By Femi Oluwasanmi
“Supreme Court is final not because it is infallible, but it is infallible because it is final.” This finality laid to rest the accusations and counter-accusations on the results of Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election and opened a wide gate for the triumphant side to trumpet their victorious chorus to the crescendo. However, beyond the affirmation lies the questions on good governance and development, which have been decelerating the quest for ideal democracy in the country.
On October 26, 2023, a seven-man panel of justices at the Supreme Court, led by Justice Inyang Okoro, in a unanimous judgment, upheld the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the February 25 presidential poll, ending months of legal challenges brought by his two main rivals, His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and Mr. Peter Obi.
The legal battle started in March after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu, who scored 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku, who got 6,984,520 votes, and Obi, who came third with 6,101,533 votes at the election, as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The duo argued that Tinubu’s victory was marred by irregularities, therefore, it should be reversed.
The accusations of balloting-rigging and fraud have been a recurring issue at the end of every electoral cycle since the country returned to democratic rule in 1999 but the INEC-declared winner at the presidential election has always had his way at the Supreme Court.
The most amazing one was the 2007 presidential election, where President Musa Yar’Adua publicly acknowledged irregularities in the election that brought him to power and promised a reform. Yet, the Supreme Court still authenticated the process and affirmed him winner of the election.
The same can be deduced from the emergence of Governor Hope Uzodinma, who came fourth in the Imo State governorship election in 2019 but was later declared the winner of the election by the Supreme Court in 2020. This shows that the real victory lies in the ability to proffer solutions to issues affecting lives and standard of the people not really in the Supreme Court judgment.
For months, Nigeria has been grappling with high inflation, insecurity, crude oil theft, dwindling foreign reserves and currency devaluation that have turned Nigeria to a laughing stock at the global level. The multi-dimensional manifestation of these maladies seems to have defied solution with daily degeneration.
It seems every new administration always comes in with additional forms of pains for the people in the name of national sacrifice. For instance, before Tinubu assumed office in May, the dollar was hovering around N620, but it has jumped to N1,200. The same happened when President Buhari took over in 2015. This has negatively affected the purchasing strength of the people and aggravated the excruciating pains occasioned by the unabated inflation in the country.
In the latest report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services, rose to 26.72 percent in September as against the 22.41% recorded in May 2023.
Government, concerned by the development, saw to the distribution of palliatives and promised to add 15 million people to the social investment scheme. Unfortunately, the palliatives seem not to have yielded the expected results with the swelling in the slope of those living below the poverty line.
This is complicated by the expansion in the “colony of the unemployment and underemployment” that continue to make the citizens to live a life of scarcity amid plenty. Coupled with this is the unprecedented increase in transportation cost caused by the sudden removal of fuel subsidy and poor road network. The resultant effects of these challenges is the increase in the proliferation of dangerous elements masquerading as bandits, Boko Haram, and killer herdsmen, among others.
Fear of attacks from these unscrupulous elements has made some people to abandon their farmland and communities in search of menial jobs in urban areas. This has negatively affected the volume of food production, creating food scarcity evidenced by the skyrocketing prices of agricultural produce in the market.
Also, the attacks have forced many children out of school and increased the number of children roaming the streets in the country. In 2022, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation put the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria at 20 million. This number is more than the population of some countries.
Due to the reign of terror, the citadel of learning, which ought to have an ambiance of peace and serenity, has become a place of fear. This has turned the parents of most of the students in schools beyond the region of their dwelling to great prayer warriors with consultation upon consultation to spiritual altars to seek divine protection for their children.
The security breakdown has made night travel by road an inconceivable idea for those that have the money to travel by air. While those that don’t have the means resort to prayers upon prayers to invoke spiritual protection.
In the beginning, it is used to be the fear of the common man but the recent increase in the rate of attacks on the convoys of highly security fortified personalities seems to suggest that the rich also cry. A few days ago, the Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello was allegedly attacked by gunmen. Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, representing Anambra South senatorial district, lost three police escorts to a similar attack at Njikoka Local Government Area of the state in 2022.
Though the challenges are inherited problems, the first approach of this administration to the issue of fuel subsidy and others shows that there is need for the President’s team to look more at the consequences of their policies on the people rather than rushing to implement imported ideas in the quest to portray a hope that seems to exist more in the imaginary state of mind than the real world.
To achieve this, there is need to halt the dance on the Supreme Court judgment and focus on the business of governance by putting the right people in the right position so that the hope that is gradually dwindling can be reinvigorated and promises made during the campaign period kept.
•Oluwasanmi writes from Atakunmosa, Osun State