The 2019 presidential/National Assembly elections have come and gone. But, their echoes are still reverberating across the country. The elections, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), have been won and lost, but the presidential candidate of the leading opposition party, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is heading to the courts to challenge the declaration of incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as winner of the contest. Atiku has set up a legal team for the battle ahead, citing widespread irregularities, violence, intimidation of the electorate and other infractions as grounds for his decision to challenge the outcome of the poll.

There are so many things to say about the 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections. First, the violence at some polling units in some parts of the country, particularly Lagos and Rivers states, is strongly condemnable. It is a shame that in this day and age, some politicians still see the snatching of ballot boxes and other such atrocious tactics as a strategy for preventing people from voting, and ultimately, for winning elections . This is not only crude and reprehensible, the base tactics should be permanently done away with in our body politic. The antidote to this, I must say, is mass education for the production of well-rounded citizens to whom such violent and dastardly tactics would be not only unthinkable, but anathema. About 30 persons are reported to have died on the election day, which is rather alarming and unacceptable.

The election threw up a number of realities about the voting pattern in the country. As expected, the PDP candidate, Atiku, who came second in the election, made a clear sweep of the South East and South South states , apparently on account of his choice of Mr. Peter Obi, from the South East, as his running mate. With the age-long quest of this part of the country for the Presidency, it is only understandable that its people would go all the way out to put in their quota to ensure that they grab the opportunity to hold the country’s number 2 position with both hands. This factor was also apparently buoyed by the region’s long-time preference of the PDP, as evidenced even before the 2015 election in which APC’s  Buhari reportedly garnered only five percent of the vote but nevertheless emerged victorious in the contest.

In the South-West, the voters once again proved their independent-mindedness as the opposition candidate, Atiku, won the poll in the two states of Ondo and Oyo, while Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) won with not too impressive margins in Osun, Ogun, Lagos and Ekiti. The president, however, also consolidated his performance with a convincing win in Kwara State. Buhari, as during the 2015 contest, posted impressive figures in his traditional strongholds in the North.

One thing that stands out in this election is the very high number of registered voters in many states, with some small states having well over two million registered voters but unable to record even a million people coming out for accreditation and actual voting. The impression this creates is that the electoral registers may not be as credible as they should, as some may have been deliberately inflated.

The poor turnout at the elections cannot in all good conscience be attributed only to apathy, especially in states where candidates from those regions are on the ballot. However, the East gave Buhari much higher votes than the 5 percent of 2015, with the APC getting at least 25 percent of the votes in most Eastern states. The huge figures coming out of many of the Northern states also say something about elections in the country, both now and in the future. These humongous figures wipe out, within the blinking of an eye, the seemingly high figures from the Southern states, thereby suggesting that the North, indeed, holds the key to electoral victories in the country.

Another observation on this election is the lesson from Buhari’s massive losses in Abuja and other places inhabited by the elites, who apparently have not been having “business as usual” under President Muhammadu Buhari. The Treasury Single Account (TSA) and BVN policies of the Buhari administration have made people who are used to making humongous money from our poor governance and weak financial systems to dislike the current regime with a passion, and they made this clear with their votes in the election.

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However, the beauty of democracy – one man, one vote,– is apparently also its weakness, as the vote of a university Professor and even that of a President is just the same as that of the illiterate farmer who has no education and no kobo to his name. This, apparently, has been a disadvantage that some political parties exploit to its maximum, as they use it to counter-balance and take the sail off the boats of the elites in general elections.

One of the big falls of the National Assembly polls is the failure of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to retain his Senate seat as he lost with a very wide margin to APC’s Dr. Oloriegbe. Dr. Orji Kalu, of the APC, also had a resounding victory over the candidate of the PDP in the Abia North Senatorial election, winning himself a seat in the Senate, thereby proving his great clout and relevance in the politics of the state and in the East, generally.

There are so many other lessons to be learnt from the polls. Many politicians laid stock by the warmongering on the social media. The outcome of this election confirms that the warring or winning of wars on whatsapp, twitter and other social media channels will not automatically translate to victory at the polls, as the majority of those on social media platforms may not even have voter cards, while those who have the cards may not be savvy on such platforms.

They may also not be interested in the issues but are only interested in the candidates they wish to vote for, for any of a variety of reasons. What this means is that our politicians need to up their games and their tactics.  So far, person to person campaigns have hardly been used in the country but were reportedly massively used in Kwara state, with the result that the age-old hold of Senator Bukola Saraki on the state was convincingly broken.

The election results also made nonsense of the endorsements of different socio-political groups such as Ohaneze, Afenifere, Arewa and NEF. These groups largely speak for themselves, and politicians who heavily rely on their endorsements may find themselves out at sea on election day. The same goes for the numerous predictions by “prophets” that did not come to pass.

For now, Buhari’s APC has a new four-year mandate and has vowed to meet PDP and Atiku in court, claim for claim. Since such cases in court are never quickly dispensed, Buhari needs to get on with the business of governance. He should, as he has said, be circumspect in his choice of ministers and aides, so that he can build on his achievements. It is time for him to speed up service delivery to long-suffering Nigerians. Let all stakeholders eschew the ills that marred the February 23 polls and ensure a credible process and  outcome for the governorship and Houses of Assembly polls holding this Saturday.