Fwd: [NaijaElections] Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Wither Nigeria's demoncrazy?

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From:	OKa...@aol.com
To:	USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
Cc:	ehia...@yahoo.co.uk; abuj...@yahoogroups.com; OKa...@aol.com
Subject:	Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Wither Nigeria's demoncrazy?
Date:	Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:18 AM

 

 

Dear All:

 

 

Tony Iyare's essay on the recently concluded Nigerian elections is an insightful analysis of the current post- electoral political quagmire in Nigeria. As Tony Iyare implied, blaming INEC for everything that went wrong with the 2007 Nigerian Elections is like blaming the night watchman/guard for the daylight burglary of a house with many unlocked doors.

 

The   elections conducted over  past two weekends are not only below world standard, they also fall far below what is expected of Nigeria 46 years post independence especially when one considers all the resources at INEC's disposal.

 

Next to India's, conducting a credible election that covers 140 million citizens in Nigeria's varied geographic terrain relying on close to a million mostly barely literate workers and obsolete technology is probably the most difficult election electoral assignment in the world.

 

The probability of success in falsely manipulating  the results of an election in any jurisidiction in Nigeria (i.e. the 'riggability' quotient)  is directly proportional to the 'political support' a given candidate or party enjoys in the particular jurisdiction ward or riding. Political parties bent on rigging an election stuff the ballots whereever the opportunities to do so are available.

 

In other words political parties rig most successfully in areas where they have the strongest support. Thus using perverse logic it might be deduced that even after discounting for the incumbency factor, the PDP probably had the most electoral support in the widest geographical regions in Nigeria.

 

After announcing the results of the gubernatorial elections a female Regional Election Commissioner lamented openly how instead of the  thousands of  election scrutineers registered to supervise elections in hundreds of ridings in her state, only about two hundred showed up for duty.

 

The blame for the widespread rigging of elections in the 2007 elections neither lies exclusively with the FGN, the PDP nor with INEC officials. We need to ask how many of the registered scrutineers for the opposition parties such as AC, APGA, PPA and others reported for work in the thousands of ridings where election rigging was allegedly rampant.

 

In other words, just how prepared were the leaders of the opposition parties for the 2007 elections?

 

Election rigging is a crime of opportunity! This is sad but true.

 

Conducting fresh elections is a non starter considering the huge cost of such a venture without a guarantee of a better result. Streets protests with the potential of degenerating into violent actions are also not the answer as these are detrimental to the economic welfare of Nigeran citizens.

 

It would appear that for the moment Nigerians have no choice but to embrace Alhaji Umar Yaradua, as Nigeria's president elect having emerged as the winner in a badly flawed Presidential Election where his party, the PDP appears to have rigged the most!

 

The judicial system remains the only feasible option for the numerous candidates who feel justifiably aggrieved that they have been denied a just electoral process. Luckily for Nigerians, the judiciary at all levels have remained steadfast in their defence of the Nigerian constitution in all matters brought to them regarding the recently concluded elections

 

Bye,

 

Ola

 

 

 

 

In a message dated 4/24/2007 9:25:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time, ehia...@yahoo.co.uk writes:

Scorpionflakes

 

Daily Times of Nigeria

Tuesday, April 24, 2007.

 

Wither Nigeria’s demoncrazy?

 

For those who appear disconsolate and heavily weighed down by the country’s seemingly flawed electoral process or what is derisively called demoncrazy, the prosaic quote from French Prime Minister Dominique Villepin, that democracy in Africa is not like Saul changing to Paul on the way to Damascus, should provide some balm.

 

In Villepin’s view therefore, consolidating democracy in the crisis riddled continent, with close to 80 per cent of the world’s refugees, needs to undergo a very pain staking process. By inference those who wish that Nigeria, a 44 year old republic must be founded on concrete democratic structures should not be carried away by the simplistic model of merely parroting the western paradign.

 

Many analysts are enamoured by the cling to the easy way. They are disturbed that our democracy is in shreds. They prefer to throw an avalanche of darts at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) led by Professor Maurice Iwu for conducting an election which is perceived as just a thin line from a ‘selection’ process.

