A time comes in the
life of a nation when men of valour have to stand up and be counted at epochal
moments to stop the ship of state from either drowning or derailing. The
history of mankind is replete with the exploits of great men and women who rose
to become something out of nothing and selflessly shaped the future and destiny
of their societies. These men and women make all the sacrifices and at the risk
of their personal safety and resources take the difficult road to put their
nations on the map of development and progress.
In China, they keep
talking about Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao), in Singapore, it is Lee Kuan Yew, and in
South Africa, it is Nelson Mandela. But it is not only presidents or leaders of
countries who have had this immense impact in shaping the history of their
respective nations’ politics and polity. The history of the United States will
not be complete without the sacrifices and advocacy of great men like Martin
Luther King (Jr.) and Malcolm X, both of whom paid the ultimate price for their
conviction. In Nigeria, we have had the benefit of seeing great statesmen like
the eloquent Nnamdi Azikwe, the visionary and selfless Ahmadu Bello, the
philosopher-statesman, Obafemi Awolowo, the foremost masses advocate, Aminu
Kano among several others.
These great men used
different methods and ways to define the destiny of their respective peoples.
They put their resources and talents to use in building virile nations that
their future generations have always been proud of.
The PDP Presidential candidate,
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has made an immeasurable success out of his life. From
lonely, challenging poverty-stricken childhood, he has through a dint of hard
work, diligence and grace of God, risen to become a fulfilled father and
husband, a celebrated entrepreneur, cheerful philanthropist and a conscientious
nation builder. He has however never failed to acknowledge that in addition to
his business acumen and sheer brilliancy, it is the Nigerian society that has
made it possible for him to excel in all he has laid his hands on. He has
therefore over the years insisted that the society must also give upcoming
generations the same platform to succeed as well. That was why since 1992 he
has sought to serve the country at the highest level of governance. That was
why on the February 23 2019, Nigerian voters who had bought into his vision of
a properly structured, economically-sound and prosperous nation voted for him
en masse before the enemies of the nation changed the result overnight.
Those who are
cajoling, begging, intimidating, harassing and blackmailing Atiku not to go to
court to challenge the curious figures that INEC boss, Professor Mahmud Yakubu,
allocated to President Muhammadu Buhari, are indeed not fair to Nigerians. This
is because INEC cannot set a rule and break the rule by itself and be allowed
to get away with the grave injustice. The most shocking aspect of the electoral
malfeasance put together by INEC which must be of significant interest to our
learned justices must be the issue of card readers. The INEC boss emphasized
that it must be used for accreditation or an entire polling unit will be
cancelled. But when he was presented with the evidence that card readers were
not used in most of the places they allocated huge numbers to APC, he threw
integrity to the wind by seeking to change the rule in the middle of the game.
He said the rule on card readers could be by-passed in the case of any
‘circumvention’ of the machines. Circumvention? How? Why? Where? By Who? And
who should suffer the consequences of the so-called ‘circumvention of the card
readers?
Secondly, many of the
figures reeled out by the inconsistent INEC boss did not add up and even though
he promised to provide clarifications after the announcement, he has not done
so nearly two weeks after the polls. There is no better way to detect
dishonesty.
While declaring Buhari
as the winner, saying he polled a total of 15,191,847 votes to defeat the
Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who scored 11,262,978
votes, Yakubu said 29,364,209 voters were accredited, while the total number of
valid votes cast were 27,324,583 with total rejected votes of 1,289,607,
putting total votes cast at 28,614,190. This means that a total of 1.6 million
people were missing in the voter register, considering the fact that the number
of registered voters was over 84 million, while the number of collated voters,
according to the INEC chairman, was over 82 million.
Thirdly, we have seen
hundreds of videos which came out of Borno, Zamfara, Yobe, Kano, Katsina Sokoto
etc where people gather in strange places and thumb printed massively for the
APC. The ballot papers used for the election in these selected places must be
subjected to thorough forensic checks. If this is done, it will shock Nigerians
that in many cases, one person thumb printed hundreds of ballot papers. Why
should such disservice to the electoral process be allowed to stand in the name
of a narrow definition of peace? There can’t possibly be any real peace without
justice and without real peace; we can’t make progress as a nation.
