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To some well meaning Nigerians, non Nigerians, groups and nations, Nigeria’s April 2007 elections were far from being free and fair and one lacking credibility. Some say it was a rape of democracy, a charade, an electoral rot, a sham, a fraud, and selection, an election that is worse than a military coup, an action to perpetuate dictatorship in the country and failed elections among others. In a nutshell, this election has been the most controversial and fraudulent ever in the history of elections any where in the world. Every stakeholder is of the view that the election will not hold and all look forward to the election petition tribunals to redress the injustice perpetrated against Nigerians by President Obasanjo and his ruling PDP through the manipulations of INEC under Maurice Iwu. Nigeria’s 2007 general elections of April 14 for the governorship and state assemblies and April 21 for the presidential and national assembly have come and gone. But certainly not without so much dust raised all over the place. The results of the elections at all levels as announced by INEC Chairman Maurice Iwu last Monday did not come to all Nigerians as a surprise. Indications were that Iwu and his national and state electoral commissioners were hell bent on poisting on this country a very unpopular and an unelected and unelectable candidate of the PDP, Governor Umaru Musa Yar’adua as our next president come May 29, 2007. INEC has day and night worked with President Olusegun Obasanjo to force on them another round of bad and inept leadership. No one is left in doubt that Iwu was from day one acting Obasanjo’s script. President Obasanjo has said it in public that this year’s elections are a matter of do or die for him and his ruling party, the PDP. This means that anything that it will do anything to remain in power by even winning more states. Africa in particular has never witnessed a sham called election of this magnitude like the one held in Nigeria. To most African, this is the country’s first crisis point of its democracy. Thank God for the spontaneous condemnation of the elections from the stakeholders—comprising of candidates from the opposition parties, political parties, voters, domestic and foreign observers, ECOWAS, EU, UN, UK, US and other well meaning individuals, civil society groups, organisations and countries among others. A number of descriptions of the present scenario have been put forward to place the so called elections we had in the last two weeks. While others say it is day light robbery, others call it do or die selection of candidates at the ruling party’s primaries which was finally rounded up at the general elections on April 14 and 21 this year. The first to condemn the elections in its entirety is Nigeria’s top most democrat who is also Nigeria’s Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. Atiku described the elections after casting his vote in his Adamawa home state capital of Yola. He described it as “a sham”. Atiku as the Presidential candidate of the Action Congress, AC was short of words to describe the magnitude and nature of the current electoral fraud introduced by the ruling PDP in the final desperation moves by Obasanjo to remain in power till eternity. Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidential Candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP also announced a rejection of the elections results and added that it is the worst ever in the history of Nigeria. He added: “I completely and wholeheartedly reject these results as a sham. It was a disgrace to Nigeria, a shame on INEC a great dishonour to the PDP government”. In an article titled ‘Obasanjo: from a statesman to a failed politician’, in The Nation newspaper of April 24, 2007, Lawal Ogienagbon said that Obasanjo has lost his elder statesman status because of his partisanship in the current political dispensation. Nothing more portrays him as a typical Nigerian politician than the just concluded elections which his party, PDP won through foul means’.
New Age in its editorial of April 24, 2007 titled ‘INEC’s magic figures’, ask some pertinent but crucial questions: ‘Why was INEC so generous to the other parties? How could the biggest political party in Africa be made to look so puny by the award of about 10 million votes to the opposition when every one knows there really is no opposition in the country?’ Also in its editorial comments of same day titled ‘the presidential polls and our democracy’, The Nation newspaper was of the view that the April 14 and 21 elections did not only reflect an electoral day of lies, aberration and gangsterism, it provides a window not only on the polls but also on the shameless bravado of INEC and a President at peace with high handedness and deception. The paper further cautioned: “democracy is not only about choosing leaders, it is about instilling values and instituting a way of life. If the nation thrives on lies and cheating, the generation after us would have no better models. This would imply we have handed over our nation to a future without integrity.” Even columnists in Foreign newspapers, notably The New York Times of USA and The Telegraph of the UK have been too critical and condemnatory of the role of INEC, security agents and the ruling party among others in the failed elections which has consequently discredited the electoral body and all the results so far it released to the Nigerian public. Lydia Blygreen of New York Times titled ‘Africa’s crisis of democracy,’ said “Nigeria’s troubled presidential elections, which came under fire from local and international observers and was rejected by the two leading opposition candidates, represents a significant setback for democracy in sub-Saharan Africa”. On the other hand, Con Coughlin of The Telegraph said: “Nigeria’s trouble started last year when he attempted to alter the constitution to enable him serves another term in office which is considered as illegal and unconstitutional”. Coming back home, Sunday Trust’s page one lead story titled ‘ Hoe INEC bungled presidential elections’, among other things said the April 14 and 21 elections conducted by INEC