Sensational political developments in Abia, Ekiti and Ondo states might appear somehow insignificant or be taken for granted as expected. Summed up, the will of the people in these three volatile states have eventually been upheld by election petition appeal tribunals.
Ordinarily, did things have to go that far if we had an ideal electoral atmosphere? The situation had been so traumatising and indeed potentially hopeless that the final judgments unnecessarily attracted seeming all-round acclamation again for the judiciary. On the contrary, the bench is only desperately battling to regain its rightful image for which it is set up.

The impression should therefore not be created that in pronouncing justice, the bench is doing the society some kind of favour. When society generates national resentment, what inevitably follows is eventual eruption from which no section is immune. We saw it in 1975 after the sacking of the Gowon regime. The bench throughout the country was cleared of corrupt elements.

For now, we must go to the beginning of the sordid political events leading to the upheaval of the past fortnight. The ball was set rolling by the arrogance and conspiracy of (the then) President Olusegun Obasanjo and the supposed Independent National Electoral Commission led by Maurice Iwu. In a way, it always seems unfair to single out Maurice Iwu. Afterall, the real foot soldiers for this electoral perfidy were the hierarchy of the army, the police (specifically, the heavily armed and intimidatingly bubbling mobile force) and State Security Services personnel.

However, the buck, at the end of the day, stops on Maurice Iwu’s table as the chairman of INEC. To worsen matters, the man does not help himself (that is up till now) with the insults he heaps on observers and assessors of his performance both in Nigeria and abroad. For all the criticisms poured at home and abroad on the chief culprit, Olusegun Obasanjo, he at least, is putting up with his all-round isolation on the other hand, the moment Maurice Iwu picks on any opportunity in a vain attempt to refurbish his tarnished image, God almost instantly provides fresh evidence like the rulings on Abia, Ondo and Ekiti states to defuse the self-righteousness.

Somehow, Maurice Iwu is encouraged by the dangerous Supreme Court ruling which now provides authority for conducting elections without mandatory serialising ballot papers. In effect, any number of unnumbered voting papers from any source can be stuffed into ballot boxes or indeed, any figures can be announced and without serial numbers to determine the total figures, such election will be valid.

Unless the Supreme Court reverses itself or openly limits that judgement to only General Muhammadu Buhari’s election petition against President Umar Yar’Adua, the Maurice Iwus of the future will be free to conduct elections as was done in 2007. The Supreme Court should not feel any embarrassment on this issue. In 1979, then Chief Justice Fatayi Williams, ordered that his decision on Obafemi Awolowo’s suit against the election of President Shehu Shagari was a once for all verdict and should never be cited as authority in the future. Heavens did not fall.

In the present cases, especially Ondo and Ekiti, how did invalid votes creep in and yet, INEC counted them as valid?
These same votes were later to be declared invalid or at least suspect by election appeal tribunals and accordingly deducted from the final figures in Edo, Ondo and Ekiti.

In Edo and Ondo states, beneficiaries of the rigged votes, apart from having the disputed figures deducted from their votes, were rightly removed as state governors to make way for Adams Oshiohmole and Olusegun Mimiko respectively. The same deterrence should have applied in Ekiti State to swear in Kayode Fayemi so that nobody in future would brazenly rig elections.

More noticeably, these election petition verdicts lately in Abia, Ekiti and Ondo states mark the demolition of the arrogance of one man who deems it his devine right to run Nigeria (in and out of office) like his personal fiefdom where only he determines who lives or not.
In any society, people should choose their leader freely. Manipulated out of the primaries elections to deny him nomination as the gubernatorial candidate and conscious of his popularity among the electorate, Olusegun Mimiko quit the PDP for the Labour Party. That courageous step should have sent the message to his political enemies led by Obasanjo to seek the people’s mandate.

Quite a legitimate aspiration. Unknown to Nigerians, Obasanjo had prevailed on an unyielding (today’s) Governor Mimiko not to contest against Segun Agagu. Ideally, such disagreement should have remained private to all those concerned. But Obasanjo, drunken with power considered it impudent of Mimiko to ever disobey him. The man, Obasanjo revealed their disagreement to the public at a campaign meeting at Akure.