 

Unfortunately we seem to blame Iwu for the wrong things, including the failure of the security apparatti who prefer to play ostrich while electoral offences were glaringly committed. We sometimes make comparison between our election and that of South Africa and Ghana without bordering about the enormity of the Nigerian assignment and the peculiarity of our environment.

 

With 200,000 polling units and one million ad hoc staff, I find it difficult not to share Iwu’s anxiety that this is one of the largest elections conducted anywhere in the world. We need to avoid inanities and concentrate on the “big picture”, he says. I concur. Our concern should be picking up the pieces and ruminating over critical questions as we traverse the landmines to building democracy in the world’s largest Black Country.

 

 Does INEC have control over the Police or Army who were contracted to secure electoral materials? How realistic is it to vouch for the integrity of one million ad hoc staff that may harbour their own hidden agenda? How easy is it to deal with 200,000 polling units or to criss cross the ardous terrain of Nigeria to conduct five different elections in a spate of two weeks? Confronted by a decrepit and decaying socio-infrastructure, were our expectations that INEC would perform a miracle not misplaced?

 

We must avoid reducing the problems of building a sustainable democracy in Nigeria to INEC or Iwu. It is important that in providing a recipe that will take our democracy to a higher pedestal, we need to take a holistic view of the reasons for our inability to foist a credible election and seek to seriously tackle the cankerworm.

 

Is it possible to enthrone a genuine democracy within the context of a highly impoverished citizenry?  One too eager to barter its birthright for a mess of pottage. You remember the indices from the UN Human Development Report ranks Nigeria among countries that are either emerging or deep in the throes of civil war like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda and even Somalia.

 

With Per Capita Income of $350, a rising infant mortality rate, a life expectancy of 43 years and more than 70 per cent of its citizenry living below one dollar, life is hellish for many Nigerians who are now vulnerable to the lure of rice, salt, milk, sugar and some miserable wads of notes. Is it not idealistic to expect to grow our democracy within the confines of a highly pauperized and malnourished people? Are the people strong enough to engage the process and defend their mandate?  

 

Are the political parties serious about engaging the process? Why are they shying away from galvanizing the mass of the people. Are the political parties anchored on identifiable manifestoes and programmes?

 

How distinguishable are the 50 political parties stroking our political space like atoms? How credible were the candidates thrown up by the parties? Why were they prostrate in engaging in coalitions to confront the shenanigans of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? How many of the parties have a valid register of their members? Why was it impossible for the progressive leaning parties to either fuse or strike a working alliance?

 

It is vital that we strengthen many of our very fragile institutions. The Judiciary which has raised its head so far in its adjudication of one of our most litigated electoral processes must be strengthened. The Legislature which has remained comatose must be assisted not only to bark and bite but put the Executive arm on its toes.

 

We need to reform the security forces to appreciate the need to defend the wish of the people. We may need to rethink the idea of a bloated 50 parties which are largely spineless and disconnected from the citizenry. We need to open up the economic space to bolster the pockets of the citizenry.

 

INEC should truly be made independent both in form and content, particularly through the process of appointment of its key officials and the funding of its activities. We must be mindful that we stand imperiled as a nation if we do not take urgent steps to restore the people’s confidence in the vote.

 

 

 

Tony Iyare
Editor, Business Times,

Daily Times of Nigeria Plc,

3, Otunba Jobi Fele Way,

Alausa Business District, Ikeja,

Lagos, Nigeria.

Mobile Phone:: 234-803-304-6943, 234-702-809-1704,

Home Phone: 234-1-850-6335

E-mail: ehia...@yahoo.co.uk

Website: www.dailytimes-nigeria.com

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[jare Ajayi]

Good day everybody,

I dont think we are being fair to ourselves with the penchant by some of us to evoke collective guilt for a crime committed by a few.

While "political parties rig most successfully in areas where they have the strongest support"  it is certainly not true that "the PDP probably had the most electoral support in the widest geographical regions in Nigeria" as advanced by Mr Ola Kassim.

