That crucial moment of great decision for the voter is feverishly close – just four days away. Expectedly, the atmosphere is charged. The political parties and their candidates are making their final push on the campaign trail. The stakes are high. It’s not for nothing. The February 16 Presidential election is expected to be the most keenly contested in the history of presidential election in Nigeria. And the whole world will be watching. That’s why former United States President, Bill and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Baroness Patricia Scotland are here.
Tomorrow, in Abuja, they will deliver hard-hitting speeches, to remind us, the political gladiators, especially President Muhammadu Buhari and the Peoples Democractic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, their supporters, on the need to keep the peace, irrespective of who wins and who loses. Their mission in Nigeria is in furtherance to the Peace Accord earlier signed by the Presidential candidates late last year. The process must be free, fair, credible and transparent. Nothing less will do. But, danger ahead of the polls remains a big worry. The rumour mill is filled with speculations to rig the presidential election. That will be the biggest danger to our democracy, and must be resisted. As former Foreign Affairs Minister, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi said in a statement on Sunday, never in all his years as election monitor has any general election filled him with “fear and trepidation” as the coming elections, beginning with the Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday. Akinyemi’s fear is a legitimate one. Many Nigerians feel the same, and therefore, urge for caution, peace, and above all, a credible, unmanipulated poll. All votes must count.
As Akinyemi, cautioned, Nigeria risks the Venezuelan experience, where the International Community, led by the United States, decided recently to recognise the opposition leader in that country as alternative President because of alleged malpractices that dogged the election. That, one must say, is a tacit warning to the Federal Government, the security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the far reaching consequences that may befall Nigeria if the elections, especially the presidential poll, is rigged in favour of any candidate. The Akinyemi’s worry, and indeed, that of the international community such as the US, the United Kingdom and the European Union, is that any attempt to manipulate the presidential election may spell doom for Nigeria and consign the country to the pariah status that Nigeria was in during the infamous Abacha regime. The international community said recently that while it would not interfere in the Nigerian elections, it would very much care about the process, and the outcome. President Buhari, has repeatedly assured of a credible election, if that will be his “only legacy”. He should keep his word. For INEC, this is a moment that beckons with utmost responsibility and impartiality. Undoubtedly, this is Prof. Manhood Yakubu’s toughest assignment. If he’s in doubt, he should ask his predecessors.
Being the chief electoral umpire is not a job for the fainthearted. It requires uncommon courage, independent of mind, not kowtowing to the powers that be. Prof. Yakubu has repeatedly said he would not be influenced by external forces. Time is close to test his resolve, his mettle. Can he also vouch for his Residential Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in the states? If rigging happens, the states are where it all begins. These warnings have become necessary because of ongoing allegations that the presidential and National Assembly elections may be rigged. Although about 73 political parties are reported to have fielded candidates in the presidential election, according to INEC, attention will be on the APC candidate, President Buhari and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP. On Sunday, the President, in an address to the nation, titled: “Corruption threatens Nigeria and its elections”, claimed that in the last four years, his government judiciously exercised the trust vested in him to combat the problem of corruption, insecurity and an inequitable economy. He said the base on which to build the economy, provide decent infrastructure and educate the next generation is to fight corruption. He posed this question to voters: “Do we continue to go forward on this testing path against corruption or do we revert to the past, resigned to the falsehood that is just the way things are done?”.
Listening to the President’s address, I saw a man who has found his back to the wall, has decided to resort to the old, tired script whose message is for his political enemies. I also saw a President, to paraphrase the words of a former US President, Gerald R. Ford, who likened such desperate efforts to woo voters when he finds himself behind in a football game, and only has the ball with time running out on the clock, there’s only one thing left to do:” Throw the bomb”. I doubt if that ploy will work this time around.
And you begin to ask: What are the results of forty-five months of Buhari as President? Has the administration truly exercised the trust vested in him to combat the challenges that confront Nigeria in a manner a Commander in Chief should? We need to remind ourselves what trust entails. Trust does not have to guess what a candidate means. Trust means leveling with the people you govern before an election. Trust is not cleverly shading words to appeal to sentiments. It requires plainly and simply, what a candidate’s records tell us about him, his performance in the opportunity he has been given.
Or do we wait till we get close to the awful situation in the Biblical Samaria when mothers had to eat their own children to survive? How we came to this ugly, pessimistic present is the inability of the present government to properly define the goals, the vision and purposes of the presidency in a way that gives coherence. The fact that this government is finding things difficult, as the President admitted last weekend during his campaign in Lagos, is not the result of some “influential people” being against it, as claimed by Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment.
The problem is that APC wasn’t ready for governance when it won in 2015, and some people still believe the party hasn’t yet got the wherewithal to chart Nigeria in a new direction the way the Atiku/Obi ticket has defined its plans and vision for the next four years. Could that also be why Atiku’s message to make “Nigeria Working Again” to be resonating in many parts of the country? Maybe, the central theme to create jobs, opportunity for all, national cohesion and security, are appealing to potential voters. Just last week, Council for African Security Affairs, a Think Tank of intelligence analysts and political risk researchers, projected a likely Atiku victory by many percentage points, if the election is free and credible.
Few things are clear in this election. As INEC chairman said recently, the era of landslide victory for any presidential candidate is over. Nigerians are ready to defend their votes. Riggers beware. In the same vain, the era of the North being safe for Buhari seems far gone now. The whole Northern States have become a battleground for both the incumbent president and his main challenger, Atiku. What’s at stake in the North is massive total of 44.8million votes up for grab, out of the 84m registered voters in the country, about six million higher than the other zones combined. It’s also the first time the youth percentage of the electorate will be above the 40 percent mark.
Overall, writing of election result is an invitation to anarchy. Now that we have enjoyed almost 20 years of unbroken democracy, nothing should be done to truncate it. The elections should be free, fair, credible, transparent and violence-free. As a former electoral umpire, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, fittingly cautioned ahead of the 1993 elections, there should be no “wuruwuru, no “ mago-mago”. The rest of that unheeded advice is now history.