OPINION: A tale of three frauds

IN less than 72 hours last weekend, two of the three frauds that have been planned against Nigerians happened. But they have not gone full cycle yet. The third leg of the new tripod in Nigeria will unravel on June 6 and 7, that is, next week. It used to be that when in the past we talked about tripod, it was a reference to the major nations that constituted Nigeria- the Igbo, the Yoruba and the Hausa/Fulani. That concept has since died and there is every likelihood that the ghost of Tripod Nigeria would be buried this year and the final memorial will hold on or about May 29, 2023.

Elections have been problematic in Nigeria even before the country became independent in 1960. History is replete with stories about how the British, our colonizers, manipulated both census and election results figures to serve their ends and their interests. Many declassified documents from the colonial era have proven beyond any doubt the duplicity of Nigeria’s colonizers. Nothing the British did in Nigeria was altruistic. Nothing was done to benefit Nigerians. And at the point they, the British realized that their hold on Nigeria was unsustainable, they set out on setting up boobytraps in this country. And how they have succeeded. Nigeria is trapped. And helpless. And stranded.

Our education, our politics, our mentality, our culture, our social relationships, the unity of our country, our religion, our confidence, our diversity among others, have been sufficiently tuned and oriented to promote and serve interests other than Nigeria’s. The tragedy is that Britain has not stopped in meddling in the affairs of Nigeria. But the greater tragedy is that other countries have teamed up with Britain in holding Nigeria down. But you may ask what have we done and what are we doing to break the shackles and to free ourselves as some other countries that were colonized by Britain had done? Legitimate question I will readily admit. Not much in spite of the fact that the Afro beat legend, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti spoke to the issue of the deleterious effects of ”Colo [colonial] mentality” about half a century ago.

But I will be the first person to admit that not everything about us today is a clone from Britain. For instance, we have since abandoned the parliamentary system of government bequeathed to us in 1960 by our colonial masters. At the time we did, there was no manifest and compelling evidence that that mode of government had failed us. It’s just that in some aspects of our national life, we love to be like the Jones’s. In 1979, after many years of military rule, we ported to the United States and adopted the presidential system but created our own unique election management system with the establishment of the federal election commission or FEDECO. In America, election management is vested in counties and states but here we have a central or federal behemoth which now goes by the name of Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC]. We are willing to concede in spite of the absurdity, that INEC is everything in its name except ‘Independent’. It has never been independent and you do not need to make an effort to see that it is the lapdog of the Executive branch and to sundry individuals with deep pockets from stolen public monies.

Ahead of the conventions of the two major political parties last weekend, INEC showed its hand to confirm the obvious- that it is anything but independent. Long before the primaries of the country’s 18 registered political parties during which their presidential candidates were expected to emerge, INEC had issued guidelines and timetable to guide the conduct of the parties. Indeed, the INEC documents covered all activities up to the conduct of general elections in February and March in 2023. The documents also provided ample room should the need arise for supplementary or run off elections. Since February, INEC has consistently insisted that the processes leading to the 2023 elections are ”fixed and inflexible”.

in fact, Mr. Festus Okoye, the commission’s ranking officer in charge of voters education said on May 26th that the timetable would not be adjusted for whatever reason because ”…the 2023 elections have already started…” and that it would be immoral ”…to shift the goalpost when the football match has already started”. Twenty-four hours later and on the eve of the commencement of the convention of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party [PDP], INEC did the exact opposite by tampering with the ”fixed and inflexible” guidelines. INEC said it altered the guidelines because it just discovered that there was an idle downtime between the primaries of the political parties and the transmission of the names of their candidates to the election managers. If there was any advantage to be conferred by the adjustment, the PDP [which by the way is not different from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC] had been shortchanged. Of course, the PDP cried blue murder and accused INEC of manipulating the process at the behest of APC and the president, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

If INEC had insisted since February that its timetable and guidelines would not be altered for any reason, and the same body fiddled with the documents on the eve of a consequential event by the dominant political parties, could it reasonably lay claim to neutrality given that the adjustment allowed the APC to kick its own primary down the line and buy more time to attempt to put its troubled house in order? By its brazen and partisan action concerning what it had deemed sacrosanct and inviolable documents at the last minute, INEC has demonstrated beyond doubts that it cannot be an impartial arbiter in the 2023 elections. And like in 2019, it cannot be trusted.

Read also: OPINION: The real losers and winners of the PDP presidential primaries by Ikem Okuhu

But the perfidy of INEC notwithstanding, the two dominant political parties- APC and PDP- are all but set to perpetrate the worst heist on Nigerians. Late on Saturday night, the perennial presidential candidate who also holds a dubious record of contesting on multiple party tickets at different season, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, grabbed the ticket of the PDP. The story is that the ticket was auctioned to the highest bidder. And the currency for the auction was the United States dollars. As the dozen odd gladiators in the PDP mopped up dollars in the market, the value of the Naira tumbled exchanging at N610 to one USD. Indeed banks in Abuja reportedly ran out of dollars while the scramble lasted. It will be foolhardy to expect good governance to be thrown up in 2023 from a ”contaminated, corrupted and compromised” PDP primary in Abuja. So Nigerians should brace up for business as usual in the unlikely event that the PDP wins next year.

The ruling APC is in a worse shape. There is already a raging internal war with a deputy chairman accusing the chairman of running the party like a personal estate. And we are talking about a chairman that it took forever, almost, to produce. By imposition. Even the procurement of the chairman has not cured the party’s internal contradictions. The Good Book says when the foundation is faulty nothing good comes out. The APC finds it difficult to function as a political party in power. It’s beset by crises in many state chapters, it has kept postponing its presidential primary and now it has been given a helping, even if ultimately not helpful, hand by the INEC. The APC has demonstrated that it cannot conduct a free, fair and credible party election. And that is why it is trapped with producing a presidential candidate for the 2023 election. How then can a party that is mortally afraid of holding internal election give Nigeria what it does not have. APC is obviously waiting and wangling for the Super Delegate, without a vote, to anoint its presidential candidate. And to imagine that that candidate could be a non-orthodox party member.

But Nigerians can and should resist the multiple frauds from being foisted on them. 2023 will be consequential for this country. To be or not to be. The choice is ours. We are not handicapped.

AUTHOR: Ugo Onuoha…

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Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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