Follow Us on Google
Without doubt now, free and fair election and, by extension, democracy, have many enemies in Nigeria. That much is obvious from empirical evidence, not the least of which are matters pertaining to the 2023 general election.
This reality is, of course, contrary to the impression that the various antagonists of democracy who present themselves as protagonists of same will want the world to have of them. To many of these pretenders, democracy is nothing more than a game of grit to get by, a sham enterprise that exists essentially, as a means for them to gain legitimacy,to continue to appropriate the common resources and lord it over the larger society.
Deceptive posturing as democrats has handsomely paid the numerous pseudo-democrats that populate Nigeria’s political field. Having realized early that in their country, the hood confers monkhood, many politicians have no qualms putting on the garb of democrats, even when they know they do not subscribe to the tenets of democracy. Some of them even proceed to code themselves progressives, a tag betrayed by their feudal tendencies.
These pretender-democrats have, as part of their strategy for control, seized the platform of political parties, which they subsequently turned into an instrument for subverting the preference of the majority.
Even before the 2023 elections arrived with what has turned into remarkably troubling features, various aspects of the processes leading to the elections, among them the fraud-infested party primaries, provided a foretaste of what was to come. In Nigeria, the joke is indeed, on democracy. When therefore, cheated candidates are taunted by those who cheat them, with the advice; go to court, if you are aggrieved, the mockery on the system cannot be missed. Indeed, Nigeria’s democracy harbours truculent undemocratic spirits that remain impediments to proper growth of true democracy.
The truth is that democracy has been struggling in Nigeria through the years. The impact of years of military dictatorship persists. For one,the strange emergence of dictators of yesterday as democrats of today, with a carry-over of deeply ingrained bad habits, has imbued Nigeria’s democracy with rather awkward and atypical tendencies.
By far the scariest fear that has emerged in recent times about the future of democracy in Nigeria, however, concerns the possibility of a subliminal assault on the system, carried out by dangerous anti-democracy elements operating at the heart of key institutions established to nature and project democracy. While many aspects of the 2023 elections are still being interrogated, there is ample ground to worry about the threat from the enemies within.
Of course, the case of state governors as a potent threat to the growth of democracy remains a source of deep concern. It does appear that something in that office turns its occupants into tyrants, committed almost as one, to undermining the very values of democracy they were elected to project. The evolution of this sub-set within the democratic order, into a menacing corps, that cannot stand the dictates of democracy has become one of the major threats to democracy in Nigeria.
The presidential election on February 25, 2023, presented a number of state governors in a most frightening and reprehensible light. Sadly, these anti-democracy elements have their cynically doctored election results, eventually accepted. The joke is still on Nigeria’s democracy.
Beyond the menace of the state governors, a bigger fear now is that anti-democracy elements also inhabit sensitive quarters in the management of the electoral process. This is a most disconcerting thoughts about democracy in Nigeria.
The criminal decision of some shadowy elements in the corridors of electoral management in the country, to disenfranchise duly registered voters through denying them their Permanent Voters Card (PVC), must rank among the most heinous crime against free and fair election in 2023. Yet appropriate attention has not been paid to this crime. Who did not want registered voters to collect their PVCs?
Last week, on March 8, officers from the 9 Brigade of the Nigerian Army recovered 1,671 PVCs from an apartment in the Olodi Apapa area of Lagos. The troop also reportedly recovered ballot papers, cutlasses and Indian hemp in the same apartment. For sure, the PVCs were part of those denied their rightful owners. The owners of the 1,671 PVCs could not have voted during the presidential election on February 25 2023. Why?
At Ago Palace way area of Okota, also in Lagos, a day or so before the presidential election, hundreds of PVCs were found scattered by the road side. The owners of the PVCs not having collected the cards, stood effectively disenfranchised. Residents of the area in Okota, where the PVCs were found, on getting the news of the abandoned cards, reportedly hurried over to search, to see if they could be lucky to find theirs. All they wanted was to vote in the elections. Somebody, strangely, did not want the PVCs’ owners to vote. Why?
Over in Anambra State, on February 22, 2023, three days before the presidential election, in Nnewi North Local Government Area, a hunter discovered a bag full of PVCs in the forest in Akamili, a community in Nnewi. The prized bag contained thousands of PVCs, by estimate. The dutiful hunter took the PVCs to the premises of a local radio station, Authority FM. Subsequently, the PVCs were reportedly sent over to the palace of the traditional ruler of Umudim in Nnewi. Once again, registered voters in the locality who had not succeeded in collecting their PVC, were called upon to go over to try their luck, in case their voting cards were among those that the hunter harvested from the bush.
There was also the case in Port Harcourt, River State, reported by a national television network news some weeks before the presidential election, where a heap of PVCs was found in a drainage.
In all these, there was never an instance publicly noted where an INEC state office reported that its stock of PVCs was stolen or carted away by anyone.
Through the period dedicated by the electoral commission for registered voters to collect their PVCs, millions of citizens besieged INEC offices across the nation, eager to collect their voting cards.
Eventually, millions of these registered voters ended up not finding or collecting their PVCs.
In Lagos, specifically, many registered voters had cause to accuse the INEC offices of acting in a manner that lent them open to suspicion of deliberating withholding some people’s PVCs. It is not known that the Lagos office of the Commission put up a viable defence. Now, PVCs not released to their rightful owners, are being found in awkward locations, distinct from INEC offices. How?
There are individuals whose responsibility it is to collect and safeguard PVCs. Why will anyone not want registered citizens to vote during the election?
There are many uncomfortable questions about the processes leading to the 2023 elections that beg for answer. There seems to be enemies of free election and democracy lurking around many critical stations in the electoral process. This indeed, is sad, considering the elaborate work put in by INEC towards the 2023 general elections. Even if nothing else, the PVC sabotage must be resolved. It is an assault at the base of free election. Relevant officers need to be held accountable for these PVCs that were denied their owners, only to be discovered in personal apartments, road sides, drainages and forests.