Having budgeted N27
billion for technology alone in the 2018 budget, every right thinking Nigerian
interested in the credibility of the electoral process expected INEC to for the
purpose of transparency and law, display the card reader details to party
agents to show how many voters went through the machines. But they did not and
this will continue to be a serious dent on the integrity of the election. The
difference between the accredited voters and the votes cast, which came to
about 750,000 votes is also very suspicious and INEC has some explanations to
make. The cancellations that took place in PDP strongholds impacting 2.7
million voters are also fraud-laden.
The people who are
mocking Atiku and saying his court case is a wild goose chase are not good
students of history. These ignoramuses claim that because no presidential
election has either been annulled or upturned in the history of the country,
Atiku is wasting his time and energy. But we must inform them that the world
does not revolve around Nigeria’s history, after all, we have not practised
democracy consistently beyond 20 years. That was why some other obsessive
historians said the change of guard of 2015 was impossible because it was
unprecedented. The fact that that jinx or myth was broken in 2015 should open
the minds of people to the reality of the moment that another jinx could be
broken in 2019 even if it means Atiku would be the hero once again. But when
this happens, would that be the first time Atiku would be setting records and
breaking new grounds in the country’s judiciary? The answer is no.
It is on record that
Atiku insisted on testing the Nigerian law in court when his ambition to run
for President in 2007 was threatened by EFCC and other government agencies
which sought to disqualify him on account of some phony indictments. Atiku went
up to the apex court which agreed with him that it was only the judiciary that
could find someone guilty of corruption and also disqualify any aspirant from
seeking a political office. The landmark cases he won have been sources of
references for scholars, Law students and politicians ever since. Since then no
governor or President has been able to use state agencies to stop their political
rivals from aspiring for any office of their choice.
If Nigeria is truly a
democratic nation, there is no way such malfeasance should be allowed to stand.
It is actually easier and cheaper to operate a monarchical system and let a few
households rule forever instead of spending billions of naira and losing lives
just to conduct what will end up as a charade.
Again, Nigeria will
not be the first to annul a badly conducted presidential election as there are
precedents seen in Europe and even Africa. Ukraine annulled its presidential
elections in 2004 after Victor Yanukovych, who had lost to Victor Yuchchenko
after the second round, went to court seeking to annul the results over sundry
irregularities.
In Maldives, the
country’s Supreme Court invalidated the results of 2013 first round presidential
elections pitting former President Mohamed Nasheed and Abdulla Yameen against
each other. The later had won the election but the court described the poll as
a sham which cannot stand in the sight of the law.
Similarly, the
Constitutional Court of Austria ordered a repeat vote after ruling that Austria
electoral law was disregarded in 14 of 117 administrative districts in the 2016
election. In the polls, Alexander Van der Bellen had been declared the winner
after beating Norbert Hoffer. It also ruled that 77,900 absentee ballots had
been improperly counted too early. They ordered a repeat vote to be conducted
in October 2016 but it was postponed to December 2016.
More recently and
closer home in Kenya; the Supreme Court in September 2017 nullified reelection
of President Uhuru Kenyatta saying the polls were “neither transparent nor
verifiable” and blamed the country’s electoral commission for the shortcomings.
Kenyatta, the incumbent president, had won a second term by a margin of 9%,
defeating his long-term rival, Raila Odinga before the polls were annulled.
Now that Atiku
Abubakar has chosen a patriotic battle not only to reclaim his mandate but also
expand the horizon of the country’s jurisprudence and improve the electoral
process, all Nigerians of good conscience must irrespective of political
affiliations rally round him and encourage him. Atiku’s ambition is not just to
be President and rescue Nigeria from poverty and insecurity but to also place
the country on map of civilized, democratic and progressive nations.
