The maniacal and below-par Machiavellian cling to ego-trippping political power of the APC was evident on Saturday.
Aside the celebrated incompetence of the election postponement, aside the blatant attempt to subvert public enthusiasm that comes as an attendant to the postponement, aside the brazen classlessness of the 14 million votes the APC posted as returns for its primaries, aside the sham of the Ekiti and Osun gubernatorials; February 23, 2019 represents a rainbow of disappointment and dark humour in the political evolution of Africa's largest democracy.
The maniacal and below-par Machiavellian cling to ego-trippping political power of the APC was evident on Saturday. But that's not the crux here. The issue is how their cohorts argue that the PDP must matter-of-factly, for the sake of democratic sportsmanship, concede defeat and publicly congratulate Buhari. While this is the standard norm in countries where the system freckled more by loyalty to propriety than partisanship, the scenario is markedly different from 2015.
In this case, Atiku Abubakar represented the hope of many Nigerians, from the diaspora to political neutrals. But the APC insists Nigerians must accept Buhari's medieval soap opera and the latest four-year franchise. But it begs reasonable belief when there is a plethora of stunning 'buts', protesting as caveats for commonsense. How can the APC legitimize itself in the light of a lot of matter-of-facts?: that after the embarrassment of that interview of Buhari's candidature with Kadaria on national television; after the President shunned what would have been the most epochal Presidential debate in recent history; after 8,000+ Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram deaths with 0 arrests/prosecution, 15 million Nigerians rooted for them?
That after the latest poverty index pegging Nigerian citizens as the world's poorest with 91 million living below $2 a day; after the advent and re-advent of economic recession, that pegs Nigeria absent amongst Africa's top 10 economies having on the progressive list Rwanda and Mauritius; after a 109-day medical hiatus in London for ailments never disclosed; the majority of Nigerian voters tied their collective destinies till 2023 to Muhammadu Buhari?
Are we supposed to suspend our disbelief and accept the concocted verisimilitude of Nigerians actually craving for a government that arm-twisted everyone with an 'opposition birthmark', from the National Assembly to the likes of Deji Adeyanju, to the PDP election-situation room at Abuja, with the DSS and the IG? How did the APC dumb down the fact that everything went up in price from fuel to rice to dollar to a pure water bag; and that it experienced colossal failure in the 3 cardinal points of the APC (Corruption, Economy and Security? Millions scored them pass marks?
In Abonemma and Bonny Island, Rivers State, there was a brazen display of electioneering savagery, that saw attritional behaviour from the military who were in every normal scenario never supposed to be at the forefront of election security. People were injured; people died: laymen, youth Corp members, opposition agents. In Lagos, the world was stunned a day to the election when pictorial and video proof hit the airwaves of the APC patriarch, Bola Tinubu hosted two billion vans in his home at Bourdillion. The next day, voters at Okota, Isolo and Oshodi axis to name a few were hounded. Ballot papers were burnt and snatched in full glare, and a sectarian slush of hatred threatened to open against the Igbos. In Osun and Ekiti, states that had gubernatorial mandates stolen, the margin of APC votes vis-a-vis PDP's was a sham.
The rigging machine ran through the South-South and the South-East with the sole intention of reducing to the barest minimum, win-margins of the PDP against the APC. In the Middle-Belt, states that have been hopelessly ravaged by herdsmen violence and settler-indigene scuffles, and the attendant gut-wrenching mass burials, shockingly turned out politically impossible statistics during the elections. In the North, the reliance on inflated numbers was at an all-time Harry-Porter-esque fable. Kano and Katsina churned out crusade figures that were extensions of viral videos on social media pointing to massive rigging and multiple one-person thumb-printing. The charade even seeped into Atiku's native state: Adamawa.
How come the winner of the Presidential elections in Africa's biggest democracy struggles for legitimacy in the minds of millions of Nigerians, post-announcement? Tens of renowned University professors acted as returning officers for their states, including the INEC chairman who even with over 180 billion naira couldn't sugar-coat confident incompetence, were major villains in the story of February, 2019. Even their professorial wit couldn't cover up the mis-calculation of invalid votes, registered votes and actual voters. A disgrace.
The military all over the world are charged statutorily with the upkeep of territorial sovereignty and quelling internal insurrection. In Nigeria's Presidential election, the military followed up on the President's uncouth shoot-at-side orders and displayed a brazen disrespect for the same citizens they were supposed to constitutionally protect.
Adams Oshiomhole in Osun stumbled across a character defining Freudian slip when he said democracy is better when losers can bear the pain of rigging. Then he immediately and shamelessly corrected himself. This was a man whose reputation was ensconced on the cobblestone of Labour unionism. A disgrace.
Yesterday, Atiku Abubakar, released a press statement that he was formally rejecting the election results. Against the APC's desire for his public concession; against Dele Momodu's sheepish twitter post. This action isn't just Atiku's personal stance. It is a stance on behalf over the overwhelming majority who hoped for a new tide to sweep away North-centric sectarianism and national backwardness. And when you factor in the fact that Senegal organized their election a day after ours and released their results before ours, and the running was smooth and without casualties and anomalies, we should be ashamed as a country.
Atiku and the PDP have taken a stand against the ignominious anti-democracy of Buhari and his cohorts and have decided to staunchly follow up on the national demoralization that greeted INEC's announcement. As much as it is a disaster that in the twentieth year of fourth-republic democracy, the APC have stunted progressive democracy; it has never been more expedient than now to look impunity in the face and mobilize for propriety and the people's mandate.
God bless Nigeria.
Author: Dede Amadi
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