Let us face it, we are not yet in a democracy, we are in a civilian government. Democracy is the rule of the people. Any government, not verifiably enthroned by the people, through a free, fair, credible, and verifiable election, cannot be said to be a democratic government, even if civilians are in charge. Civilian government can come in through a lot of ways which include, establishing an interim government like the government of Ernest Shonekan, rigging of elections, such as we have in Nigeria and other African countries, judiciary imposed leadership, such as happens in Nigeria. Nigeria’s case is so terrible that President Yar Adua admitted that the election that brought him to power was flawed, yet the Supreme Court told the world that the election was flawless. That raised an irrefutable evidence that the mere fact that the Supreme Court approves of an election does not in any way create an evidence that the election was not rigged.
In Nigeria, section 14(1) of the 1999 Constitution states that “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy ….” The principles of democracy include free, fair, credible elections, rule of law, promotion and protection of fundamental human rights, independent and impartial judiciary, free and independent press. As beautiful as these principles are, it’s the eternal vigilance of the people that can sustain democracy. President Barack Obama made it clear that “democracy will win, if we fight for it”. The days to remain calm after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) transparently rigs an election is over. Prevention is better than cure. When you calm down after any rigging by INEC, you will be asked to calm down after any court delivers a decision that is not according to law. This is the best method for evil people to take over a country in the name of democracy.
In fairness, even the rule of law, does not support the idea of calm down whenever any person is committing a crime in the presence of the inhabitants of Nigeria. The law is that citizens should arrest such a criminal and hand the person over to the police. But the most potent reason for this provision is geared towards giving the citizens of Nigeria the power to prevent crime before it occurs. Section 39 of the Nigeria Police Act states that “A private person may arrest a suspect in Nigeria who in his presence commits an offence, or whom he reasonably suspects of having committed an offence for which the police is entitled to arrest without a warrant.” Nigerians are gradually waking up to their responsibility to resist law breakers no matter how highly placed they may be and whether they are in uniform or not. There was one Isaac Fayose who stopped a convoy of one Minister with Police escort from knowingly plying one-way traffic lane. A Governor in Lagos rightly did it to some citizens, including a soldier, so the citizens have the right to do it to officers of government. This is the right way to go.
Democracy, when appropriately harnessed leads to good governance and development because it is only when a government can guarantee these benefits that people can vote for it. Democracy has taken a one time colonised country called the United States of America and made it the most powerful nation on earth. Fighting for the liberation of a country from colonialism is not the same as fighting for democracy. The first generation of African leaders merely fought for the liberation of their country from colonialism but didn’t fight for the enthronement of democracy. They simply replaced the domination of their people by the colonial masters with the selfish domination of the succeeding leaders. Most of the countries adopted one party state which effectively shut out opposition elements from participating in elections and witnessed dictators lasting for more than 30 years in office. At times the dethronement of these dictators often led to wars in those countries which led to the underdevelopment of the countries involved. Muammar Ghadaffi of Libya overthrew the King of Libya and took over the leadership of the country. He converted the country to his personal property for 42 years until he was forcefully removed by the Libyan people in a revolution in which he was captured and killed. Togo is governed by one family since independence. So also is Cameroon, Uganda and so on.
Nigeria was not left out of this trajectory. The colonial masters organised the election that brought the civilians to power in 1960 in Nigeria. The politicians that emerged victorious in 1960 couldn’t organise free, fair, and credible elections that could transfer power to another set of politicians. This led to military coups and counter coups and war to bring us to the level we are today that made us one of the poorest countries in the world. The problem was that immediately the freedom fighters chased away the colonial masters, they lowered their guard and failed to fight the emerging leaders with the same level of unity and attack as they did against the colonial masters. The politicians were able to divide them into ethnic, religious lines to weaken their determination to fight for genuine democracy. The people that fought as one united country against colonial masters could no longer unite to fight their corrupt, undemocratic leaders.
This malaise repeated itself in the modern day Nigeria when Nigerians fought against military regime with oneness of mind only to lose their guard against fighting the emerging undemocratic leaders after 1999 on the mistaken impression that they have gotten democracy. I recall when a Shehu Sani, Femi Falana, Olisa Agbakoba united in their fight for democracy against military regime. Now that it is obvious that we have not gotten the democracy we fought for against military regime, every Nigerian needs to get back to the trenches to ensure that democracy is recovered in Nigeria. A country where the INEC will make express promise on how to organise elections electronically and collect adequate money from the legislature for the purpose, but deliberately botch the election in order to produce their premeditated candidate and the people were advised to go to court. A country where INEC gave election results to politicians to prefill before election and assisted them to record it as the actual result on election day and the people were asked to go to court. A country where the Supreme Court will remove a candidate who won his primary election and make way for another candidate who didn’t even participate in the election and the people were advised to leave it to God. A country which allows all these to be happening and they do nothing is a country that is not yet ready for democracy.
We must rise up and fight for democracy. From the forthcoming election, Nigerians must resist every attempt by INEC to rig elections. It simply requires the collective will of the people to do the right thing. Sovereignty belongs to the people. Nigerians must become democracy rangers in all the polling units around Nigeria. Every polling unit must be manned by the collective will of Nigerians irrespective of party, ethnic, religious or place of origin affiliations. The provisions of the Electoral Act must be implemented by every participant in the election, and any INEC official that goes against the law should attract immediate sanction from the collective will of the people. If the official is doing it in collusion with the uniformed officers, both of them must be apprehended immediately and prevented from continuing to rig the elections. No INEC officer should be allowed to leave the polling unit if the official did not transmit electronically the authentic result of the polling unit to the IREV portal and they confirm it in their phones before the result leaves the polling unit. The people must follow the results to the collation centres and ensure the same process takes place. The collation officers must transmit electronically the collated results from each level of ward, Local Government, State and National collation centres to the collation system which is verifiable in everybody’s phone until the returning officers declare the right candidates as winners. In summary, Nigerians “no gree for INEC”.
Holding INEC accountable to the people is desirable because rigging of election which is a form of corruption has brought a bad name and bad leaders for Nigeria. The Constitution is very clear in section 24(b)(e) that every citizen has a duty to enhance the power, prestige and good name of Nigeria, defend Nigeria and render such national service as may be required; render assistance to appropriate and lawful agencies in the maintenance of law and order. In the execution of this mandate against INEC, Nigerians must reject the purported idea by INEC that the attitude of the political class is responsible for the electoral malpractices. It is good officiating that ensures that a football game is fair not the attitude of the players because every player, if allowed by the referee, will love to win even if it entails scoring goals with “the hand of God” in a world cup. INEC and INEC alone is responsible for free, fair, and credible elections and must be held accountable to adhering to all the laws of the land in the conduct of elections. Any attempt by INEC to rig elections henceforth must be resisted at all cost and appropriate deterrence executed on them by the citizens present at the polls or collation centres. The era of go to court is gone and should be replaced with go to grave, because rigging of election is a civilian coup, which is treasonable felony, and any coup against the will of the people must be quelled at all cost even if it means whoever asks you to go to court ending up going to grave himself. It is not the duty of the courts to determine leaders for the people in a democracy, it’s the duty of the people and the people must rise up and execute this duty clinically, effectively and efficiently.