Romanus Okoye
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome, has described the just released report on the last presidential and National Assembly elections by the EU Observer Group, The International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, as a damning case of deep-seated corruption in Nigeria.
Ozekhome, who said he was embarrassed to be a Nigerian, alleged that corruption has not only eaten deep into just the electoral process, but also into the entire moral fabric of the society.
“Cancerous and leprous corruption, especially within government circles and among those opportunistic few who control the levers of power and means of production and distribution of scarce national resources, has completely eroded our national ethos and cherished moral values and elevated mediocrity and hypocrisy to high heavens.”
The human rights activist said the electoral process has been horrifically bastardised, monetised, militarised and privatised by the rulers, elite and their prostituting collaborators and allies, both local and international, who see politics as a full time profession and a ‘do-or-die’ and ‘winners-take-all’ occupation.
“The 2019 elections were probably the worst in the electoral history of Nigeria, killing more people and causing more incalculable casualties than any election in Nigerian history,” he claimed.
He alleged that aside the uncontrolled and uncontrollable activities of the Boko Haram insurgents and rampaging herdsmen and the genocidal killings recorded during the three-year Nigerian-Biafran civil war progrom, no event has recorded more mindless cold-blooded killings on Nigeria as did the last elections.
“The Nigerian Situation Room, leading local election observers and monitoring groups, also passed the same damning verdict over the last presidential election that suffered acute lack of integrity, transparency, credibility fairness, freedom and acceptability. The incumbent government was so desperate to win at all costs since it had no credible or viable record of performance to rely on that it threw caution to the wind and militarised the entire elections to its advantage.”