As Nigeria moves within an inch of 2023 general elections fears run rife that the exercise of democratic freedom will again\u00a0 be restricted\u00a0 \u00a0via various anomalies such as vote buying, results’ falsification, ballot stuffing, under-age voting, violence and false\u00a0 declaration of\u00a0 results designed to substitute personal or partisan benefits as the senators
\nelected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress are reportedly dead against the electronic transmission of results from polling centres to INEC portals and collation centres.<\/p>\n
To assuage the fears of the populace and contrary to the infamous resolution adopted by the above-named, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has reassured a beleaguered nation\u00a0 in a newspaper report, The Punch to be
\nprecise published on Sunday July\u00a0 18th, 2021\u00a0 that\u00a0 electronic transmission of results is possible.<\/p>\n
This reassurance by\u00a0 Nigeria’s electoral umpire – the Independent National Electoral Commission\u00a0 ( INEC) thus serves as an insurance against\u00a0 fraud by perpetrators who shift tactics in a bid to consolidate
\ntheir hold on power having seen how triumphantly the electronic transmission of results from polling zones to INEC portals and collation centres paid off in the Edo 2020 governorship elections that ultimately
\nhad the choice of the people declared elected in spite of the post-election legal battles by naysayers to have the supreme wish of Edo people annulled like a marriage and ultimately bastardized.<\/p>\n
The electoral reforms undertaken by Prof Mahmood Yakubu prior to the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Ondo States was a litmus test\u00a0 and an eye-opener that something good could come out of Nazareth or put
\ndifferently that something good could in deed again\u00a0 come out of Nigeria’s INEC as against the gross irregularities under Prof. Attahiru Jega in 2015 that marred and eventually subverted\u00a0 the integrity\u00a0 of our
\nelectoral process.<\/p>\n
The position of the ruling-party incumbents on\u00a0 electronic transmission of results is not only disheartening, disappointing but alarming.<\/p>\n
In modern democracies, leaders the world over have\u00a0 evolved from stone-age voting. That, I am sure,\u00a0 was the line toed by Prof Mahmood in the Edo and Ondo governorship\u00a0 elections rather than the former to
\nscuttle the credibility of the process.<\/p>\n
One therefore wonders the rationale behind\u00a0 gunning for\u00a0 electoral authoritarian regime by instrumentality of a planned altered voter-registration lists and rigged vote tabulations which their staunch
\nopposition to electronic transmission of results represents.<\/p>\n
We love Nigeria and therefore want the best for our country. Nigerians need not retain the services of a seer to decipher the physical position unanimously adopted or what is being communicated by the bulk of the
\nruling party incumbents at the expense of a transparent electoral process.<\/p>\n
It is obvious that the\u00a0 country’s governing party – the All Progressives Congress –\u00a0 under Buhari has failed Nigeria abysmally\u00a0 on all fronts ranging from security, economy, to the provision of\u00a0 service
\ninfrastructures which makes it scared of its own shadows in 2023 general elections.<\/p>\n
\nResults of opinion polls\u00a0 conducted in the not-too-distant past show that over 85% of Nigerians want a reversion to the status quo ante – the lost golden age under the erstwhile ruling party when Nigeria rose from behind, overtook South Africa to become Africa’s\u00a0 largest economy. Life, you know as well as I know,\u00a0 was much better and in fact super abundant
\nthan it is today\u00a0 which prepared the ground for a mass Hegira home by many of us who had left the country in droves\u00a0 in Nigeria’s darkest hour under the jackboot\u00a0 of the military.<\/p>\n
Today, Nigerians groan under the yoke of insecurity which has turned the country to a scene of carnage. On the north-eastern flank of Nigeria rages a bloody insurgency which the ruling party while\u00a0 in the opposition said it could end in its first six months in office but today it has unbelievably dragged on\u00a0 for over 6 years with government troops
\nlosing the fight\u00a0 at every turn.\u00a0 In the North-Central bandits hold sway with rivers of blood painting the land red. Only a few days ago a Nigerian fighter jet probably on reconnaissance was shot out of the sky by bandits\u00a0 somewhere in Zamfara State. Many rural communities in the desert cotton fields of northern Nigeria have been sacked by armed
\nherders and bandits. Parents live in perpetual fear that their children would be kidnapped in schools. True to their fears many have been abducted with the Federal and\u00a0 various states’ governments paying ransom
\nto secure their release thus making it a lucrative business in the region.<\/p>\n
Down south it is a whole whirlwind of issues\u00a0 as she is caught in an agonizing web of subjugation lifetrap by a band of\u00a0 Janjaweed armed militias from Futta Jalon who\u00a0 masquerade\u00a0 as pastorialists under the
\nalleged watch and\u00a0 tacit backing of the Abuja regime.<\/p>\n
