth such culture of daylight rubbery of our votes shall no longer be tolerated.

2. The opposition parties must now quickly meet to coordinate their response and take a resolution to postpone the coming presidential election to give Nigeria time to properly organise the election. They must let the PDP and partisan INEC unmistakably know that this is no time for business as usual and the eventual plot of the PDP to declare their candidate winner at all cost after next Saturday, irrespective of the wishes of the Nigerian people, will not only not be unaccepted but must be thwarted in advance. The PDP must be made to know that, in the absence of their compliance, they are going to be the only party running next Saturday.  

3. Though, it is good news that all candidates can now run and Nigerians as free people can now on their own decide who they wish to have rule them, but since the Vice President has been forced to spend most of his valuable time in courts fighting unconstitutional infringement of his rights, he deserves to be given time to sell his program to the people. A postponement might also be desirous here to give all candidates a fair and level playing ground.

4. The Opposition parties must not hesitate to articulate and declare their distrust in and doubts about the sincerity of the present administration and the leadership of INEC to organise a free and credible election this coming Saturday. They have good reasons to demand for a postponement and an election under an interim government. Should INEC reject this demand they should boycott the election all together. It seems obvious that any participation of the Opposition in the forthcoming presidential election under the present set-up would simply be giving this administration the legitimacy to declare them bad losers afterwards.

5. By eventually boycotting the election, if a postponement is not agreed upon, they would accord themselves the higher moral grounds and the platform with all Nigerians behind them to address the issue of election robbery in Nigeria and show to the world that not all Nigerians support this primitive approach to democracy. They would be drawing the attention of all friends of Nigeria to the way elections are organised in Nigeria and that who ever emerges from the forthcoming election on Saturday has not been the choice of the Nigerian people. The Opposition, amongst others would not have given credibility and legitimacy to an election that has a predetermined winner. As moral winners, they would hopefully have the strength, not as demoralized losers, to direct their energy to putting proper political structures in place to prepare to contest future elections. They must endeavour to put structures in place that do not only surface six months before an election to contest and then disappear after the election but one that is present throughout the legislative period. Through these actions, they would be making vital contributions to the development of Nigeria’s democracy and deprive the present administration and INEC leadership any legacy of having organized and conducted a multi-party election during their tenure. INEC would be to blame for selling out their souls. Why should any sensible opposition party want to subject their supporters to an unnecessary voting exercise and possible risks to their lives, when everybody already knows the winner?

Finally, it is doubtful, if the judgement of the Supreme Court is going to change anything. INEC has no option but to now include Vice President Atiku’s name on the ballot list of candidates, but for as long as the present administration and PDP consider the Nigerians a people without the rights to choose their own leaders, they are likely to continue to do everything within their powers to force their candidates on Nigeria. There is no indication that they are going to allow anything that resembles a fair and transparent election to take place this Saturday or anytime soon, if not forced to accept that all must abide by the same rule. This is certainly not going to happen before the “war on proper mind-set” is fought and won. The Opposition parties must not be deceived to believe or hope for some wonders on Saturday. They must now match their concerns with concrete actions and not wait till after the election. Then, it would be too late, if they wish to play any significant role post next Saturday! May God continue to help Nigeria.

Dr. Jones Edobor