Also published in Daily Trust
I did not write last Friday despite the controversial
election postponement by the obviously coerced Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC). I simply lost motivation to write and have ever since then
been struggling to overcome a creeping sense of despair induced by the apparent
motive behind such politically motivated, unwarranted, unjustified and indeed
unjustifiable decision.
It is certainly part of a multifaceted and mischievous scheme
designed to exhaust and frustrate the unprecedented momentum of the current
political phenomenon that would, God willing, bring about the anxiously needed
leadership change in the country. The aim is to ensure the continuity of the
disastrous tenure of the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, by hook or by
crook.
Facing a looming disgraceful election defeat, the
increasingly desperate President Jonathan and the vested interests benefitting
from his misrule have apparently vowed to cling to power despite the
phenomenally growing clamour for change, and indeed regardless of whatever
consequence for that matter.
Their mounting sense of desperation has been made worse by
their growing worries that their vote rigging strategies are not likely to work
out well for them this time around due to the sheer amount of popular support
for change on one hand and the INEC’s commendable adoption of modern voting
transparency enhancement technology that would make it difficult for them to
commit vote rigging massive enough to tamper with the election results, one the
other.
They have been making ridiculous insinuations and empty
allegations to cast doubt on the reliability of the technology in order to
discredit it and fabricate the pretexts they need to discard it altogether in
favour of the previous voting method and process, which is quite easy to
manipulate in committing electoral fraud.
It was also in this context that the PDP-led Senate summoned
INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega to appear before it to demonstrate and
explain how the voter card reader device functions, which he brilliantly did
last Wednesday, thereby putting the unfounded doubts raised against the use of
the technology, to rest.
Yet, it is clear that, unless President Jonathan and his
cohorts are completely overwhelmed by sustained pressure from the public,
political parties, local and international organizations as well as foreign
governments, they will not refrain from their frantic efforts to thwart the
conduct of the elections within the time frame constitutionally allowed.
They simply want to create unnecessary constitutional crisis
to justify the ‘necessity’ of holding onto to the reins of power beyond their
tenure, and also capitalize on the inevitably ensuing confusion and chaos to
carefully mastermind elaborate vote rigging strategies in order to perpetuate
the status quo.
Also, even if they eventually succumb to such local and
international pressure and allow the INEC to conduct the elections on March 28
and April 11 respectively as rescheduled, they would still do their worst in
their desperate efforts to rig it.
After all, the orchestrated and sponsored campaign of calumny
against the main presidential contender and the increasingly popular Muhammad
Buhari, which even though has largely failed, the several courts cases and
other politically motivated tactics being systematically pursued by and/or on
behalf of President Jonathon and the other vested interests, are all aimed at
frustrating Buhari’s candidacy, which they rightly believe represents the only
real threat to President Jonathan’s chance of re-election.
Their vehement insistence to rig the elections, which, by
implications, means undermining the country’s democracy can be compared to the
desperation of Boko Haram militants who have vowed and are indeed fighting
relentlessly to destabilize the country’s democratic system, institutions and
indeed dismantle the whole Nigerian state for that matter.
Therefore, in essence, there are two subversive forces (i.e.
Boko Haram and those vested interests) which, though they overtly oppose each
other, they (effectively) covertly collaborate with each other to keep the
country perpetually instable politically, bankrupt economically, and chaotic socially,
only that Boko Haram are unremorsefully violent in their approach while the
vested interests holding Nigeria back manipulate the state apparatus to pursue
their mischievous agendas and achieve their selfish goals.
By the way, whether it is coincidental or deliberately
schemed, it is quite interesting that while the vested interests are
frantically manoeuvring in order to retain power either through rigged
elections or illegal tenure extension, Boko Haram has vowed to violently
disrupt and frustrate the election process altogether.
Anyway, though in many emerging democracies, incumbents,
unfortunately, go to any extent to cling to power for as long as they can, it
is particularly frustrating when they are hell-bent on doing so despite their
persistent leadership failure as in the case of Nigeria for instance where
President Jonathan is insisting on holding onto power by all means.
Nigeria’s democracy might have grown relatively too strong to
be threatened by any possible military takeover, yet its failure to develop
into a civilized democracy governed by strong institutions instead of strong
individuals as now obtains in the country, remains the greatest obstacle it has
to overcome in order to achieve sustainable socio-economic development, political
stability and peace.
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