The widespread electoral fraud was perpetuated at that level and in such a brazen manner because the PDP employed the services of the police, the army, sundry security agencies and INEC to do its bidding. I am in Nigeria all through the election period. I know in Ibadan that the soldiers who went to the house of a PDP chieftain had to change the purpose of their going when they got an order - according to one of the junior officers in the team.

The fact was that many people were scared away from the voting booth. Most of what came to be recorded as ballot were not thumbprinted at officially designated voting centres.

(The last election recalls to one's mind, the call by some governors for state police.)

As for party agents not being there, who dare stay in the face of guns and cudgels wielded by soldiers, police and thugs? We know that it is the federal government, the presidency in particular, who has control over the security agencies including the military.

Let us call a spade its name so that we can genuinely find the best use for it.

Our country needs salvation. Salvation that can only be brought about by our collective will and readiness not to suffer fools anylonger.

Jare Ajayi

olaka...@aol.com wrote:

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[Tony Agbali]

I do not get this point that because political parties are wont to rig elections where they have relative, if not absolute, support, rigged elections, injust as they are must be sustained as valid. To steal an election is both amoral and immoral. It is deceitful, fraudulent, and disgusting.  It seems to me to equate to the logic that because terrorists are good at committing terror and possess certain modicum of support among some given interests, terrorism is good and must become acknowledged as morally acceptable. Maybe, too what we are saying is that because previous injustices with regards to election and domination occurred in the past, the present and the future should be perpetually tied to an unjust structure and system, that with all certainty have so far rendered Nigeria redoundant and non-progressive.

I get the point that canceling the election would introduce new complexities. But when is Nigeria ever going to check the stockpiling of one injustice over another.  No one wants disorder, but the state's sovereignty is the outcome of a people's sovereignty. Since the people's sovereignty delegated to the state can no longer be assured, what is the only available means open to them?  All over the world in Yugoslavia the people had to do so to dismantle the late Milosevic hold on power and arbitrary domination. In Cote d'Ivoire, the late General Robert Guei, in tempering with the people's will met his Waterloo, losing his life.  We do not subscribe violence for Nigeria, but the people at some point would have to assert their will. It is to the extent by which American Blacks demonstrated their will through the civil rights movement headed by Rosa Park and Martin Luther King Jr. that there's been some focal progressive movement in America, that continue to manifest and offer better opportunities in America.

The basic point regarding the election issue that has not been neatly articulated, is that those parading as leaders, lack the basic requisite credentials, primarily because most of them have traumatized Nigeria in the past, or indirectly have been beneficiaries of such traumatization of the national psyche. Therefore, I do not foresee how a Buhari or Atiku could be credible leaders of any meaningful opposition movement. Whether, where they and what role did they play in redressing the injustice that caused the electoral imbroglio and political impasse of June 12th, 1993 that denied Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO) from claiming his mandate?

The point that Nigerians could be seen almost as dummy templates upon which any and every crazed leader could use like rubber stamps and stampede upon is what is troubling than even the fact of which individual won the election. How can a government who continued to lie that it was working for the betterment of Nigeria and Nigerians, degenerate and condescend so low?  It is time for great self-reflection and time of prayer for peace and national repentance.  Obasanjo himself has suggested that the problems of Nigeria needs spiritual resolutions. Unfortunately, his messianic arrogance over these many years have scuttled the vision of a democratically enhanced Nigeria. What we recently saw is a retrograding Nigeria, going back to primitive processes of stealing and stuffing ballot boxes in the style of the 1950s and 1960s. It is decriable that in the 21st century Nigeria, using our youths whom they have intentionally pauperized and reduced to living in penury, Nigerian politicians can be so obtusely morally depraved and corruptly dishonest.  Yet, we quarrel when the rest of the world label us as dishonest. Even, as depicted sometimes ago by Fr. Matthew Kukah, we are derided and scorned by even our own fellow Africans, maltreated and defiled.  It is the way we image ourselves that make others to treat us as scorns of the earth, scums from a nation that has no conscience. Can we complain?  Unfortunately, we decry the injustices melted out to us outside of our homeland shores- whether it is CNN or ABC calling us Bank Robbers or Scammers, or immigration officers discriminating and maltreating us, while we are too gullible, too afraid to call injustice by its name in our own homeland. Nerved by fear or compromising because of the prospects of accrual privileges, we are all too often stunted to submission and quick surrendering. Sometimes, I wonder, if the colonial Americans have so easily acquiesced in the face of British tyranny, whether the land so many of us Nigerians so beloved would have become the space that our imagination so behold? I wonder whether we can fold our hands, standing in akimbo and expect a bright future.  What is so well known even within our own history, is that the many people who forged the crucible of modern Nigeria suffered relentlessly, but many never gave up. I think about Herbert Macaulay, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Obafemi Awolowo, Sardauna Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and even before them people like Jaja of Opobo, Nana of Itshekiri, and many indigenous pre-Nigerian leaders deposed, desecrated, and denigrated but who stood firm in their principled stance.  

