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We heartily congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari on his victory in the February 23 election. We also applaud Nigerians for going through an intense campaign and emerging from it a bit shaken but gladly intact. It confirms our view that no matter the difficulties, Nigerians have resolved irrevocably to be a democracy. In spite of its inherent problems, the system offers us a choice and a future, even when its results do not match our expectations.
No doubt, many Nigerians had reservations about our president continuing in office after his first term. But, a greater number of our compatriots preferred his continuing for another four years. And this is a majoritarian plebiscite, and Nigerians have spoken. The President has thus earned a renewed mandate for four more years.
We congratulate the Waziri of Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, on his spirited campaign. His moderate tone and his ability to line up so much support across the nation in so short a campaign will always be remembered. He should be satisfied that he fought bravely like a patriot in one of the fiercest election campaigns in our history. If the game eludes today, tomorrow is still a hunting day. Should he still insist on pressing his charges that the election figures do not add up, he knows that the courts are his best bet to vent his reservations. But, even before he goes to court, he should in his reassuring tone appeal to his teeming supporters to keep calm and maintain the peace knowing that in a democracy, everyone wins even when our candidates lose with the reassurance that tomorrow is another day.
We see what looked like protest votes in the South East, the South South, and several states in the North Central. There is manifest ambivalence in the South West. There is a torrent of gratitude from the North West and parts of the North East. The victor may take a hard look at these votes and perhaps decide to concede that those who cast contrary votes may even have a point and then strive to make no difference between those who gave 95 per cent and those that gave 5 per cent.
Nigerians deserve a special commendation for what they went through in the past few weeks. It is an indication of their patience and maturity and why there is a need for change, to remove uncertainty and guess work in the electoral system, to banish the word ‘logistics’ from the lexicon of electoral officers, to place cost on ineptitude and exact a price for poor decisions. We think the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) needs a marketing man, not a village headmaster. We need someone who can market our democracy and make it pleasant. In 2015, 10 million fewer Nigerians voted than in 2011. Last week, 28 million Nigerians voted out of 84 million registered voters. The figure is appalling.
Nearly two dozen of our compatriots were lost during the election. That cannot be allowed. It is scandalous and deserves a special probe to determine the circumstances under which they died. Former President Goodluck Jonathan shouted it from rooftops the maxim that his political ambition was not worth a drop of anyone’s blood. We should get all Nigerian politicians to go by that principle and spare the country the civil war atmosphere that accompanies our elections.
We have no doubt the President has many good proposals to offer Nigerians which informed his seeking re-election. He should know that four years is not an eternity, a lesson he would have learnt in his first term. Unemployment is still a severe problem. The war on Boko Haram is being poorly waged. Fuel subsidy is still a problem. Corruption is still a problem and endemic in the Police, Customs, licensing offices and roadside checkpoints. Anywhere there is government service, there is corruption. This is not to underrate the laudable achievements of the president in this sphere. It only demonstrates the depth of the problem. The cost of governance is still too high. Adherence to due process is still a problem. Poverty has gotten worse. Education is sliding at the elementary and secondary school levels, where it matters most. Many national questions remain unresolved. Strides have been made in agriculture but we are yet to see a major irreversible push to truly diversify the economy. Electric power is still elusive. Nigeria ought to be the industrial workshop of Africa but it cannot be when there is no power and interest rate is hovering around 25 per cent.
President Buhari has accepted the challenge of taking a third stab at our national problems. Nigerians must support him and hope he infuses greater dynamism and hope into an ever despairing Nigerian populace. We wish him a successful tenure.
