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The Supreme Court Judgement And PDP: When Rigging Becomes A Mistake by Prince Charles Dickson
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The Supreme Court Judgement And PDP: When Rigging Becomes A Mistake Prince Charles Dickson ‘It was the late Bala Usman that once asked “can you buy groundnut with a coin that has ten kobo encrypted on both sides?”. Let me start this essay with the knowledge that a lot has been written already on what will go down in history as the most flawed election tribunal verdict in the nation's history.
Few minutes after the 'inJustice', a social critic said, "Look, Nigeria is at the edge such that it needs to fall so that we can start again. Any attempt at moving forward will be a disaster'." "I can say categorically that the sequence only changed slightly. Except Buhari goes to the United States Supreme Court, the ruling would still be the same – a function of crass legalism, a puncture in the tyre of Yar'Adua's slow unarticulated vehicle, one full of all sorts of thugs for conductors and drivers." The above are excerpts from an essay I wrote immediately after the Presidential Election Tribunal verdict early in the year. The most instructive thing there is where I stated that at the Supreme Court, the ruling would still be the same, and indeed, it was. At least, Buhari did not go to the US Supreme Court, so what he got is what we expected. In 2003, the riggging was bad. It got better in 2007 when a certain Judge Fabiyi felt that all that was wrong with the April 2007 election was minimal, an infraction, trivial, of no significance, and as such, we should just go ahead. In delivering the lead judgement, Justice Niki Tobi said he did not see any proof that the elections were flawed. Thank God for the likes of Justice Oguntade who stated categorically that the elections were not conducted in accordance with the principles of the Electoral Act, 2006. Our nation is a funny one. I will state that there are so many things about the law, but none of them is as apt as the fact that the law is an ass. Apologies to those of us that are unlearned, but the fact cannot be erased that the following occurred. The Supreme Court in all its wisdom, placed personal and ephemeral interest above national interest by validating an election that was a sham. An election which was worse, compared to that of both Kenya and Zimbabwe. Before I go far off, there was a comic and a thread to all that was said immediately after the judgement by those that were interviewed on national television – the rigging was a mistake, a negligible mistake. This I found very sad and appalling because it was a tacit approval for politicians to rig with increasing audacity. To seek elective positions they resort to other means than the judiciary because the same institution has endorsed the electoral malpractices inherent in the system. Festus Keyamo captured the mood when he argued that it was a strange election which half of the nation's best legal minds consider flawed but was upheld. He lamented that despite the victory, majority did not consider Yar'Adua a duly elected president. The likes of Vincent Ogbulafor saw light. He said it was all over. Like the coach that he is, his ward, the PDP is on its way to its 60-year dream. The PDP called it a well thought and painstaking judgement. Well thought I do not know. Painstaking, yes; it must have been painstaking for all the crooks involved. I do not know of any person who has a contrary view that the entire election was a sham, a shame and a big slap on the face of Nigerians. At this point, harsh as it may sound and despite the controversy, this evokes Pat Utomi’s statement, "If after eight years of poverty, no light, no food...and Nigerians indeed voted the PDP, then Nigerians are the most stupid people." One only needs to be on ground to understand the frustration, the pain, and much more, to really appreciate the context of the statement which was made on Channels Television shortly after the April polls in 2007. But before we are slaughtered, the question is: did we really vote the PDP? If in several states, resident electoral commissioners were announcing the collated results to local observers and the media same time Professor Iwu was announcing the PDP victorious, it only shows that we are just one set of funny people. The PDP bettered its 2003 record. While in 2003 it was the electoral votes that were manipulated, in 2007 it was the voters' apathy that was manipulated and we were all witnesses of the magic that was performed. Virtually the entire eastern part of the nation was disenfranchised due to late and non-arrival of materials for the election, but the PDP won massively there. In Edo, the senatorial winners of each senatorial district polled more votes than the governor-elect. In Akwa Ibom, the PDP won a senatorial seat without a candidate. Buhari lost in his hometown, Atiku was far off in Adamawa, while the likes of Bafarawa, Kalu, Utomi were participatory observers. We know that PDP 'won' this election, but did they really win? Is this victory to the benefit of Nigeria; was this the voice of the people, the voice of God, or just the barking of a few crooks? Why should we not mourn this victory, this judgement? Ordinarily, this should be a victory for democracy, but it is tears for Nigeria. When you see a sucking baby still crying at its mother's breast, then certainly something is wrong. The PDP, for purpose of a definition, is almost everything wrong with Nigeria, a party of timber and calibre, a party of men, and these days, women that have made it by all sorts of means and want to keep things as they are. It is of course, the most populous party by claims in Africa, and this victory again proves it. It cuts across geographical boundaries, it has religious and ethnic spread. To this extent and this alone, it claims to be a national party that claims to have national consensus.
But this is the same PDP that has proved that it is pro– capitalist. It sees itself as a capitalist party, and has continued to operate under the peripheral neocolonial and dependent economy. And this is because it has failed to understand, or ignored the logic and nuances of the real Nigerian economy. It pursues shadows. It chases policies and initiatives that are not only contrary to its interest, it pursues economic policies that undermine the very environment in which it operates. Because the party is national without being nationalistic, it fails to develop a coherent system of ideas that could even protect the interest of the class it represents, which is composed of greedy and grabbing individuals. Many of its members have constantly and consistently defended self perceived and peti-interest. The party cannot pretend to have a solution to the chronic ills of our society. In its almost ten years, we have been further pushed into the cyclones of dependency, a party without a well defined or articulated ideology. The elections was not cancelled and we cannot collectively protest. The die is cast. As we mourn PDP's victory, rather than a fixated look at the failure, we should think of how to keep this leadership on its feet. What the PDP did is explained in this scenario: Juan comes up to the Mexican border on his bicycle. He has two large bags over his shoulders. The guard stops him and says, "What's in the bags?" "Sand," answered Juan. The guard says, "We'll just see about that. Get off the bike." The guard takes the bags and rips them apart. He empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand. He detains Juan overnight and has the sand analysed, only to discover that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags. The guard releases Juan, puts the sand into new bags, hefts them onto the man's shoulders and lets him cross the border. A week later, the same thing happens. The guard asks, "What have you got?" "Sand," says Juan. The guard does his thorough examination and discovers that the bags contain nothing but sand. He gives the sand back to Juan, and Juan crosses the border on his bicycle. This sequence of events is repeated everyday for three years.
PDP planned this. Right from start and at the end, they called the rigging process a mistake. They know us; they know that we are docile. What can we do as a people? We can only, in our religious nature, keep asking God for things that ordinarily we should do for ourselves. Prince Charles Dickson Endless Hope Is Better Than A Hopeless End
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