 

"Streets protests with the potential of degenerating into violent actions are also not the answer as these are detrimental to the economic welfare of Nigeran citizens."

 

It was the same kind of arguments that militated against sanctions against the Abacha dictatorship until it foraged and permeated into the very crevices of our national lives, before many of the privileged absconded into exile, also not without immense suffering.  Nigerians, for the most part have not had any economic welfare, the economy has remain tattered and shattered for long. Such arguments are only self-serving in safeguarding the interests of the many corruptly enriched Nigerians whose sipphoning from the Nigerian treasury, have enabled them to manipulate and store wealth in foreign accounts.  No Nigerian government since independence have really cared for the economic welfare of Nigerians, neither has the Obasanjo administration, whose pretentious anti-corruption fight has become all too derided as selfish and selective.  Whose economic interest is Obasanjo protecting when her daughter was drafted to run for the senate race- and even thugs having her major opponents shot months to the election? Whose economic interest is the wife of a Rtd. Colonel Ahmadu Adah Ali's wife, Mary protecting, when even without contesting the primaries her name emerged as a winner? Whose economic interest is being protected, when even the EFCC cannot show nerve in prosecuting a Bode George? Whose interest has the Obasanjo government served within the economic arena, except to recycle wealth along a diachronic lineage of those who have often sucked Nigeria dry and milked upon her resources? Just whose?

One thing, however, that this entire charade has glaringly manifested, is that Nigeria has devolved into a class society, and ethnicity holds little determination, though not yet totally dead, in who is a child of privilege therein.  Now, the North has retrieved power- that is, if this charade is allowed to endure, what would be interesting is when again, the south would have it back, having failed to prove that they are better than the erstwhile Arewa leaders, they once so bitterly denounced.  I am sure, Dictator, Ibrahim Babangida is the most happiest Nigerian, history has proven him right that he is not the only Nigerian leader capable of the worst. He now has an ally within Club Evil Genius.  Now, Nigerians would have to show clout, but I know politicians cannot step up to the plate. The last time, it was intellectuals like Wole Soyinka, who glued the opposition into a formidable force. Wole is now over 70 years old, I wonder whether he would go to the trenches once more. I doubt, after all, Dictator Babangida has thrown in the torwel, by noting recently he might not run for political office again, now that he too would soon be 70 by the next election count.  That crowd is thinning that made the battle once thick, but who knows about all these new faces of privilege- the Adedibu sons and daughters, the Omisores, who in spite of old stains of bloody spill constitutes a new dynastic order; novo-hegemonic monguls. History would surely determine, whether Nigeria becomes a canvas upon which the term "progress" can be boldly inscribed, or reveal a carcass dying from within. History alone can reveal. Right now, the people can rewrite the direction of such an history, if only they take the gaunlet. The question is: is there such will? Where there is a will, there would surely be a way!