The infamous style of governance by the\u00a0 Abuja policy makers who often conduct themselves like\u00a0 Olympian gods in the Greek mythology doubtless created the Nnamdi Kanus and Sunday Igbohos that now threaten the country with imminent disintegration\u00a0 – a country which a breed of noble bloods fought to keep as one indivisible entity in the Gowonist days.<\/p>\n
Today there is hunger in the land. Farmers can no more go to the fields to till and cultivate the fields\u00a0 across Nigeria and this has resulted in food shortage.\u00a0 Where it is available the cost is prohibitive thus
\nfoisting\u00a0 the devil’s alternative – crash diet – on many families across Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Only 6 days ago Nigeria was reported by\u00a0 Development Studies – a UK-based think tank,\u00a0 as the second poorest country in the world in terms of food affordability\u00a0 amidst inflation that has spiked double
\ndigits. The Naria, our monetary unit has plummeted against all currencies in the international market contrary to campaign promises by the governing party while in the\u00a0 opposition to make the Naria equal in value to the US Dollar. Alas,\u00a0 the reverse has become\u00a0 the case as\u00a0 the Naria now exchanged for over N500\u00a0 to the US dollar as against N150 or
\nmuch\u00a0 less\u00a0 in the Jonathan days.<\/p>\n
Official figures released by Nigeria’s Debt Management Office as of March 2021 showed that her total public debt stock stood at N33:107 trillion whose repayment would be pretty\u00a0 difficult considering the
\ndwindling oil revenues.<\/p>\n
Nigeria, a debtor nation in fact\u00a0 already saddled by a massive debt burden still makes plans\u00a0 to borrow $6.2 billion! Into what dangers have they led us? This question often agitates this writer!<\/p>\n
The APC-led Federal Government sags under credibility deficit. They did promise to rebuild Nigeria with world-class service infrastructures but what we see\u00a0 today on the ground is better imagined than real. Our roads are so much in bad shape that motoring on it\u00a0 could force expectant mothers to involuntary abortion. Our roads,\u00a0 bad as they are,\u00a0 have
\nmetamorphosed to valleys of death with the criminal\u00a0 activities of bandits and kidnappers.<\/p>\n
One could recall from dim memory\u00a0 prior to 2015 federal elections, Babatunde Fashola while\u00a0 Lagos helmsman\u00a0 did expressly say the former ruling party should be voted out for Nigeria to have stable electricity.
\nWhat is it like today with power supply increasingly becoming a rarity in many communities across Nigeria? Our people depend largely on water sourced from boreholes\u00a0 as water boards have suffered terminal decline.<\/p>\n
How has the economy fared under the APC-controlled Federal Government? To say the economy is in shambles would be an understatement because there is no denying the fact today that the economy is not only in
\nshambles but in a jumble of retrogression.<\/p>\n
Under the Abuja regime Nigeria has become a cash cow in the hands of fantastically corrupt officials who often find soft-landing in the All Progressives Congress\u00a0 (APC). This is a party that did say every
\nmachinery would be set in motion to make corruption\u00a0 non-existent\u00a0 but to our chagrin the hydra-headed monster drains our wealth under Buhari’s watch – the self-styled anti-graft Tzar –\u00a0 keeps us\u00a0 trapped in poverty
\nresulting in\u00a0 underinvestment in basic infrastructures thereby bringing about a variety of bottlenecks on many economic fronts.<\/p>\n
From the foregoing, every sane person\u00a0 knows where the pendulum would certainly swing under a transparent electoral process\u00a0 come 2023 having lived through the PDP and APC days\u00a0 as\u00a0 Nigeria drifts perilously into
\nyet another outpost of tyranny under the latter’s control.<\/p>\n
President Buhari though apparently\u00a0 well-intentioned has lost the fight to stabilize Nigeria through his failings and the terrible\u00a0 failings of his party and trusted lieutenants which is on the ascending order of
\nmagnitude.<\/p>\n
It is no surprise the APC federal lawmakers in the Red Chambers had no option but to\u00a0 speak with one voice the way they did against the electronic transmission of election results since it is obvious the party has become unpopular with Nigerians and therefore riding for a fall come 2023\u00a0 because of its abysmal failures.<\/p>\n
Nigeria with a population of over 211 million is bigger than any individual or partisan interests and President Buhari would be indelibly writing his name in gold with a firm resolve to toe the line of Prof. Mamood Yakubu via neutrality and non-intererence in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.<\/p>\n
Iyoha John Darlington,\u00a0 a former governorship candidate in the Edo 2020 governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN)\u00a0 is a writer, social activist and public commentator on national
\nand global issues.<\/p>\n
As Nigeria moves within an inch of 2023 general elections fears run rife that the exercise of democratic freedom will again\u00a0 be restricted\u00a0 \u00a0via various anomalies such as vote buying,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n