MUSING ON THE ELECTION RESULTS By Muyiwa Akintunde

 

A new political force has emerged in our land. It is called “Invalid Vote”. It’s candidate in the just concluded presidential election is a gentleman (may well be female) known variously as “Voided Vote” or “Cancelled Vote”.

With a tally of 1,084,358 ballots, “Invalid Vote” finished third – ahead of 71 other presidential candidates in the race. And it did not have to blow money on running any campaign!!!

Unfortunately for “Invalid Vote” however, INEC did not list it among the political parties in the race. Insiders say the political association submitted its application for registration only on the day of the election, February 23, 2019.

So, officially, who was the Third Force in last Saturday’s election? Kingsley Moghalu? Fela Durotoye? Omoyele Sowore? No! No!! No!!!

Dr Nicholas Felix. Ever heard of him? He pulled 110,196 votes to end up third on the ballot. An indigene of Ewohimi in Esan South of Edo State, Felix hosts a TV programme in New York, “Power for Miracles with Pastor Nicolas Felix.”

I suspect his fortune must have been helped by his party, Peoples Coalition Party (PCP) coming a step ahead of PDP in the long and ponderous ballot paper. So a lot of that over hundred thousand votes might have gone to his party mistakenly.

Did you ever come across his campaign in any form – rallies, through the media, town storms, etc?

In No 4 with 97,874 votes was another not-so-popular candidate – Dr Obadiah Mailafia, former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, who flew the flag of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Again, relatively quiet in the campaign season.

Sowore (10th with 33,953 votes), Moghalu (14th with 21,886 votes) and Durotoye (17th with 16,779 votes) – would surely have done better if only INEC counted the number of “likes” “shares” and comments on the SM.