Attah A. A.

olaka...@aol.com wrote:

[Adeniran Adeboye]

Habah, Laakuli! I do not know if Ola Kassim has had an opportunity to read the reports from observers. How many poll watchers will it take to prevent pre-stuffed ballot boxes? How do the "scrutineers" for the opposition guarantee the opening of the polling stations? What apparatus does the opposition have to compete with the armed police and soldiers directing the operations on behalf of the PDP? How many Nigerians died trying to prevent rigging, against all odds? With the money voted by the National Assembly for INEC's use, why were there such gross issues with the voter registration, and as he said, "barely literate workers and obsolete technology"? Please read those reports, and then please discuss the reliability of the members of the observer groups and the objectivity of their reports.

This reminds me of the last election in Western Nigeria, October 11, 1965. The opposition could not have been better prepared. I should know since I was one of them. We had all polling stations covered and I was posted to one of them with others in the AG, but the police had provided shelter for ballot stuffing. I was also a counting agent after the polling and I remember that day as if it were yesterday. The rest is history. It is however clear that a free and fair election is possible , even in Nigeria. National and international evaluations of June 12 tell me so. Did INEC have less resources for its operations in 2007 than its 1993 counterpart? Have the workers become more illiterate? Have the opposition become less interested? If you really believe that this rigging happened where the PDP was popular, and hence in the whole country, then why was the rigging necessary? You might also want to discuss what the party's "popularity" is based on, like its successes in poverty reduction, supply of electricity, provision and/or maintenance of infrastructure, probity in management of resources, improvement in the education, health and social welfare sectors etc. If I am right, Ola Kassim is a medical doctor and he can compare our government-owned  hospitals like the UCH and LUTH in Nigeria with hospitals anywhere else. Why are there so many Nigeria-trained doctors working outside of Nigeria? One can, of course ask the same questions about other professionals.

In the final analysis sir, our reaction ought to hinge on whether or not we think that our peoples are important and worthy enough to have some say on how and by whom they are governed. The (British) colonial government made no bones about treating our peoples as its subjects, what one would expect is that a post-independence government should regard our peoples as its citizens and one should be able to expect that from a political party that has DEMOCRATIC as its middle name. If all we can do is find excuses for all the excesses of this government, then I wager that we have never had much respect for the peoples, let alone enough love for them to want to improve their lot. That would be a much deeper cut than the rigging itself. WHAT A PITY!

Adeniran Adeboye

[Tony Agbali]

I do not get this point that because political parties are wont to rig elections where they have relative, if not absolute, support, rigged elections, injust as they are must be sustained as valid. To steal an election is both amoral and immoral. It is deceitful, fraudulent, and disgusting.  It seems to me to equate to the logic that because terrorists are good at committing terror and possess certain modicum of support among some given interests, terrorism is good and must become acknowledged as morally acceptable. Maybe, too what we are saying is that because previous injustices with regards to election and domination occurred in the past, the present and the future should be perpetually tied to an unjust structure and system, that with all certainty have so far rendered Nigeria redoundant and non-progressive.

I get the point that canceling the election would introduce new complexities. But when is Nigeria ever going to check the stockpiling of one injustice over another.  No one wants disorder, but the state's sovereignty is the outcome of a people's sovereignty. Since the people's sovereignty delegated to the state can no longer be assured, what is the only available means open to them?  All over the world in Yugoslavia the people had to do so to dismantle the late Milosevic hold on power and arbitrary domination. In Cote d'Ivoire, the late General Robert Guei, in tempering with the people's will met his Waterloo, losing his life.  We do not subscribe violence for Nigeria, but the people at some point would have to assert their will. It is to the extent by which American Blacks demonstrated their will through the civil rights movement headed by Rosa Park and Martin Luther King Jr. that there's been some focal progressive movement in America, that continue to manifest and offer better opportunities in America.

The basic point regarding the election issue that has not been neatly articulated, is that those parading as leaders, lack the basic requisite credentials, primarily because most of them have traumatized Nigeria in the past, or indirectly have been beneficiaries of such traumatization of the national psyche. Therefore, I do not foresee how a Buhari or Atiku could be credible leaders of any meaningful opposition movement. Whether, where they and what role did they play in redressing the injustice that caused the electoral imbroglio and political impasse of June 12th, 1993 that denied Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO) from claiming his mandate?

