J G Nkem Onyekpe
Because flawless elections are an aberration in Nigeria many think we should continue to rig elections with impunity. This intellectually and morally wretched category of people maintain that litigation cannot cause any reversal of the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
The two major opposition parties, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and the Labour Party, LP, the Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, local and international observers, eminent Nigerian personalities, electoral officials, the voters themseves, etc, have alleged that the election was marred by massive rigging, grand corruption, pervasive violence, and partisan exclusion of selected parts of the country from voting. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in charge of elections is said to have carried out its electoral work without the application of some of the fundamental and clear provisions of the electoral laws of the Nigerian State.
Besides, the declared winner of the presidential election, Asiwaju Tinubu, did not win up to one-quarter of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, a requirement that is clearly stated in the Electoral Act. The opposition parties, the PDP and the LP, have embarked on litigation. Leading members of the political and business elite and different interest groups have continued to congratulate Asiwaju Tinubu on his declaration by the INEC as president-elect in spite of the fact that the outcome of the election is a subject of litigation.
Is it not against common sense for any responsible citizen or group to congratulate the main beneficiary of an elections that is a subject of litigation and that has ignited protests and has the potential and capacity to ignite and sustain more protests in its aftermath? One would have expected that those in jocundity of celebration with the declared winner would have exercised some caution and circumspection, that they may not run into the difficult problem of how to congratulate any of the other contestants, Abubakar Atiku, Peter Obi, or Rabiu Kwakwanso tomorrow after they have congratulated Bola Tinubu today.
Yes, I began my comments with the characterisation of those who are already dancing for or with Bola Tinubu as intellectually and morally wretched people.
The intellectual thinks for society, his concern is about how society can make progress by moving from “what is” to “what ought to be”. No intellectual qua intellectual, who is thinking for the good of society, can afford to rigidly hold the position that, because in Nigeria litigation does not or rarely changes the outcomes of elections as pronounced by the electoral body, then the polity should not be bothered about the way it organises its elections and the legitimacy of their outcomes or the lack of legitimacy. Concerning the morally wretched, they are unscrupulous people who, in all they do, are primarily driven by what they estimate and expect as their personal gains. This is the category of people who think the good and progress of society should be subordinated to personal interests.
As far as they are concerned , morality exists only in the lexicon of self-righteous mortals. And so, as they parasitically benefit from the abuse of the state and society through the rigging of elections and the emergence of the fittest by Machiavellian and Mephistophelean methods and tactics, they mock the believers and advocates of due process and those disadvantaged and harmed by the abuse of the state and society and their defined laws and challenge them to approach the courts of law. Dead as they are in their arrogance, they would always chastise their opponents: We will meet in court! But the question is: Whose court?
JGN Onyekpe, PhD; fhsn.
Department of History and Strategic Studies,
University of Lagos, Akoka.