Every election cycle, the conmen and armed robbers have largely had their say and ascended positions of power and prestige – aided by people like Mahmoud Yakubu and his fellow gangsters in the INEC and the judiciary.
By Achike Chude
Move over Maurice Iwu! Make way! Clear the path. For he, who is greater than you in electoral perfidy and rascality is come. In your time, you took charge of manual voting and made nonsense of the process. Your current successor took charge of a more advanced and technologically driven process and magically managed to make it manual.
No more will your name be a primary source of infamy and derision on the lips of many when it comes to elections in Nigeria. No more will people say “They did a Maurice Iwu, to describe a flawed NBA, NLC, or other elections in the country. No more will people look at the period, 2005-2010 when you were in charge, as the darkest period in Nigeria’s electoral calendar.
Sorry to tell you that Mahmoud Yakubu has come to town and is better than you in the game. He is more suave, genial, urbane, soft spoken, and as deadly as a black mamba.
If you thought that you were Maradona and better versed in running rings around Nigerians, then you had better think twice. Mahmoud Yakubu is a combination of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. It is why he had us in a bind and trance for so long.
Conmen and armed robbers have rolled into town. Ask Goodluck Jonathan about it. He knows.
We understand when bandits and armed robbers come into the house through the window or the back door. It’s what they do, because their presence is illegitimate. But when the landlord or the householder uses the window or the back door into a house they own or live in, then it is more likely that they have committed an aberration. It speaks to their values and temperament.
Last week, former President Goodluck Jonathan declared that any politician that uses violence and rigging to get to power is a conman and an armed robber.
Conman and armed robber?
We have been living with them for years. Every election cycle, the conmen and armed robbers have largely had their say and ascended positions of power and prestige – aided by people like Mahmoud Yakubu and his fellow gangsters in the INEC and the judiciary. It is why our country has been continuously ravaged and violated by those who emerge from the process. But can we continue in the same direction and expect a different result? Can we continue to live in sin that grace may abound?
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Do they understand what they have done? The import of their actions? Do they understand the elevation of personal, primordial sentiments over public interest? In such a fiendish manner? The question that must be asked, that has been asked several times is whether darkness can give light.
The people that engaged in the show of shame of a presidential election want to give us good leadership and governance. It’s why they want to take over government – to fulfill the constitutional imperative that states clearly that the primary responsibility of government is to provide for the security and welfare of the people.
But how can politicians who show disdain for the rule of law, have no compunction for rigging and are versed in the dark arts of violence which they freely deploy against the same people they will govern provide responsible and accountable government?
But we know that they do not care about such values. It’s all about power for the sake of power. Nothing else matters. They must be rubbing their hands in glee and ecstasy in anticipation of the mighty and fantabulous offices they would occupy from the 29th of May 2023. Their reward for perverting the values of decency and subverting the public good is a passage to political paradise – their paradise.
Once more, another electoral matter that should be decided at the polling units has headed to the courts where judges who are no longer much different from politicians in integrity and moral compass will have the final say.
There will be a far greater scrutiny on the judiciary over this matter than at any other time in the history of presidential election tribunals. Nigerians and the whole world followed every aspect of this election with minute attention and details. The interest of the young people, the youths and their mastery of social media, ensured that all the happenings in and around the polling booths were captured real time. There is a rich throve of evidence of gross malfeasance in this last presidential and National Assembly elections.
Apart from the usual diplomatic congratulations of the pronounced winner of the presidential election, various international media have had scathing criticism on the conduct of the elections.
Talking about the disappointment of the elections in Nigeria, the German newspaper, SuddeutcheZeitung, said: In Nigeria the entire political class is considered corrupt and criminal.
What a testimony.
Well, perhaps, not all of them.
But it’s why Goodluck Jonathan called them conmen and armed robbers. Some people insist that Mahmoud Yakubu and his INEC as well as some judges belong in that category.
Conmen and armed robbers.
Many tears for Nigeria.