Edo election isn’t victory for democracy (2)

In 1999, when 30,280,052 million Nigerians voted, about a billion Naira went into it. By 2015, over N100 billion went into same exercise, then, dubbed the most expensive on the African continent. Incredibly, 29,432,083 Nigerians voted, out of 67,422.005 who registered for the exercise. How could we be celebrating anything democratic when the process of getting there is in shambles? When expense increased by more than 100 per cent, fewer voters showed up, counting the goats, cattle and underage, that made the voting numbers in the North. Who does that kind of business and slaps chest as a profitable salesman?

Then the wonderment of 2019. Fewer voters still, at 28,614,190 million and a jackpot of investment, overshooting the 2015 record-breaking sum, by more than N69 billion. In fact, President Muhammadu Buhari presented a budget of N242 billion for the poll. In the euphoria of his re-election, nobody is demanding how such humongous public money was spent, in the same geographical terrain, well maybe minus the rampaging insecurity, on the same election conducted with a billion Naira where two million more voters, voted. What exactly drives our values around here?

Official records showed that between 1999 and 2018, INEC, under five chairmen, a retired Supreme Court justice, three Professors and one PhD holder, received N730.99 billion as budgetary allocations from our common purse. Of this amount, N450 billion was captured under “Electoral Expenditure”, N191.8 billion was for “Personal Cost”, N36.9 billion for “Overhead Cost” and N54.7 billion was put under “Capital Expenditure”. There isn’t any concrete evidence that any institutional due process was conducted to ensure probity and accountability. Once elections are won and lost, rigged and wriggled out, the owanbe of celebration and judicial macabre of rewriting poll results in courtrooms begin. Legislative or whatever oversight becomes an opportunity to negotiate undeserving victories on the field. It becomes a case of you can keep the money, just issue me CoR. May many not receive Certificate of no Return (CoNR) in Jesus Name.

Nigeria is in a mess and until the leadership question is answered in favour of credibility, accountability and sacrifice, whatever is poured in, as solution, will remain a soluble. So, what exactly are we celebrating in the conduct and outcome of Edo election, when the President had to boast of deploying thousands of uniformed officers, not mentioning the plain-cloth and the military, simply because about 600,000 voters, including the cooked figures o, wanted to exercise their franchise. Already, early voting in America has grossed over a million and despite their hullabaloo about mail-in voting, security men aren’t grounding neighbourhoods or locking hotels down.

Who is patting INEC’s back for spending more than what the equally-wasteful Abdulsalam Abubakar-led military government spent in 1999 on general election, to conduct just governorship election in a state. Make we tink am nau and let nobody tell me say na dollar. When N1 billion was initially allocated for the election out of the N40 billion statutory 2020 budget for the commission, Mahmood Yakubu, went wailing. Where is the explanation on the spending of N100 billion of 2015 by Attahiru Jega? Where is the explanation on the spending of double the amount in 2019? Yes, politicians may have succeeded in wrapping their politics around our heads to disallow for critical appreciation of issues of accountability in public and private lives of those who have elected to hold our common purse in trust, but there should be rare moments when partisanship should rue its loss over our mental ability.

Today, India, six times our population, spends much lower amount of money on its elections, compared to us. One would expect dear President Buhari to engage in such critical reasoning of the fundamentals, instead of mourning his party’s loss, while reluctantly congratulating a “son” in whom he was obviously well-pleased. The much he didn’t do on Edo, during the ding-dong, was repeat his bullet of “vote as you like” message to his fragmented party in Ogun State during the campaign crisis between former Governor Ibikunle Amosun and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. He openly backed the rebels then, though his “fingers”, no matter how bony, were also all evident on Obaseki’s victory.

Seeing the President publicly boast of directing the Inspector General of Police to ensure a free and fair election, reminds of Yoruba’s anecdotal logic of meat disappearing in the mouth. Who didn’t know where it went and how, even if the whys would remain conjectural? Beyond the amusing logic, the sad reality is that if the President wants to do se kan ko mi, ko se kan kora e, like an inebriated fellow, he could easily instruct the same IGP to ensure Ondo remains in APC hand, by fire, by force, and make it 1-1 goalless draw with PDP. But why can’t we have a standard? Must a public official who swore to a constitutional oath, wait on the mood of the President to function, as ought to? What if the President suddenly goes rouge and desires everything for his party? With the undeserving adulation the President is receiving on Edo, is the nation not empowering him, to become the law, when he isn’t Timi?

Yes, when someone has suffered a lack for too long, anything with semblance of reprieve, would be clung to, as a life-saver. The world saw Kogi, which Buhari and the judiciary thumbed up. The world saw Osun, which Buhari and Supreme Court thumbed up. The world saw Ekiti, which Buhari and judiciary thumbed up. When travel ban came, croc tears were being shed. Riggers should save their tears for God’s judgement. Enough of the blood of the innocent. It is theirs, and their own, that would start soaking the battlefield they have made campaigns and polling booths.

I care less about which party wins, anywhere. The political class is a cult of desperate seekers. The common bond makes it easy for them to move homes at zero hours and still feel at home, because all parties are home to them. They are always seeking, knocking and asking for power as an aphrodisiac, to put them in amorous affection with the nation’s Strong Room. But there is a stronger God. When He is ready for them, no Z-pad technological nonsense would save them. Matthew 7:7 would have a real-time meaning for them soon.

 

 

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