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The February 23rd and March 9th, 2019 Election appears over in date and on paper, but remains largely inconclusive on several fronts, inconclusive in some States as decreed by INEC using very inconsistent parameters, and inconclusive because the major opposition Party, and indeed the Conference of United Political Parties CUPP have kicked against the elections as heavily rigged and have gone to Court to prove same.
This effort dares partisans to a debate, particularly those who applaud the humongous electoral shenanigans called the 2019 elections. I have seen the soulless defenders of wrong laboriously excusing the rigging of the 2019 elections with the 2007 electoral malfeasance that brought the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to power as benchmark. And I ask, did we have the Card Reader in 2007? Did we have such massive deployment of the military to intimidate and harass the electorate? Did we have the Military functioning as quasi INEC, where results were written and handed over to INEC Collation Officers to announce? Did the President elect Yar’Adua applaud the rigging, like the present administration has done? And should one wrong legitimize the other? To patriots, there are questions that must be answered, and quickly too.
Did the so-called ‘Progressives’ presently in power not promise in 2015 to move NIGERIA forward, and to improve on our electoral process and protocol? Have they done that? Since Mahmoud Yakubu became the INEC Chairman under the present watch, we have seen a spate of inconclusive polls where different parameters and rules apply to States that the Ruling Party marks ‘must win’. And shamelessly those who mouth ‘integrity’ turn the blind eye to such villainy. They celebrate the declaration of results in Kaduna, Bornu and Yobe States where the figures apparently do not tally, and salute the declaration of Benue, Bauchi, Kano, Plateau, Sokoto and Adamawa where the figures appear saner INCONCLUSIVE, and this happens where the odds favour the opposition.
Those who for partisanship defend the indefensible, so quickly forget that power is transient and that democracy suffers where and when the right to vote and be voted for is stiffled. In 2015 the election in Rivers State was bloody and bloodied, under the ‘progressives’ the 2019 elections in Rivers State has not only been bloody, bloodied and violent, but has become war with human barbecues strewn about, INEC yet appears confused about what to do with Rivers, because not only has the major players made it the rivers of blood, but the State marked a ‘must win’ by the Ruling Party, INEC must therefore work the figures, hence the Rivers State election remains inchoate, suspended or inconclusive, whichever word suffices.
Now that the result of the 2019 Presidential Election is the subject of litigation, some have argued that our Courts cannot be trusted to do justice. I differ because in the face of manifestly flawed figures, poorly written numbers and figures that do not tally, even the Devil will give justice. We saw States where the total number of votes cast were more than the number of accredited voters, there were others where the number of votes did not tally when added with the voided or cancelled votes, and it simply shows that the ‘wuru wuru to the answer’ that underscores the present INEC was with brazen impunity, after all they were doing the Master’s bidding.
We have seen protests in Abuja, Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Benue, Taraba, Plateau, Imo et al lampoonng the 2019 general elections as flawed on very many grounds. To those who validate the electoral malfeasance of Mahmoud Yakubu’s INEC with that of Maurice Iwu, I dare say that only partisan obscurantists will walk that path. The odds are different and the present Electoral Act repudiates the very things the Mahmoud Yakubu led INEC allowed in the shenanigans called the 2019 elections.
Need I state without equivocation that no wrong validates another, but the present electoral umpire appears to have canonized the failure called Maurice Iwu in so many ways. Chiefly, Mahmoud Yakubu has told the world that his INEC has a different protocol for the Ruling Party and another for the other Parties.
I have in this analysis deliberately avoided the names of the other Parties because this postmortem is largely targeted at inspiring the comprehensive reform of our electoral process and protocol. We must rise up to challenge for what is proper, trite and right. We must overhaul our Electoral Act and revisit the appointing protocol of the headship of the INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION INEC. We must interrogate the many flaws of the 2019 elections and encourage those in Court to deepen our electoral jurisprudence through the legal fireworks thereto.
In service to nation and to our democracy I hereby second the opinion making the rounds for a new electoral regime come 2023. For this purpose I must reproduce hereunder and verbertim the one I align with.
” *MY ELECTION PROPOSAL FOR 2023.*
1. Make a Polling Unit Machine (PUM) like ATM that can accept PVC and it’s not dependent on the Polling Units so you can vote from any Machine nearest to you. Not as big as ATM though.
2. Slot in your PVC; accredit yourself by scanning your thumb.
3. The PUM validates the PVC for single vote and then detect the PVC Polling Unit.
4. Displays the Election for that day or possibly all elections on the same day.
5. Displays the logo of all registered parties.
6. You tap the logo of the party you intend to vote for
7. You get notified.
8. INEC is notified.
9. The selected party’s vote increases by 1
10. A general display of total result as voters continues to vote.
11. Once INEC shutdown voting the machine displays its results.
*NO NEED FOR:*
1. Collation Officers
2. Returning Officers
3. Armed Personnel
4. Election materials (sensitive and non-sensitive)
5. Loss of lives esp Corps Members and other citizens
6. Ballot Boxes
7. Burning of Ballot Boxes
Every PVC is registered to a Polling Unit so if a Polling Unit Machine is hijacked or burnt, other polling unit machine can be used and PUM will just detect the PVC and assign the vote to the damaged machine.”
We must also rework the Act to allow for Diaspora voting, we have millions of Nigerians living abroad who fend for and cater to their families and wards at home, and who seek to be part of the electoral process, if they send monies through the internet, then INEC should create a portal by which they can vote.
For those living in the very remote areas where Technology is thin, very few manual voting centres with the Card Reader and ballot boxes may suffice, and because they are very few, cases of sexed-up figures will be little and very far apart.
To buy into this and to join in the movement that must rework our electoral regime must be deemed a collective. We must raise the debate such that the National Assembly cannot but do the needful.
To those who as usual will criticize this effort as partisan, I must advise that we raise the bar, for somewhere I read that ‘statesmen are those concerned about the next generation not necessarily about the next election’. We must raise the minimums such that posterity does not lose faith in the Democratic process.
If after seeing the apathy that characterized the March 9th Governorship and State Assembly elections, which in so many ways was a referendum on the electoral malfeasance called the February 23rd Presidential and National Assembly, you think that all is well, then you do not love NIGERIA.
We must accept that in the conduct of the 2019 general elections a mortal blow was dealt on the faith of the electorate in the electoral process, and we must hasten to remedy the wrong so that posterity does not argue that they have no reason for which to vote. We must put a lie to those words of Stalin that ‘what matters is not the one that votes, but the one that counts the vote’ sic. And we must work together to create a nation and a democracy where VOTES count.
God bless NIGERIA.
Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr
Convener COUNTRYFIRST MOVT.