The point that Nigerians could be seen almost as dummy templates upon which any and every crazed leader could use like rubber stamps and stampede upon is what is troubling than even the fact of which individual won the election. How can a government who continued to lie that it was working for the betterment of Nigeria and Nigerians, degenerate and condescend so low?  It is time for great self-reflection and time of prayer for peace and national repentance.  Obasanjo himself has suggested that the problems of Nigeria needs spiritual resolutions. Unfortunately, his messianic arrogance over these many years have scuttled the vision of a democratically enhanced Nigeria. What we recently saw is a retrograding Nigeria, going back to primitive processes of stealing and stuffing ballot boxes in the style of the 1950s and 1960s. It is decriable that in the 21st century Nigeria, using our youths whom they have intentionally pauperized and reduced to living in penury, Nigerian politicians can be so obtusely morally depraved and corruptly dishonest.  Yet, we quarrel when the rest of the world label us as dishonest. Even, as depicted sometimes ago by Fr. Matthew Kukah, we are derided and scorned by even our own fellow Africans, maltreated and defiled.  It is the way we image ourselves that make others to treat us as scorns of the earth, scums from a nation that has no conscience. Can we complain?  Unfortunately, we decry the injustices melted out to us outside of our homeland shores- whether it is CNN or ABC calling us Bank Robbers or Scammers, or immigration officers discriminating and maltreating us, while we are too gullible, too afraid to call injustice by its name in our own homeland. Nerved by fear or compromising because of the prospects of accrual privileges, we are all too often stunted to submission and quick surrendering. Sometimes, I wonder, if the colonial Americans have so easily acquiesced in the face of British tyranny, whether the land so many of us Nigerians so beloved would have become the space that our imagination so behold? I wonder whether we can fold our hands, standing in akimbo and expect a bright future.  What is so well known even within our own history, is that the many people who forged the crucible of modern Nigeria suffered relentlessly, but many never gave up. I think about Herbert Macaulay, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Obafemi Awolowo, Sardauna Ahmadu Bello, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and even before them people like Jaja of Opobo, Nana of Itshekiri, and many indigenous pre-Nigerian leaders deposed, desecrated, and denigrated but who stood firm in their principled stance.  

 

"Streets protests with the potential of degenerating into violent actions are also not the answer as these are detrimental to the economic welfare of Nigeran citizens."

 

It was the same kind of arguments that militated against sanctions against the Abacha dictatorship until it foraged and permeated into the very crevices of our national lives, before many of the privileged absconded into exile, also not without immense suffering.  Nigerians, for the most part have not had any economic welfare, the economy has remain tattered and shattered for long. Such arguments are only self-serving in safeguarding the interests of the many corruptly enriched Nigerians whose sipphoning from the Nigerian treasury, have enabled them to manipulate and store wealth in foreign accounts.  No Nigerian government since independence have really cared for the economic welfare of Nigerians, neither has the Obasanjo administration, whose pretentious anti-corruption fight has become all too derided as selfish and selective.  Whose economic interest is Obasanjo protecting when her daughter was drafted to run for the senate race- and even thugs having her major opponents shot months to the election? Whose economic interest is the wife of a Rtd. Colonel Ahmadu Adah Ali's wife, Mary protecting, when even without contesting the primaries her name emerged as a winner? Whose economic interest is being protected, when even the EFCC cannot show nerve in prosecuting a Bode George? Whose interest has the Obasanjo government served within the economic arena, except to recycle wealth along a diachronic lineage of those who have often sucked Nigeria dry and milked upon her resources? Just whose?

