Rage, indignation and condemnation had trailed the just concluded polls in Nigeria. From international observers to local ones, from the mighty and the low citizens of the country, every body is saying the same thing in diverse ways and styles.

Even the nations’s number one citizen, President Olusegun Obasanjo, could not hide his disappointment on the shoddy conduct of the elections, which many critics said were massively rigged in favour of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Where was the opposition when the fraud was being perpetrated?

Since then, the opposition has been having a field day in pointing out how the elections were compromised, calling for the annulment of the elections, threatening civil disobedience, fire and brimstone. Some of the opposition has uttered statements that ordinarily would bother on treason but because of the mood of the nation, such uncalled for verbiage have been tolerated by the authorities. But let not the opposition takes this licence to overstretch the limits of fair comments and freedom of expression.

It has been said that this election is not the best ever conducted in Nigeria. It is also not perfect. Only God knows if it is worse than that of 2003. In the history of elections in Nigeria, no election has gone without accusations of massive fraud and manipulation by the losers.

It was the same verdict in the 1959 pre-independence elections, same for the 1965 post-independence elections that lead to the Western Region crisis which was the genesis of the January 15, 1966 military coup and the July 29, 1967 counter coup and the Nigerian Civil War of July 6, 1967 to January 10, 1970. The effect of these crises are still fresh in our minds and the scars are yet to erase both physically and emotionally.

Not even the 1979 general elections was spared of rigging accusations. The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) felt that he was robbed of election victory by President Shehu Shagari. Awolowo as a true democrat went to the Election Tribunal and the outcome was that twelve-two-thirds of 19 states was 13. The nation then was under a 19- state structure.
Shagari’s re-election in 1983 under a landslide victory was also adjudged to be a ruse and a slap on how to conduct credible and free elections.

It is now a big surprise that those who sat on verdict ’83 are now among those crying fowl over the so-called abracadabra of the Iwu-led 2007 ocean slide.

Even the 1993 general election generally adjudged to be the freest and fairest election ever conducted in Nigeria, though inconclusive, was not spared of rigging accusation. The opposition candidate, Alhaji Bashir Tofa said that the election was rigged in favour of the adjudged winner, the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola. Nigerians wanted Prof. Humphrey Nwosu to release the results of that election before the infamous Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) led by Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe went to Court and scuttled everything. The rest is very well known that it is needless re-telling it here.

The annulment of the June 12, 1993 election created its own crisis. The crisis choked Nigeria to the extent that the nation was on a near verge of disintegration. The June 12 saga nearly snowballed into another Biafra. It gave birth to guerilla journalism, National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and later OPC. It was the precursor of Arewa Youth’s agitation, the MASSOB irredentism and other forms of ethnic militas and organizations.

The June 12 saga drew back the nation’s march to democracy and retarded its development by many years. It became worse when the imprisoned adjudged winner of the bungled election, Abiola, was killed in questionable circumstances.

Abiola’s death, though very painful, was not in vain. His death dealt a fatal blow to the supremacy theory of the political north over that of the south. His death made it possible for a southerner to be elected Nigerian President for the very first time in Nigerian history. His death led to the balkanization of the nation into six strong geo-political zones. His death gave birth to the rotation of the presidency between the north and the south which has now become a tradition waiting to be entrenched in the nation’s constitution.

His death made it possible for the Yorubas to ascend to the position of central authority through the ballot box for the very first and second time under, Olusegun Obasanjo, the highest beneficiary of Abiola’s martyrdom.

After Abiola’s death, military rule became odious to Nigerians and the international community. Nigeria became a pariah state and almost moved towards a banana republic before Gen Abdusalamni Abubakar rescued her by organizing the 1999 elections, which witnessed the greatest election apathy in Nigerian history.

People were afraid that the election would not be real after being deceived by IBB’s dribbling. Prominent Nigerians shunned taking elective posts hence rouges and charlatans entered and captured power in 1999 in some areas. The problem created by this development is still part of the nation’s political woes.

The 1999 election that produced Obasanjo and Atiku cannot be said to be free and fair. Nigerians tolerated that to allow the military to go. But the 2003 election was a sham as Obasanjo made a political statement of his arrival in the nation’s polity and asserted his being in charge. The election was rigged and the result returned Obasanjo for the second time. The aggrieved went to the Election Tribunal and nothing came out of it at the presidential level.

At the legislative level only few elected members lost their seats to those the tribunal said actually won the elections. At the gubernatorial level only Peter Obi of APGA in Anambra State got his stolen mandate after three years of legal battle at the tribunals.

And we know why Obi got the victory. Dr. Chris Ngige’s fallout with his former political godfather, Chris Uba, contributed much to Obi’s victory. And in 2007, we appear to be taking the usual course and again fire is about to rain from the heavens. Like I have always advised, those short-changed in the just-concluded elections should head to the Electoral Tribunal that is the only constitutionally recognized means of seeking electoral redress. I am surprised that learned intellectuals and members of the enlightened civil society groups have succumbed to the calls for the annulment of this election.

Have they forgotten in a hurry our experience with election annulment and its aftermath? The groups calling for such annulment should read the nation’s constitution and do the bidding of the constitution on the issue and not otherwise.

The civil society should understand that election rigging is not limited to one political party alone, it is a disease that affects all the parties. Cancellation of the 2007 elections is not a cure for rigging. How are we sure that the subsequent ones they are calling for won’t be rigged under their nose? Those calling for mass rally against the government are just wasting their time. Some of them are hypocrites and opportunists looking for how to be relevant one way or the other. Nigeria has worst history of election losers.

They will always blame rigging for their loss and not that they did not campaign very well.
Nigerians after expressing their political preferences in the just concluded elections should be spared of any ordeal that would subject them to undue suffering and harassment by security operatives that would be unleashed on the polity should there be mass action.

Let the Umar Yar’Adua truly form a government of national unity and reconciliation by incorporating members of the opposition in his cabinet come May 29. He should ensure that the government sees the entire nation as his constitutuency and work to make all Nigerians feel and think that they are part of the government.