lacked credibility because it was enmeshed in missing party logos, missing names of candidates and pictures, insufficient ballot papers, result sheets and other election papers, stuffing of ballot boxes outside designated polling booths, and using INEC, PDP members and security agents to intimidate and scare other voters from voting among others as the hidden agenda adopted by PDP to secure ‘victory’ at the polls. It is important to also use this unique opportunity of reviewing the April 2007 ‘elections’ conducted by Dictator Obasanjo to bring to focus the comments of some notable individuals, civil society groups, national and international organizations, and other stakeholders in our democratic systems as participants in monitoring of the elections. The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC on its part slammed the Presidency and INEC, expressing outrage over the massively rigged elections in the country. The Institute of human rights and humanitarian law, IHRHL on its part said that having participated in the monitoring exercise of the elections it has come to the conclusion that no credible elections were held in Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states. According to IHRHL, the elections were fraught with fundamental irregularities and failed to meet minimum standards of free and fair elections. The report was signed by its Executive Director; Anyakwee Nsirimovu also called for the rejection of the result by all Nigerians. The Transition Monitoring Group, TMG along with six other civil society groups namely labour election monitoring group, LEMG; citizens forum for constitutional reforms, CFCR; electoral reform network, ERN, muslim league for accountability, MULAC; centre for democracy and development, CDD and alliance for credible elections, ACE also seriously criticized the elections and called for its cancellation and the conduct of a fresh exercise. Another notable organization that condemned the elections is the movement for the survival of the Ogoni people, MOSOP which observed that INEC has subverted the people of Nigeria’s will in April 2007 elections.
Former Secretary of State of the US, Madeline Allbright who was in Nigeria during the April 21 elections also said the INEC boss, Iwu was a total failure in the arrangement and conduct of the 2007 elections. Allbright, who chairs the Board of the National Democratic Institute, NDI which monitored the elections, berated Iwu for deceiving Nigerians that all was well on the eve of the elections. According to her, the elections were flawed, deeply flawed with ballot stuffing, violence and shortage of millions of ballot papers. European Union’s chief observer at the elections in Nigeria, Max van den Burg observed: “the elections have not lived up to the expectations and hopes of Nigerians. They cannot therefore be credible. The electoral process was seriously compromised by INEC and security agents.” A Professor of English, poet, playwright and teacher, Niyi Osundare in a letter to President Obasanjo titled ‘Obasanjo: which way out of the electoral rot?’, told Obasanjo: “from the south to the north, from the east to the west, your great party had stormed into ‘victory’ like a behemoth, trampling all rules of decent engagement, raw, astonishingly greedy, and disdainful of the will of the Nigerian people”. He accused the President “every act of yours demonstrates your lack of respect for the people, for the rule of law, and your gross underestimation of the level of political consciousness of the people. Your cunning maneuvering has turned you into an absolute monarch of your great party, your routine disrespect for court injunctions and well deliberated laws from the legislature, your back handed attempt to extend your presidential tenure’. Professor Osundare concluded that President Obasanjo in collaboration with his party and INEC have stolen the peoples voice, trampled their integrity in the dust, frustrated their commonweal, their sacred trust ridiculed and profaned by venal philistines. One wonders how Nigerians can still go to the polls this time around- having seeing and felt the serious undisputable short comings of the ruling PDP under the tutelage of President Obasanjo in the last eight years, to cast their votes for it. Even former Minister and Secretary of the PDP’s Board of Trustees, Professor Jerry Gana had cause to castigate a government he was part and parcel of. Speaking with journalists in Abuja just before the general elections, Professor Gana said: “the PDP government is a failure. After its eight years in office, the PDP is an abject failure.” I am also of the view that as far as I know it there was no election into the state and national assemblies, governorship and the presidency of the country. What was done is merely selection of persons perceived to be allies in the continuation of the OBJ agenda of under developing our country. Most of them are found in the ruling party and a few others in the other parties. At best one can describe the elections as jungle elections overseeing by OBJ personally from the Villa and during his night trips to the states to talk to INEC commissioners, SSS Directors and police commissioners in the states to clamp down on the opposition and ensure the ‘victory’ of the PDP and its candidates at all levels. These elections have once more proved to Nigerians that the PDP and its national life leader are a failure and liability to Nigerians and Nigeria. These elections must not be allowed to stand. They must be cancelled and fresh elections conducted under a totally neutral body and supervised by an impartial presidency. In this case, the national assembly must act past, impeach Obasanjo, dissolve INEC, cancel the elections and order a fresh conduct before or after May 29, 2007. These, I and other Nigerians feel, is the only way to restore credibility in our electoral process and therefore our democracy and its institutional structures all over the country. The number of protests and condemnation across the country is enough to make Iwu and his presidency sponsors resign honourably from office for their total failure to conduct free, fair and credible elections in the country. |