In Nigeria, nothing is off limits; anything could be toyed with in our country without strong institutions and without respect for laws, norms and citizens. The postponement of the Edo governorship election had begun as a joke before it materialized.
With the election only hours away, the Police and Department of State Security (DSS) set the alarm bell ringing. According to a security report only the two agencies were privy to, heavens will fall if the Edo State governorship election scheduled for September 10 was not called off.
At first, the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) snubbed and was hell-bent on going ahead with the election. But the Police and DSS upped their blackmail by saying that they would not be in a position to guarantee security, especially for INEC staff.
Nigeria’s security agencies are unserious. Even if there were security threats, the right thing to do was not to run for the mountains, rather to do their job, which is to rise up to the challenge and provide security. Have you ever heard that a civilized country postponed an election merely because some miscreants are planning mischief?
The case of Nigeria is always different. Nothing is absurd. With no pressure coming from the APC federal government (which lends credence to the theory that it is part of the conspiracy), the Police and DSS succeeded in bullying INEC. The electoral body had no other option than to postpone the poll. In fact, to make going ahead with the election impossible, I have it on good authority that the Federal Government instructed the Central Bank of Nigeria not to release electoral materials to INEC.
I was an ardent critic of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Like him or hate him, undeniable is the fact that he enriched our democracy by making sure that votes counted. This is why we even have the APC government in the first place. Jonathan gave former INEC boss, Prof Attahiru Jega the freedom; all he needed and at the end INEC was on its way to becoming an uncommon strong institution.
Unfortunately, the progress we had made in our electoral process has been destroyed by this conspiracy to shift the Edo governorship election. Whenever, that election is eventually held, would the parties go away satisfied that the people have spoken through the ballot box? Certainly no. There would surely be grievances, founded or unfounded, which will emerge from this dubious election postponement. This leads to lack of trust in the electoral system.
I read Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s conundrum. He said that PDP imported 8,000 militants to cause trouble, which was why the election was postponed. I don’t know how he arrived at the exact number of militants PDP wanted to use to win the election. I also have serious doubt if the total number of militants in the South-South is up to that figure.
His bogus claim fits into the culture of leaders not taking the people seriously. Those who find themselves in the corridors of power in Nigeria have the audacity to tell the citizens anything – even when it would not make any sense to a child.
Time changes. Once upon a time, President Muhammadu Buhari was fighting for justice and fair-play in the electoral process. And we all remember how bone-headed he was in his cause. Three times he ran for the presidency, three times he lost and three times he cried foul and ran to the courts for relief.
It was during the darkest ages of our electoral process. The years when elections (actually quasi-elections) were for the highest bidder. Then came Jonathan and Jega. These two men put our democracy on the right path. Both made it seem we could get it right.
In my wildest dream, I would never have believed that Buhari, who made us believe he is the greatest victim of electoral fraud in the fourth republic, will allow an election to be cancelled, under his watch, on the flimsy excuse of security concerns.
Ironically, this happened in a week he went to town preaching to Nigerians about change, telling them that change must begin with them. Yet, he allowed his party to use security agencies to reverse the little progress we have made in our democratic forward-march.
There is now a dangerous precedent. What it means is that the DSS and Police, who should only be seen and not be heard in a democracy, are now the ones to say when we will have elections or not. When the DSS and police began the expensive joke, I had expected Buhari to call his security chiefs and order them to do their job – which was to do all and ensure that the Edo governorship election took place peacefully.
It was not an impossible task. The fact that the security agencies found out there were security threats, meant that they have done 50% of what was expected of them. If a plot is uncovered, wherein still lies the threat? What kind of security threat could prevent an election in Edo State when elections were held in Northeast States at a time Boko Haram had not been “defeated”?
To say the least, the postponement of the Edo election is a truncation of our democracy. The PDP called it a coup against the people of the state in particular and Nigerians in general. I have rarely agreed with this party called PDP, but I cannot disagree.
The main opposition party accused the APC of shifting the election, using top hierarchy of the security agencies, in an attempt to buy time because the ruling party was “clearly heading for a major electoral catastrophe” in Edo.
It is difficult not to find the position of the PDP persuasive. Majority of Nigerians are seduced by that theory.
The fact of the matter remains that Buhari’s government has written a sad chapter in Nigeria’s democracy and many now fear that this is a sign of what elections would look like under the watch of the former military dictator.
The suppression of the people’s will is a political culture in Nigeria and Buhari has now shown he is not better than those he called names in the past. Actually, from the way he had cried hoax over waste in government, I had expected him to use Keke as official vehicle. But he is still enjoying the same fleet of luxurious SUVs used by his predecessor. And he has also wasted taxpayers’ N5billion in fifteen months of his presidency maintaining 10-aircraft presidential fleet. I had expected him to auction those planes. What does a president of a poor African country need ten planes for?
Be that as it may, millions of Nigerians routed for Buhari in 2015, believing he would rise above party politics and be that statesman the country desperately needed to climb to the next level. That hope has been dashed. He turned out to be a parochial minded leader, who is even still finding it difficult to forgive those who did not vote for him.
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