Obasanjo could even have commanded some respect and sympathy for himself and perhaps rebuke for Segun Mimiko for facing up to his benefactor. But an impulsive Obasanjo squandered everything when he threatened to “send EFCC after Mimiko.” Was Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC not supposed to be independent instead of being Obasanjo’s attack dog against his opponents? Was EFCC not supposed to be after only corrupt public office holders?
Little wonder Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC claimed to have investigated Obasanjo and found him the cleanest among the rotten lot. Well, that reckless outburst at the Akure PDP campaign rally only attracted more sympathy for Segun Mimiko, moreso as the EFCC never pronounced Mimiko guilty of criminal misconduct either because there was no evidence throughout the investigations or because Obasanjo bragged for public consumption or both.

The real issue was over the election proper. Despite Obasanjo’s nationwide rigging of the elections but especially in the Southwest where both Obasanjo and his PDP were detested, Segun Mimiko still won the gubernatorial elections in Ondo State, much to the joy of the electorate who thronged and barricaded the INEC office to witness the returning officer announce the result.

Instead of performing his duty strictly in line with the 2006 electoral act regulations, the returning officer vacillated on grounds of waiting for minor details. Meanwhile, completely outside the electoral regulations, Obasanjo at Aso Rock was being given the sad news he would not accept – that Olusegun Mimiko had won the gubernatorial elections despite all obstacles. At Aso Rock, Obasanjo insisted that only on his dead body would Olusegun Mimiko become Ondo State governor.

Accordingly, INEC (again Maurice Iwu) at Abuja announced a concocted result that Segun Agagu had won the Ondo gubernatorial race. Anxious voters laying siege on the returning officer at Akure all dropped jaws at this criminal development.
God almighty has a way of demystifying self-assured tin-gods on earth. Last time, Obasanjo expressed his willingness to die for his reforms. Surely, unprecedented rigging of the 2007elections was part of the reform. He is alive and Olusegun Mimiko is today the Governor of Ondo State. Why can’t Obasanjo now transform into a dead body?

Obasanjo also invaded Abia State with his political terrorism. Even with Theodore Orji as governor, Obasanjo’s hand was at work in the attempt to undermine the people’s verdict. The reason was the untenable allegation against the governor of being a member of a shrine or secret cult.
Even if, for the purposes of arguement, the governor’s membership of the secret cult or shrine is conceded, the fact remains that the electorate gave him their mandate.

Some months before the April 2007 election, Obasanjo was instrumental on EFCC in clamping Theodore Orji into detention on trumped up charges of financial crime. While all other gubernatorial candidates all over the country (including Abia) were campaigning for votes, Theodore Orji was inside jail.
Yet, in the midst of universally acknowledge PDP rigging of the 2007 election, Theodore Orji from inside jail, scored majority votes even confirmed by the election petition tribunal. And to see that Obasanjo was trying to upturn such clear people’s mandate, in the absence of any irregularities or criminal violation of electoral regulations?

It is satisfying that the election appeal tribunal has rightly restored the people’s mandate earlier nullified by a lower tribunal. Anything otherwise would have set a dangerous precedent. Did Presidential election petition tribunal uphold membership of a secret society (Ogboni fraternity) as a ground for nullifying election, moreso when such election was generally seen to have been rigged?
The situation in Ekiti was just Ondo state repeated but without reckoning with the ruggedness of Kayode Fayemi, who almost all alone, fought his cause especially against the formidable opposition of INEC.

Introduction of fingerprint expert as a witness to discredit fake ballot papers in an election petition? Likely unprecedented but experts in stuffing ballot boxes with fake votes now face tough battle in the future.

That brings up INEC’s role in the ordered re-run of elections in many wards in Ekiti State. How could the same INEC leadership, which conducted a discredited election, be saddled with the responsibility of conducting the re-run?
Poor dismissed Ekiti governors Oni. He was obviously destabilised by the sudden change of fortune within hour(s) from initial “victory” to outright sack from office. Clearly, for want of what to say when confronted with that reality, Oni did not help matters (for himself and INEC) when he said the re-run only offered him an extra two years in office. In short, for this INEC to conduct the re-run is mere formality.
Any why are Nigerians so cheap? Praising the judiciary for performing its duties? Is that any favour to the nation? Which judiciary anyway? Can Nigeria Bar Association and so-called Conference of Nigerian Political Parties calm down and analyse the dangerous implication of Supreme Court (Judiciary) ruling on validity of unserialised ballot papers?