Soon, very soon, the battle will be over
By the time you are reading this piece, the presidential and National Assembly elections would have come and gone, at least, other things being equal. I have now learnt my lesson, hence, my adding ‘other things being equal’ this time around. I made the mistake of not putting the caveat last week, and it almost made nonsense of my message. Only those conversant with the newspaper production process in this part of the world would understand that my last week column had gone to bed hours before the postponement of the then elections earlier fixed for February 16 (presidential and National Assembly) and March 2 (governorship and state assembly elections). As a matter of fact, the piece must have been snoring when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the postponement. I am not going to blame INEC for the postponement. What I know, however, is that it is better to postpone and have credible polls rather than go ahead and have a sham of an election. My hope is that the postponement would be worth it after all.
By now, some of the results of the elections would have been made public. But it is still too early to tell who would win, even though one has his own preference. But campaigns are now over; what we are all awaiting is the result. Who is the winner? Will the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) retain his job or will Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) render him jobless? That is the next question to ask. One of the things that are certain from the election is that the result will not be determined at the ballot. Ultimately, it would be hotly contested by whoever loses in court. So, attention will soon shift to the courtroom where, once again, some of our senior lawyers would be abundantly blessed. They are as a matter of fact already waiting in the wings and warming up to push technicalities to the front burner in the courts as soon as the matters get to court.
It is their season; so no one should grudge them if they are getting ready to take back from many of those who had stolen more than enough for our economy to sink, but for its resilience. We should expect more ‘billionaire’ judges to spring up, even as some of those who are already swimming in billions will have more. But our judges must have learnt one or two lessons from the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen. The man ran into stormy waters because he kept his hard earned million dollars in the bank and in his own name, to boot. That is what to do when you have nothing to hide.
As a matter of fact, some people have argued that it is in anticipation of the fact that the courts will eventually determine who the president is, and in many cases, governors, etc, that made President Buhari to put the heat on Justice Onnoghen, to nail the expectation of those they felt had been lodging illicit funds into the CJN’s accounts in anticipation of the good turn that should naturally deserve another when the presidential election issue gets to the Supreme Court where Onnoghen once held sway. I was tempted to believe this seeming fallacy when the opposition elements began to weep louder than the bereaved, seeing that Onnoghen would no longer be the one on the throne at the apex court when the matter eventually gets there. I wonder whether they would have allowed the chief justice in office longer than necessary if they were in Buhari’s shoes, seeing the potential danger that that portended for their electoral chances and given the stupendous amount found in the CJN’s accounts.
I do not know how many people also noticed one other thing that I noticed in this election. I did not see much of Ghana must go bags of old. I mean it does not seem there is much ‘obtainment’ or ‘Atikulation’ unlike we witnessed in 2015, when the then President Goodluck Jonathan spent money to bribe voters as if to actually demonstrate that money was not Nigeria’s problem, but how to spend it. We saw what they did with foreign currencies that they dispensed in a prodigal manner and they are now crying that the value of the naira keeps depreciating. Did they not know they were sowing the seed of what the country is now reaping with the low naira value? Yet, they are the ones crying foul! Anyway, I say again that it is Buhari I blame. But one must also sympathise with the president because our judiciary, as presently constituted, cannot redeem us or stop corruption in any form. It is not designed to wipe out corruption; it was in fact designed to fertilise it.
As I kept ruminating on the money-for-vote scenario of 2015, and lamenting that I have neither ‘obtained’ nor got ‘Atikulated’, some of those who know me well said there is no way they can share pig that it would get to Lemomu (a Muslim cleric). They said those distributing it know where to channel it to. I was forced to agree with them because even as democratised as the practice was in 2015, I only heard about it; I neither got nor saw it.
The churches and mosques also have done fairly well in their run-up to the elections. Many of them have rained more than enough curses on those who have been using their ill-gotten wealth to bring in arms and ammunition to foment trouble during the elections. Such moneybags won’t spend their money to create viable jobs for the country’s teeming jobless youths. The curses cannot go without having the desired effect on those who flew their own children abroad to safe havens while arming other people’s children to fight their dirty political battles. I have always said it; and it bears restating, that the most painful aspect of this useless scramble for and the partitioning of the country’s political spoils is that the rat race is not necessarily about the bettering of the lives of Nigerians. It is about personal aggrandisement.
The struggle to render Buhari jobless has become fiercer because the free money that some top Nigerian politicians used to get has been stopped by Buhari’s policies. The taps are no longer running freely as they used to. Yet, these people have spent so much to unseat Buhari that they must just win the election, by hook or crook. They cannot contemplate another four years of the ‘dryness’ that Buhari’s government has unleashed on them. It is like another four years in the wilderness. That is why they are exploiting the gullibility of the average Nigerian to accuse Buhari of being responsible for the economic hardship the country is going through. But the result of the presidential election would ultimately show whether Nigerians are wiser or they still believe in selling their votes (and by extension, their future) for peanuts instead of interrogating those giving them the peanuts.
My own Christian conscience cannot take money from a candidate I know I can never vote for. As a matter of fact, I won’t even take money from my choice candidate before voting for him or her. But I have also been telling those whose Muslim or Christian conscience does not forbid taking such money to take it because it is our money. They can still take the money and vote according to their conscience. No one will spend billions of his or her hard-earned money to bribe voters without looking forward to recouping after getting to office. This, as a matter of fact, is at the heart of the strong desire to take Buhari’s job. For some of those seeking it; this might just be their last chance. It is possible the youths would be better organised before 2023 when another General Elections would be held in the country. So, all these spent forces who have done more harm than good to the country would be retired.
Let parents warn their children against being used as cannon fodder by politicians. President Buhari has warned that ballot-snatching would not be tolerated. Nigeria is one of the countries where people snatch ballot boxes and are even recorded on tape, yet, there are no consequences. When people are punished for electoral malpractices, those who might want to toe similar path would begin to think twice.
May the God of Shedrack, Meshack and Abednego who saw us through the 2015 elections see us successfully though this one too.
