By Godwin Etakibuebu
Of course, it is not that those who might be frustrated from the postponement of last week election, just about five hours to commencement of the exercise, and by extension taken a decision of no more participating in the rescheduled election for this week Saturday cannot be persuaded to jettison such plans.
They need to be educated and enlightened on the need of not playing and falling into the entrenched wicked hands of democratic enemies.
We need to educate ourselves in knowing why things are happening in the way they are and why we must take the needed collective stand, in pulling down all forces working against attainment of democratic excellence.It is time for us to confront those very few terrible Nigerians that have connived in unholy oddities to sabotage our great and bright destiny.
Unless we are united, we might not be able to do this. And the most positive way of achieving this is to go all out massively this Saturday, using our Permanent Voter Card [PVC], to recreate our destinies. It is a compulsory journey we must take because it is by so doing that we will be able to frustrate those that want to frustrate us, even our collective destiny.
Let us go through the events of the past few days as it relates to this election to learn some lessons which might be very vital for overcoming any future political threat. I always call it voyage of discovery.
More than a week before last week Friday, February 15, 2019, the main opposition Political Party in Nigeria; the People Democratic Party [PDP] had shouted coarse that the ruling Political Party; the All Progressives Congress had perfected measures of rigging the election in favour of continuity for President Buhari and the APC. Part of the alleged rigging plans, as disposed by the PDP, was to postpone the elections from dates fixed to future dates.
The APC denied this allegation stoutly. In midst of these allegations and counter-allegations, the constitutionally appointed Umpire for Nigeria elections; the Independent National Electoral Commission was emphatically claiming that there was no power on earth that could enforce postponement of the 2019 election as “everything needed for the successful prosecution of the election had been put in place”. When INEC laid claim to this “new perfect posture” with dogmatic euphoria, many people laughed.
These people laughed because they probably know better that INEC could fail to deliver not because it wanted to fail but that inbuilt in the mechanism of the law that created it [INEC] were some instrumentalities of failure. They [those laughing] know that the name of the organization might have started with the phrase “INDEPENDENT”, but there is nothing very “independent” about the Body and its operations.
Am I saying that INEC is not independent? Yes, that is what l have just said and l can prove it beyond any reasonable doubt that the Organisation is far from independence, except that we have to defer the interpretation and analysis to another day on this page, maybe immediately after the elections of Saturday, March 9, 2019. Reason for deferring it till then is purely for the reason that by then, losers and winners of the 2019, would have emerged and whatever suggestion put forward then for the reformation of INEC for future excellent performances would be taking place on glorious ground.
So, before those unholy hours of the midnight’s announcement by the Chairman of INEC, saying that the election had been postponed, some smart Nigerians expected the postponement to take place.
And those that expected it did not have reason to blame INEC because postponement of elections is culturally; a reoccurring decimal in the Nigerian political clime. But for many, and these are in the majority, anger, apathy, frustration and despair took better path of them. Again, it is most difficult blaming these set of people because most of them had reasons, of different sizes and shapes, physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually to have been convulsed about the announcement.
Many had paid the price of really wanting to be involved in the process of using their PVC to enriching and deepening the democratic process before they were sabotaged by the announcement of postponement, so to say. Schools were closed down, land borders across the whole country were closed, markets were locked up, and many travelled to where they registered as voters, far away from their places of residences. These were few of many other sacrifices most Nigerians made before the process was truncated by that announcement.
Apparently ipso facto, people are expected to by angry and misdirect the anger against the electioneering process. When this happens, and if it is not properly remedied and on time too, the casualty will be the institution we established – the power in using our cherished PVC to install the government we need.
We owe it a collective duty of not allowing a situation where we are turned against the only institution of our strength casting our votes to choose leaders of our choice. That is how those enemies of democracy in Nigeria designed it to be.
It is our duty to frustrate them by going out there this Saturday to cast our votes in accordance with the dictates of consciences.
When we return from this exercise of this Saturday February 23 and March 9, 2019, we shall settle down to take a very critical look and evaluate our Constitution with the view of tackling the problems as related to the creation and functionality of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Until then, l am urging all Nigerians to be patriotic enough to step out and vote. But more importantly, vote wisely.