One thing, however, that this entire charade has glaringly manifested, is that Nigeria has devolved into a class society, and ethnicity holds little determination, though not yet totally dead, in who is a child of privilege therein.  Now, the North has retrieved power- that is, if this charade is allowed to endure, what would be interesting is when again, the south would have it back, having failed to prove that they are better than the erstwhile Arewa leaders, they once so bitterly denounced.  I am sure, Dictator, Ibrahim Babangida is the most happiest Nigerian, history has proven him right that he is not the only Nigerian leader capable of the worst. He now has an ally within Club Evil Genius.  Now, Nigerians would have to show clout, but I know politicians cannot step up to the plate. The last time, it was intellectuals like Wole Soyinka, who glued the opposition into a formidable force. Wole is now over 70 years old, I wonder whether he would go to the trenches once more. I doubt, after all, Dictator Babangida has thrown in the torwel, by noting recently he might not run for political office again, now that he too would soon be 70 by the next election count.  That crowd is thinning that made the battle once thick, but who knows about all these new faces of privilege- the Adedibu sons and daughters, the Omisores, who in spite of old stains of bloody spill constitutes a new dynastic order; novo-hegemonic monguls. History would surely determine, whether Nigeria becomes a canvas upon which the term "progress" can be boldly inscribed, or reveal a carcass dying from within. History alone can reveal. Right now, the people can rewrite the direction of such an history, if only they take the gaunlet. The question is: is there such will? Where there is a will, there would surely be a way!

Attah A. A.

olaka...@aol.com wrote:

[Anunoby]

The results of the recent elections in Nigeria are unacceptable. All the evidence from other than the President Obasanjo's party (PDP) make clear that the elections were seriously flawed. Some sources go further to state that the elections were flawed by intention and design.  It can in fact be argued that the authorities responsible from the elections have committed serious crimes against the people of Nigeria.

There was always no doubt that Mr. Obasanjo never intended or desired to allow Nigerians choose their leader through lawful free, and fair elections that he continued to promise them.  He seems to have done every thing he could, to ensure that his will regarding the elections' results was done. Mr. Obasanjo in several interviews after the elections, has been reported as acknowledging that the elections may not have be perfect, but that the results should stand.  He was reported as stating that the elections should not be evaluated by western standards. Had he said this before the elections, many more citizens may not have bothered to try to vote in the elections. Mr. Obasanjo has served as a "democratically elected" president of Nigeria for nearly eight years. He has been member of different International Observer Groups that  supported the implantation of democracy and good political governance, and monitored elections in different countries over many years. Mr. Obasanjo must know that election results are not acceptable because the election is perfect.  He must know that the results of an election are acceptable and accepted because the election is lawful, free and fair. 

The Nigerian constitution is very clear on elections and their process. Mr. Obasanjo and the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) that he appointed, made up and changed the law and rules as it suited Mr. Obasanjo. Most informed persons knew that neither Mr. Obasanjo as president nor the INEC was empowered under Nigeria's constitution, to disqualify candidates.  Mr. Obasanjo and INEC continued to do so. When Mr. Obasanjo ran out of manipulation opportunities, intrigue, and time, he declared days before election days work free days (public holidays).  INEC challenges Mr. Obasanjo's opponents in court using public funds.  I am inclined to think that Mr. Obasanjo as president and his government, have lost more cases in court that any other president or government in the world.  He continues to lose cases in court. He has done incalculable damage to the office of president and Nigeria's democratic institutions including the judiciary.  It is instructive that as president, he has worked with 5 different senate presidents and quarreled with each one of them. Not one of these Senate presidents (all members of his party) was reelected senator.

 

When he assumed the exalted office of president of Nigeria, many Nigerians and their friends hoped that he would lay solid foundations for democracy and the rule of law in Nigeria.  He chose not to.  He continues to be blinded by his misguided and strange belief that he is omniscient and omnipotent. It has become clear to many Nigerians that the man is ignorant about effective and successful political governance, and simply incompetent.  His way of dealing with settled ideas and practices that he disagrees with is to conveniently redefine them and force his definitions on all who work for him.  For him, only opponents can be corrupt.  He seems incapable of listening to other points of view. He is not persuaded by superior arguments.  His children at different times, have described him as stubborn in the way that an errant child is stubborn.  He is a man without eristic disposition.  Such a man as president of his country is bound to do more damage than good to his country.

