By Horatio Adurogbangba
We are all witnesses to the devastating history
of electoral fraud in Nigeria. Since the first republic, elections have been,
at times a violent, do or die contest for control of state power and public
resources. Previous democratic experiments failed mainly because of disputed,
flawed elections.
We achieved some progress due to electoral reforms initiated
by late President Yar’Adua, himself an admitted beneficiary of electoral malfeasance,
based on recommendations of the Justice Uwais Electoral Reform Commission.
By now we should have dispensed with false
thumbprinting of multiple ballots, ballot box snatching and violence. However,
some people entered politics playing these tricks. They climbed to the height
of political power using these tricks. They now seek to capture the zenith of
political office by returning to these old tricks and initiating a new
generation of technologically sophisticated scams with the same objective: being declared the winner of an election
without winning the most voted. The use
of new technology to perfect new forms of election rigging shows that an old
dog can indeed learn new tricks if those tricks will help him acquire the tasty
bone that has heretofore evaded his grasp.
The events of the last few days have reminded
us that election riggers are still primed to kidnap our democracy by shredding
our votes into meaningless confetti.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the PDP Presidential Candidate, ran an uninspired
campaign. Although an opposition candidate who could focus his entire attention
on the presidential race, Atiku visited but 20 states. Meanwhile President
Muhammadu Buhari visited all 36 states and the FCT. Many of Atiku’s campaign
rallies were characterized by scanty attendance. His events lacked the energy
and passion evident in the APC rallies. Most telling of all, Atiku’s campaign
was an ineffective messenger. His
campaign document, the Atiku Plan, was stillborn. It crashed from inattention and
apathy before having a chance to take off. Barely a week after publishing it,
Atiku never mentioned it again. Devoid
of a positive message to give the people, his campaign team implemented their
infamous Dubai Strategy, deploying lies and publicity stunts to gain public
sympathy and distract the electorate from the fact that corruption is their
most fitting epithet.
An example of these empty stunts was his visit
to America. Atiku paid lobbyists and others over a million dollars for a two
day visit to the place. If Atiku’s aim was to make history, He succeeded, but
not in the way he wants. The man succeeded in purchasing the most expensive
temporary visa in the annals of recorded travel between two nations. For him to
spend such a lavish sum for such a meager visit portends his designs on the
national treasury. He did not spend that much money just to lose it. If he
gains high office, Atiku will much more than enrich his friends. He will make
himself the supreme potentate. Money will bear his face and name because he
will believe all the money is his. In short, the visit to America was an
expensive attempt to convince the Nigerian people that Atiku was legitimate to
the outside world. These are not the
tactics of a winning hand. It is insulting to think a trip to America would
convince Nigerians that the traveler should be their president. America cannot
care more for Nigeria than Nigerians themselves. The things Atiku has done are
the vain efforts of someone who knows that he loses a clean and fair election.
But he covets the office beyond the bounds of healthy desire. He thus feigns at
running the semblance of a campaign. However, the brunt of his resources and
attention are directed toward a more subterranean and inimical setting.
In the absence of a focused and inspiring
issue-based campaign, Atiku is relying on strange mathematics to win the presidency. From the events of the
last few days, he has retooled and oiled the rigging machine of the PDP.
This is not surprising. Late last year, Atiku
spoke wistfully at a public gathering about days gone past when PDP freely
rigged elections using state money and hired thugs. At a meeting with the Lagos
PDP chapter, Atiku said:
“When we came to power in 1999, the
entire South West was being controlled by AD and when we were approaching 2003
elections, I told my boss (Obasanjo), ‘give me the authority to take over the
South-West’ and he gave me that authority and I took over all the states with
the exception of Lagos.
“This is because Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and I came a long
way from SDP, PMM, PDM to SDP and I felt I should leave Lagos for him. I could
easily have taken over Lagos.
“My brothers and sisters, I want you to forgive me for
leaving Lagos out of that arrangement. If I have another opportunity again, Lagos will go together with the rest. I
can tell you that I know what I did to preserve Lagos.”
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo deployed
federal might to skew elections in the southwest during the 2003 exercise.
Atiku confessed that he was the tricky tool Obasanjo’s hand used to perpetrate electoral fraud throughout the
southwest.
Atiku further vowed that if given another
chance, LAGOS WILL GO TOGETHER WITH THE REST! This confession, coupled with
revelations since the election postponement, demonstrate that Atiku and the PDP
plan to rig again.
Nigerians should therefore be wary of Atiku and
the PDP. They are addicted to rigging. It is the only way they know how to win
elections. Ongoing investigations since the election postponement indicate that
PDP and Atiku have deployed their evil cunning in an attempt to corrupt the
electoral process. It appears that they had bribed some election officials to
preprogram smart card readers so that they appear dumb and transmit false
results to INEC headquarters. This is why the card readers have had to be wiped
clean and reprogrammed. They have also spent heavily to buy the loyalty of some
INEC staff and NYSC ad hoc staff. They have gained possession of ballot papers
and have manufactured close counterfeits of the genuine papers which they
thumb-printed in advance to pad the vote in their own strongholds. They had
hired thugs and ruffians to make a mess of things and bring disorder where they
know they cannot rig the returns. They used this exact same template in past
elections, but they must never be allowed to do this again. Enough is enough. I
am in full support of the President’s recent warning to ballot box snatchers.
Ballot box snatchers are criminals by law and they deserve a criminal’s reward.
Every Nigerian must be on high alert.
No comments:
Post a Comment