By Mobolade Omonijo
Are there real winners in this election, or have we collectively lost? This generation of Nigerians appears to have betrayed a divine charge to lift up the country.
How could anyone really celebrate an election at which guns were freely used? Do we know how many souls were peremptorily dispatched in this process?
What was the point in so noisily sending the military to take over the streets when rough necks could still find enough space to operate, hijack ballot boxes and shoot voters dead?
Wasn’t it a shame that, having failed to guarantee sanctity of the process, secure innocent voters, institutions funded and armed by the state had to fight for supremacy, leaving hapless citizens to wander if a Third World War had broken out?
What’s the point holding elections every fourth year only to leave us with a guess that those declared by INEC would still have won anyway had the process met the minimum democratic standard?
How are our politicians, those who merely fight to take over the till, better than IPOB fighters and the Lagos island area boys?
What moral right have we to punish the looters of yesteryear when all we need to be declared winners is keep sufficient fund at hand, import enough weapons and train a handsome battalion to overawe opponents?
This is a shame. The task of effective electoral reform is even more urgent today than it was in 2007 when President Yar’Adua set up the Uwais Commission.
Let no one misconstrue my post as just condemning this government, the ruling party or just this election.
First, I did not hear any side, I am sufficiently informed about elections generally and globally, and the Nigerian political history.
By the way, I am a journalist and have been around magazines and newspapers covering, reporting, writing on and editing political stories for more than three decades.
I am bemoaning the country’s slow pace of political development.
Why should we at this stage be behind smaller African countries when it comes to conducting elections?
We still shut down the whole country to hold elections and this is not so in South Africa or Ghana. Why?
I am not justifying previous elections. Every time, we still don’t get the logistics right. Why?
Why are we still having compatriots shot because we are holding elections?
I am disappointed that we still need soldiers to keep the peace, yet, in many places, there is breakdown of law and order. Each time we hold elections, Rivers is problematic. Why?
Read Sunday papers and you will feel disappointed at the needless loss of lives. Just before the elections, five houses were razed in Atakumosa East LG of Osun State. Why?
Soldiers have been killed, policemen have lost their lives, all because they were on national service. Youth corpers were abducted, could we justify that? It’s been so since the Demo episode of the First Republic, are we condemned to repeat errors of the past?
My concern is not partisan, but a call for concerted action.
We must not repeat all these in 2023.
My brother, we should all be angry and determined to force forward movement.
Thank God I participated in prayer and fasting sessions in respect of the election. But, I also know that faith goes with work. We must accompany our prayers with watchfulness.
Actually, the fact that a governor could be issuing death threats, some party agents could be so desperate to tear up result sheets, a deputy Governor could personally disrupt collation and get arrested, among other things attest to what I am saying.
It’s not just about the government, though it has a huge role to play, but the political class, the electorate, the commission, security agencies, et.c.
- Omonijo, a journalist, writes from Lagos