Democratic systems are not valued for their own sake. They are valued because in democratic societies, citizens chose their leaders in lawful free and fair elections. Any one that does not know, understand, and respect this quality of democratic systems is not a democrat even when they claim to be. Citizens choosing their leaders is the absolute reason for and driver of elected officials' accountability in democratic systems. Why should an "elected" officials be accountable to citizens if the official can come into and leave political office, as he/she pleases. The will in a democracy is the public will implemented, by public officials elected in lawful free and fair election and their appointee. The will in a dictatorship is the will of one person or group implemented by this person/group and their agents. The will in Mr. Obasanjo's presidency feels, looks, and smells like the latter rather than the former. Mr. Obasanjo's delusions about personal greatness seem to have caused him to ignore the time tested lesson of history: in politics, your critics are some your truest friend.

Government everywhere is too complicated for any one person to have all the answers.  A country's future is too uncertain for any one person to choose it for all citizens. The public good cannot be the responsibility or challenge of any one person.  The legitimacy of leadership is captured in the acceptance of the led.  It boggles the mind that Mr. Obasanjo as an "elected" president is completely oblivious and unmindful of what Nigerians want, and how Nigeria's resources are consumed.  One can only imagine the economic, moral, political, social, and other cost to Nigeria of these election. How many Nigerians lost their lives over the elections?  How much pressure has the judiciary been under because of the elections?  How many lies have been told by public officials ?  How much distrust has been added to national consciousness? How much damage has been done to national ethos and psyche?  What is the cost to Nigeria of Mr. Obasanjo having his way?  The man has been to much trouble to Nigeria.       

 

The results of the recent elections in Nigeria must be rejected and fresh election must take place.  Mr. Obasanjo and his INEC have proved beyond any doubt that they cannot be trusted with the great responsibility of lawful free and fair elections. He and his INEC must not be part of the organization or management of fresh elections. Nigerians have accepted the results of rigged election in the past hopeful that things will be done better, even if not right, the next time. This hope is forlorn so far.  Opportunists and crooks in public offices have taken full advantage of this hope, perpetrated electoral crimes, hoisted thieves in public offices, and plundered Nigeria's human and material wealth.  It is no longer a surprise that a country that is one of the best and most roundly endowed in the world is also one of the poorest.

This time is as good as any for Nigeria to turn the corner on elections.  Mr. Umaru Yar' Adua has a chance to help set Nigeria's future course.  He will best secure his place in Nigeria's history by rejecting the election results and consequently, the mandate that Mr. Obasanjo and his INEC have given to him. He has a chance to be Nigeria's moral leader as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr. were in their countries, and Madiba Nelson Mandela is to the world today.  Mr. Yar'Adua should show leadership. He should lead and others will follow.  Mr. Yar' Adua in wanting to be president of Nigeria, must be presumed to be a patriot that faithfully wants to serve Nigeria, and make Nigerians happy and proud of their country. What better way to start than for him to reject the election results. Mr. Obasanjo's international recognition as a statesman is believed to be based on his "voluntary" handover of power as Head of State in 1979.  We now know that it may not have been his choice to do so.  Mr. Yar' Adua has a chance today to place himself in the pantheons of democracy and history by rejecting the election results. He must let himself be guided by reason, genuine patriotism, and a sense of history rather than greed, fleeting gain, and long-term infamy.  AS Mr. Obasanjo's selected, he will always be shrouded in the cloak of illegitimacy.  He will never be accorded the respect that he deserves as president. His integrity will remain in doubt.  He will be considered yet another thief/president.  It is unthinkable that he will want to be remembered as Mr. Obasanjo's contraption. 

Good things have been said about Mr. Yar'Adua.  He has a chance to prove to his admirers and critics that he indeed is a patriot, and a man of  character, dignity, and integrity. Mr. Yar' Adua will be the most qualified politician to be Nigeria's president if he rejects these elections' results, and calls for new elections.  If he chooses to run for the office of president in fresh elections, Nigerians will be falling over themselves to elect him.  Nigeria needs men and women of character, dignity, and integrity as citizens and leaders. Nigeria needs men and women of action and deed now.  Mr. Yar'Adua has a once in a lifetime opportunity to emerge as Nigeria's moral and political leader.  History is likely to remember him by the choice that he makes.     

 

 

Ogugua Anunoby Ph.D.

 

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