By Alex Abutu
The much talked about 2023 general election is finally here with campaigns and voting’s completed with surprises emerging on every step towards the conduct of the election. This then led to the question on what has happened to all the lessons learnt since 1999 when the country return to democratic style of governance.
In 1999, the elections were marred with a lot of irregularities will all parties condemning the situation, but we all saw that as a learning curve and that in subsequent elections some of those challenges will no longer be seen.
In 2003 the same serpent raised its ugly head again and we all agreed it was time to reflect and introduce fundamental changes to the system but we remained in that boat till the 2007 general elections caught us unawares with the elected President, Yar’adua of blessed memory coming out to tell the whole world that the election that brought him to power was full of anomalies.
He made efforts to strengthen the electoral system after acknowledging that it was still not far from perfect. So the journey for a peaceful, transparent election free of rigging, ballot snatching, and all the usual electoral crimes continued.
Prior to the 2023 elections, the federal government made efforts to put in place an electoral body that any Nigerian can be proud of called the independent national electoral commission (INEC). INEC was adequately funded even when health and education were on serious decline in terms of budgetary allocations and release. This saw the injection of some foolproof innovations to guide against the usual massive rigging and abuses by privileged persons as we were made to understand that all Nigerians are equal before the ballot.
With the financial support from the Federal Government, INEC also had the opportunity to test run their devices and had two countries on the continent Ghana, the emerging West African power house and Kenya, the East African giant holding general elections for them to learn from. But did we learn anything?
The answer is capital NO if the experience of the last few days were anything to write about. What did we not witness? Vote buying? Ballot snatching? Killing? Burning of electoral materials? Massive rigging? People voting for people? B-VAS failure? No internet to transmit result? Etcetera. This clearly shows we did not learn anything after two decades of our democratic experiment that has produced as many presidents as many INEC chairmen.
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In Kenya, elections are hitherto full of all the baggages that are associated with elections in Nigeria. Killing, massive rigging and host of others but in 2022, the country had an election that was devoid of all the crazy stuffs that usually came with previous elections and the world gave them a thumbs up and it was expected that our own INEC would travel over there to see what they did right and how it was done but no we are the giant and can’t learn from any small nation.
Ghana which we usually jokingly refer to as the 37th state of Nigeria also had a general election not long ago and offered us another learning opportunity, but did we learn anything?
Well, if we say, Kenya and Ghana are external, what did we learn from the elections in Osun and Ekiti states where INEC proudly said it was an opportunity for them to test run the equipment and other innovation before the 2023 general election. What did we witness in Osun and Ekiti that did not come to play last Saturday? Is it massive rigging? Failure of B-VAS? Ballot snatching and burning?
The music being played as a recipe for the unpardonable failures is that Nigeria is extremely large with a very bogus population and it will be impossible to expect a perfect election that is free from all the ills that had hitherto bedevil the system. Who said we can’t do it right? Are we bigger that the USA or India?
Failure is a recipe that comes with many shades and it does not all come at once. We should have sensed dangers when the highest court in the land upturn and impose its interpretation on the electoral law by handing slots to those who did not merit it.
We should have seen failure coming when some presidential aspirants were busy abusing others and telling their followers what to do if things worked correctly. Was any aspirant arrested for even questioning when they breached the provisions of the electoral law? What did we do about vote buying? Did we even have any agency of government monitoring campaign funding? How can INEC change its own rule in the middle of the game?
Finally, one day we shall surely get to the stage where credible election in the country is possible. At least we are gradually witnessing a significant reduction in proportion of crimes associated with elections. My joy is that more and more Nigerians are seeing the need to cast and defend their votes. The youth are becoming restless for change and like it is said, change is the only thing that is constant.
Today people stood in the rains and under the sun to defend their votes soon they will do more to defend the entity called Nigeria.
While I call on INEC to ensure that all votes are counted, I urge us to take the outcomes in good faith and channel our grievances to the right sources and not take laws into our hands for we only have Nigeria to call our own.
