Tag: Peace

Hopefully as you read this, we are in the final week of this year’s Presidential and National Assembly elections. While I was writing, the certainty of the elections, slated for next Saturday, was a mere hope; considering the man-made uncertainties surrounding the polls. In this era of so called social media, the anonymity of a crowd has transmuted into the anonymity of the social media practitioner, with its grave consequences. Now, all shades of persons hide under the social media, to wreck emotional havoc on the society, through character assassination, tempestuous mass hysteria, multiple mudsling, uncreative falsehood, integrity hacking, false innuendo, outright libel, you name it.

But the determined hangmen of this political era, are not anonymous. They are in the open. They are either supporting or within the political parties. Even they, also employ the tools of the social media to recklessly drive their poisoned screw into the thumbing heart of the social space. As I write this, the integrity of the electoral process has been so badly maligned that many Nigerians now see the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a villains’ empire. Yet, even where the hangmen are dangerously determined to have their way, we must rely on INEC to conduct the elections.

So, now we are faced with submitting our country, pregnant with multiple babies, to a midwife that many have openly referred to as a quack, compromised and incapacitated umpire. Having so recklessly maligned the integrity of the midwife, the challenge now starring us in the face is, how can we accept that the new baby that will be presented after the delivery, has not been switched? For the midwife, whose confidence has been so heavily shaken, can she confidently apply her skills to the best of her ability, even when her best efforts will most likely be challenged?

In employing the tools of her trade, like the card reader, what will Nigerians say or do, where some of the card readers unexpectedly malfunction, without any person haven pre-planned it? This is particularly scary, considering that while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has written off the card readers as a compromised instrument, the All Progressive Congress (APC) has claimed that card jamming equipment have been procured, to frustrate the exercise. So, where we have an accidental malfunction of a number of the card readers in any state, will it not be interpreted to suit the written script?

Because the parties are determined to have their way at all cost, the integrity of the chairman of the electoral commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, has been so badly damaged that he is now perhaps worth a penny, in the eyes of his many detractors. Yet, the INEC boss is the chief returning officer of the presidential election. So, unless he has a magic wand to whip the partisans in, to accept the results of the elections, there is the great likelihood that whatever results he announces after the elections will be dismissed as a fraud, with its huge consequences.

Considering the weight of insults heaped on the head of the electoral chief, it is a miracle that he still works upright, without at least a hunch back. For many others, the real miracle is that as I write this piece, Professor Jega remains the chairman of INEC, despite the unprecedented hue and cry against his stay in office. Unfortunately the script against Jega was modelled from that made against his predecessor in office, the former INEC boss, Professor Maurice Iwu. Then as now, Nigerians are urging President Goodluck Jonathan to usurp lawful legislative powers, in exercise of constitutional powers.

In an effort to hack Prof Jega to smith screens, the integrity hackers alleged all manner of perfidy against the man. Some had done their damage without any inkling as to the collateral consequences their action has foisted on the entire process. Recently as I watched Jega walking tiredly within the prescient of seat of the federal power, Aso Rock, Abuja, I could visualiSe the heavy chains dragging his feet as he dragged himself to the finishing line. But for a birthday congratulatory message showing him as being in his 50s, his recent gait had given him off as being in his seventies.

Even as our sights are set on the presidential election, the states and the constituencies are no less combustible. For many, it is a zero sum game. A do or die affair. Of course, if Hon. Nduka Elumelu, a member of the House of Representatives, could, without duress, confess to a bewildered country, that he willingly gave out a humongous N 750 million to a well-heeled political tout, for a political pie in the sky, Nigerians would understand the reasons for the dreadful desperation to win, regardless of the preferences of voters.

As recent events have shown, our common resources have come to the rescue of those who are already on the brink of personal bankruptcy. Since the unconscionable hard work of the contestants to win at all costs have now colluded with the civil elites’determination to gain materially from that desperation, the ordinary Nigerians and our national and state treasuries have willy-nilly, joined the desperados to the Ides of March. As is already clear to all and sundry, our national bankruptcy will soon be wedded to their personal bankruptcies, to our mutual tragedy.

So, our Nation needs all the prayers, for surely it is at a historical cross-road. As I said at the beginning, much of the problem is man-made, and the so the solutions can be made by man. It is therefore important that our national security agencies should rise up, and join their capabilities to our supplication for a free, fair and credible elections, to save our democracy.