Any moment from now, the result of last Saturday’s elections shall be announced. It is announcement everyone expects with bated breath for obvious reasons. It is announcement that will determine the direction this country would take in the next four years. It is announcement that would renew President Muhammadu Buhari’s occupancy of Ask Rock Villa or install Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as new president.
Elections in Nigeria are not what they should be. They are aimed at state capture and its resources. That is why people invest in elections by picking even renegades and sponsoring them in elections and do whatever to install them in office, thereby accessing national treasury.
It is as a result of this that government officials sing war songs from political podiums and party godfathers move ‘their’ money around in bullion vans for whatever purposes on the eve if elections.
The propaganda and violence that trailed the vote was palpable and reprehensible. It is indeed grievous if talks of connivance by security operatives is true. This is akin to a dog eating the bone that is hung on its neck for safe keeping. This further makes nonsense of the sacrifices of these patriotic Nigerians like the lieutenant that was reportedly killed in Rivers State. This and other needless and avoidable deaths is saddening.
However, after the acrimonious campaigns and electoral process marred in some areas by brazen violence, the question on most lips is what next?
Now that we have voted, the way forward is to dust off the ashes of the election and move on irrespective of who emerges winner.
The healing process should begin in earnest despite who wins. Nigeria is above all and we must place value on nation building, which has eluded Nigeria since independence.
What baffles me most is the looming war between the Igbo and Yoruba in Lagos. Street urchins, otherwise known as area boys, who were said to be members of the Odua Peoples Congress, OPC, attacked Igbo predominantly inhabited Okota during polling on Saturday. Their grouse was that the Igbo were pro-Peoples Democratic Party and in order to forestall them voting the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, invaded the polling boots, smashing ballot boxes and setting same ablaze, with the cast votes. In retaliation, the voters attacked leader of the gang, who, thankfully, survived the savage attack.
Was it worth it, to go to this length to satisfy your pay masters? Was it worth spilling blood, even if the blood is tainted? What is wrong with us in the South that we want to ignite war among ourselves in an election neither the Igbo nor Yoruba is prime contender? What is the stake of the Igbo or Yoruba in election between two northerners, two Fulani and two Muslims?
One prays for peace among the feuding groups. Let love reign, oneness and togetherness. The South, and in fact, Nigeria deserves unity now more than ever.
The attack on the Igbo is orchestrated by enemies of southern unity and it is very encouraging that pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has condemned the attack on the Igbo in Lagos. One only hopes reason prevails.
How many deaths were recorded in the North? How many kinsmen are after one another in the North the same way two prominent Ikwerre sons are in Rivers State, defending their overlords? Sometimes, I weep for southern Nigeria; I weep at how we have reduced ourselves to minions and instruments of mutual destruction, undoing one another while our enemies egg us on and thrive at our expense.
A lot of dirty water passed through the tunnel in the course of the election. The seeds of bitterness and hate have been down but it is time we poured acid on them so that they would not sprout. We need to input fertiliser of love and understanding.
Political offices must be made less attractive such that people would neither see it as a do or die affair because of concomitant benefits.
All we hope and pray for is that Nigeria would rise from the doldrums of its recent setbacks to prominence among the comity of nations.