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The Struggle For Nigeria’s Soul - The Way Forward By Dr. Jones Edobor
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 her affairs. This election season has degenerated into a season of lawlessness and utter disregard for the rule of law yet unseen in Nigeria. 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 single-handedly brought Nigeria to near breaking point by unilaterally perfecting the politics of arbitrary administrative panel to indict, disqualify and ban any candidate that may pose a threat to PDP candidates. The politics of administrative panels to indict became a strategy to smear any serious candidate of the opposition, despite all well meant advice that their chosen path was morally wrong. It would be morally wrong, if even their actions would have been covered by the legal system. This is because disqualifying your opponents the way President Obasanjo was maliciously doing made him the prosecutor and judge in a case where he is a direct beneficiary. To worsen matters, several well wishers drew the attention of President Obasanjo and Prof. Iwu of INEC to the fact that they had not the power to do what they were doing. But of course, they were too good and powerful to listen. It is to be hoped that with this final blow from the Supreme Court, the practice of instituting express illegal administrative panels with the purpose to intimidate and smear opponents for whatever reason has now come to an end. The courts of our land should be allowed to do their work – that is why they are there. Indeed, it is sad and worrying that irrespective of the formal backgrounds of who amongst us Nigerians are appointed to lead any Institution, we soon connive with the ruling class to undermine the interests of the less influential. We soon see ourselves as being above the law of the land that can operate without following due process. We become dictatorial, biased and reckless in most things we do. Unfortunately, Prof. Iwu through his unchecked manoeuvre apparently to be seen as one of Obasanjo’s boys has tactlessly drawn INEC into partisanship politics involving it in countless court cases against opposition parties of the PDP. Prof. Iwu’s tendencies are turning out to be disservice and burden to INEC. INEC under Prof. Iwu’s leadership has carelessly abandoned the impartiality that is prerequisite for the credibility of an unbiased umpire. He has led INEC into partisan politics, gambled with high stake and lost badly. In other countries of the world Prof. Iwu under whose leadership INEC has suffered these series of unnecessary and avoidable crucial Court defeats would take responsibility for bringing the Organisation to disrepute and resign immediately. It is to be hoped that Prof. Iwu knows what to do now. His controversial leadership has made an Organisation that was supposed to be in the background during elections to become the main focus and issue. At the end, it has lost all its credibility, even in the eyes of those initially positively disposed to it. It does seem obvious that the best move of Prof. Iwu now is to resign immediately. He has had his chance and failed woefully. Nigeria must learn to part from non-performing officers in time before they do more harm.
Well, it is now no speculation to say that the preparation and execution of the gubernatorial election of last Saturday was probably the worst in Nigeria’s history. If the reports and accounts of the several electoral 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, it becomes incomprehensible what in this world propelled INEC officials to declare PDP candidates winners in these States. It is though a sad fact that election rigging is not new in Nigeria, they have come in different forms, but one thing they all had in common was that the perpetrators always made efforts to conceal them. What happened last Saturday is no rigging, but an open affront to the Nigerian people and recklessness of the highest order! Viewed from the humorous perspective, it does seem INEC under Prof. Iwu does not even know how to rig for their master; they do it before the eyes of the whole nation and observers.
It is very irresponsible and short-sighted of these criminals to genuinely expect all Nigerians to accept this show of shame and go back to business as usual. Going by the Nigerian mentality, someone is soon going to start telling us to leave things as they are for the sake of peace as we are a developing country and cannot be perfect yet, or that we are learning and things will be better next time. If these people love peace why do they always deliberately plan to deprive others of their right? One wonders, if INEC officials had any sense of self respect and dignity. Are they now truly proud of themselves for haven robed Nigerians of their fundamental rights to chose their leaders by betraying their oath of office? If the following accounts that there were numerous babies on the final voter lists, thousands of people were unable to vote because their names were missing on the voter lists, followed by non existence of several polling stations, compounded by the daylight robbery of ballot boxes by armed men, are true and correct, the whole election must be cancelled immediately. By cancelling all elections in all affected States INEC would be sending the right signals to all Nigerian political parties that this kind of criminality shall henceforth not be accepted in any election, whether be it now or in the future. INEC would be letting action follow its words of regret by showing that it is particularly disturbed by the clear pattern in the way several voting boxes were simultaneously snatched across the country, suggesting it may have been planned and coordinated! INEC must show genuine interest in knowing and prosecuting the mastermind behind this criminal act! It is quite amazing though, how the “operation snatch the electoral boxes” could be so successful and with such ease, when President Obasanjo reportedly spent millions of dollars to import thousands of various guns and several millions of rounds of ammunitions for security agents to protect polling stations and the lives of innocent citizens. Where have they all gone??
I should think that the apparent tactics of INEC to declare winners in States where elections in some wards are cancelled is unacceptable. It violates all principles of fairness as no one can say for sure, if the cancelled wards would not have swung the votes in favour of the losers. Thus, if there are sufficient reasons to believe that there were massive irregularities in a particular State then the whole election in that State must be declared cancelled and a rerun organized.
Should the present administration and INEC leadership refuse to comply with the demands to have a rerun in states as above, the opposition parties must seriously consider the option of withdrawing from the forthcoming presidential election. They would be very naïve to expect any wonder in the forthcoming presidential election, as the winner shall be determined by the same pattern. Now, if we Nigerians ever wanted any opportunity to reclaim the soul of Nigeria from the bondage of the enemies of progress, we have now been served that opportunity on the platter of gold. The opposition parties must be resolute and statesmanlike to make the necessary sacrifice to reclaim the soul of Nigeria now. The fight for the soul of Nigeria must be fought and decided now, once and for all. The Opposition parties must not allow selfish considerations to blur their vision and wisdom of actions. They must join hands together and refuse to enter into any half-hearted compromise that does not seriously address and solve the problem of incumbency in Nigeria that has always refused to play by the rule. This abuse of state power during election must be curtailed. The structure of INEC and the quality of its independence must be addressed. It is to be hoped that the opposition parties are now conscious of the fact 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 “do or die” approach in choosing who lead Nigerians; we must fix the problems before any credible election can take place. It should be clear to all Opposition party candidates that none of them will be declared winner next Saturday, no matter how many votes they get – so why waste their time!
To summarize, the opposition Parties may now consider doing the following:
Finally, it is doubtful, if the judgement of the Supreme Court is going to change anything. Though INEC has no option but to now include Vice President Atiku’s name on the ballot list of candidates, however, 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 freely change anything or allow anything that resembles a fair and transparent election to take place this Saturday or anytime soon, if not forced to genuinely accept that all must abide by the same rule. These changes are not to be expected until the “War For the soul of Nigeria” is fought and won. The Opposition parties must not allow themselves to be deceived by some vague promises or any enticement, they must be selfless and match their concerns with concrete actions now and not wait till after the election. By then, it would be too late. If they wish to play any significant roles after next Saturday, they must act now! May God continue to help Nigeria.
Dr. Jones Edobor
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