By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Nobody can beat Nigerian politicians to the game of mischief. When it comes to that, they are at their creative best.
I have had a good laugh since the beginning of what seems to be the conclusion of the first phase of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s otherwise inconclusive elections.
First phase because elections in Nigeria even after the mayhem and outright banditry still remain inconclusive until the courts make the final pronouncements. And almost every single poll is challenged in court. That is Nigeria’s homegrown democracy.
So, the voters exercise their civic duty but the votes most times are neither counted nor count.
Perhaps, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dictator, Joseph Stalin, had our beloved country in mind when he uttered the quip, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything,” a malevolent idea which was not original to him because in his 1922 novel, Uncle Henry, George Creel, an investigative journalist, writer and politician who served as the head of the U.S. Committee on Public Information, a propaganda organization created by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I, wrote: “There’s more to an election than mere voting,’ my boy, for as an eminent American once said: ‘I care not who casts the votes of a nation if they’ll let me make the count.”
This was a sentiment amplified by former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza when he quipped hubristically after one of his kangaroo elections that, “Indeed, you won the elections, but I won the count.”
So, the Nigerian military in organising the 1999 elections took the admonition to heart. President Olusegun Obasanjo upped the ante of electoral malfeasance and President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the APC, with INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, as their chief enforcer, have taken the country to the next level of electoral imbecility. The APC has reduced elections in Nigeria to a farce.
But why am I having a good laugh? Nigerian politicians have upped the ante of clowning. They are court jesters or how else does one explain the strident cries of stolen mandates even by those who lost elections in their families and wards?
In fact, the 2019 elections can aptly be titled ‘stolen mandates polls.’ Everybody’s mandate has been stolen by everyone. We have become a country of mandate-robbers? Everyone is a suspect. Even the almighty President Buhari is crying foul.
Nigeria has become one huge wailing orchestra. While some of these claims, at least on face value, have merit, most are spurious.
For instance, when the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, says “I have just inaugurated my legal team and charged them with the responsibility of ensuring that our stolen mandate is retrieved,” some Nigerians can reasonably say, well …!
He came second in the presidential election with 11,262,978 votes against Buhari’s15,191,847 votes.
But not so when the presidential candidate of the Youth Progressive Party (YPP), Professor Kingsley Moghalu, claims that his party’s votes were “stolen, suppressed and diverted.”
But it even gets more ridiculous, if not bizarre when Senator Godswill Akpabio’s paroxysm is thrown into the mix.
INEC declared Christopher Ekpenyong of the PDP winner of the Akwa Ibom North West senatorial election with 118,215 against Akpabio’s 83,158 votes.
Akpabio, former governor of the state and incumbent senator, would hear none of that.
“Incontrovertible result sheets from the INEC office in Uyo, showed different figures that I secured 138,256 votes as against Ekpenyong’s 123,843 votes,” he claimed.
His media aide, Anietie Ekong, amplified the claim. “We are not satisfied with the results and outcome of that election. That is why the former governor and the party approached the election petitions tribunal to ventilate their grievances as well as reclaim their stolen mandate.”
Akpabio himself became more comical with his claim that, “My mandate is solid and waiting for me. You know that I cannot fail election, I cannot fail. Do you expect me to fail? Won’t you love me to be your senator? I can’t fail.”
Meanwhile the man whose vaunted mandate was stolen lost eight out of the ten local governments in the senatorial zone.
Of course, his constituents don’t expect him to fail. They failed him, a fact the presidency did not appreciate when it took Akpabio’s claim from the prism of ridiculous to the absurd.
I laughed heartily when Buhari vowed he would reclaim APC’s stolen mandate in the state.
“What happened on February 23 was robbery. The votes of the people were stolen, but we are not deterred.
“We are going to make sure that everything that was stolen … would be restored,” Buhari said through his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo.
APC’s governorship candidate in the state, Nsima Ekere, latched onto the rope of deceit thrown at the sinking political ship, assuring supporters of victory.
Yet, in the election, APC lost the entire 13 National Assembly seats and the presidential election to boot. The PDP must be damn good in their alleged trade of mandate robbery to pull off that feat under the Buhari presidency.
The PDP in turn accused the Vice President and his party of living in a fool’s paradise.
In Delta State, the APC governorship candidate, Great Ogboru, claimed his mandate was stolen by the incumbent governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, and promised to reclaim same.
“I promised you a few weeks ago that we shall be in the proper arena to address the issues,” he told his supporters at a press conference.
“We have since the past few days filed our petitions to challenge the illegalities committed by the PDP and its leaders in Delta State on March 9, 2019, and we believe that with God on our side, that situation will surely be reversed.”
The God of Nigerian politicians is long-suffering indeed.
Meanwhile, the courts have declared that Ogboru was not even qualified to fly the APC flag. So, his candidacy was stolen. Poetic justice!
But the prize for the most ridiculous claim deservedly belongs to Biokpomabo Awara, the Rivers State African Action Congress (AAC) governorship candidate.
“I want Rivers people, especially my teeming supporters, who are being pained by what they are seeing, to keep hope alive. Victory is certain. We are going to bring back the stolen mandate,” Awara said after INEC finally announced the result of the governorship poll.
Many people are still scratching their heads, trying to figure out what he was talking about.
The incumbent governor, Nyesom Wike, won the poll with 886,264 votes against Awara’s 173,859 votes. The margin was 712,405 votes.
But Awara is assuring his people. “We are going to reclaim the stolen mandate … I want Rivers people, especially my teeming supporters, who are being pained by what they are seeing, to keep hope alive. Victory is certain. We are going to bring back the stolen mandate.”
In Imo State, it is the same song of lamentation. Hope Uzodinma of the APC and Action Alliance’s Uche Nwosu, are both claiming their mandates were stolen.
While Uzodinma is accusing Governor Rochas Okorocha for the grand theft, Nwosu, Okorocha’s son-in-law, is pointing fingers of blame at Uzodinma as the archetypal mandate robber.
Firing back at Okorocha’s taunt that the APC failed in Imo because it fielded Uzodinma, the APC candidate said “I will reclaim my mandate which Okorocha and Ihedioha stole … and then I will have something to tell Okorocha.”
Not wanting to be outdone, Nwosu is also throwing tantrums. “As far as I am concerned, this is a stolen mandate and I will challenge it at the tribunal. I have confidence that the judiciary will do the right thing.”
So, who did Emeka Ihedioha, the PDP candidate who won the Imo State governorship election steal the mandate from – Uzodinma, Nwosu or Okorocha?
With Nigerian politicians, answers to such questions blow in the wind.