March 28. On this day in history, Flavius Valens
became, in 364 AD, co-emperor of the Roman
Empire, and the British Parliament passed, in
1979, a single-vote of no confidence in the
government of James Callaghan, paving the way
for the elections that ushered in the Age of
Margaret Thatcher.
On this day in 2015, Nigerians went to the polls
to elect a President. The morning of the next
day, in the incumbent President’s home in
Otueke, a sleepy community in the creeks of the
Niger Delta, near where oil was first discovered
in Nigeria in 1956, the alarm goes off, but the
President is already awake. He’s been up since
the earliest-rising fishermen set off on the oil-
slicked waters in search of the day’s catch. Next
to him, the First Lady is still fast asleep.
Today, the President will know whether his return
to the capital, Abuja, will be a triumphant entry,
or something mournful and subdued, similar to
the way his predecessor returned in the early
hours of February 23, 2010. Deep down in him, he
knows he won’t be too pained, at least not as
much as his wife, and his kinsmen. He’s had an
unbelievably fortunate run, going from a mid-
level civil servant to President of the richest and
most populous black nation on earth in a little
over a decade.
Six hundred and fifty kilometres to the north, in
Kaduna, the presidential challenger is keeping
vigil. Behind his oval-frame glasses, his eyes are
devoid of sleep, as they were during the party’s
presidential primary in Lagos last December. He
sits on a couch in his modestly furnished living
room, surrounded by friends and well-wishers who
all address him as Mr. President. Even the littlest
children, when they awaken, will run rings around
him squealing, “Sai-Bwawee”.
In that same Kaduna, the vice-presidential alarm
goes off. The architect-turned-politician reaches
out to silence it. He’s reluctant to rise to meet
the beckoning day. He’s never won an election in
his ward, and today might not be different.
People say the former President, the farmer who
has ruled Nigeria twice, also had a habit of not
winning elections in his ward. Hardly comforting,
if you asked the vice-president. There’s no basis
for comparison, considering that one man’s mild
embarrassment is another’s obituary. The vice-
president has often thought of relocating his
ward to a part of town where victory is likelier.
In the Kaduna State Government House, the
incumbent governor is up early. He summons his
secretary to bring the iPad, and to open his
challenger’s Twitter account. His challenger is a
Social Media Overlord, with close to half a million
followers on Twitter, a man who more than makes
up for what he lacks in verticality and
horizontality with a penchant for ruffling every
feather in sight. The governor wants to see what
the Ruffler has been saying on Twitter. Nothing,
it turns out. The last time he tweeted was nine
hours ago. The governor doesn’t know whether to
be worried or not. Is the Ruffler’s silence a good
or bad sign? He doesn’t know. This is the first
real election both of them will be contesting – the
governor came to this office by way of succeeding
his deceased boss; the Ruffler, until now, had
shown little interest in elective office, and
seemed destined to live out his life as a
technocrat and trouble-maker.
In Lagos, the vice-presidential candidate of the
opposition is at his desk, the silence of dawn
broken by diesel generators that ought to belong
to hellfire, considering the amount of heat they
generate. His head is bowed in prayer, his arms
resting on an open Devotional Bible. In a few
hours, it will be time for church, and he will be
preaching of the goodness of God. For as long as
he can, he will try to keep his mind away from
the ballots. It’s not by power nor by might, saith
the Lord!
Back in Abuja – deserted by politicians, who have
all gone to their towns and villages to fight do-
or-die political battles – the Chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission is
going into his second or third sleep-free night.
Yesterday’s elections, and the ones holding on
April 11, will be the last set of elections he’ll be
conducting before his term of office expires in
June. They will permanently define his legacy. He
knew, when taking this job, in 2010, that it
would mostly be a thankless task. But he had no
idea just how difficult it would be; how
intimidating the temptation to throw in the towel
would be. In one sense, you’re just like the
President, at the mercy of your advisers and
subordinates, and expected to make all-wise and
all-knowing decisions based on limited
information you have no way of verifying.
Far away in Abeokuta, there’s a young man
who’s still in bed. All he can think of is this: that
were it not for the elections, this would be his
first full day as a married man. Sometime at the
end of December, his family met with his
fiancée’s family, and settled for March 28 as
“the day the Lord has made.” They would have
chosen February 14, Valentine’s Day, but it was
not an option because presidential election had
already been fixed for that day. Someone had
suggested that they leave out the whole of
February, because of the elections. And so they
had chosen March 28. And printed invitation
cards. The cards had caused a fight between him
and his fiancée, because he felt they had spent
more money on it than they could afford.
And then the postponement happened, somewhat
out of the blues. He still remembers that night,
February 7, when the electoral management body
chairman confirmed the postponement, and
announced the new dates: March 28 and April 11.
He remembers wondering if he heard the new
dates correctly. He will never forget the way
something inside him seemed to drop to the
bottom of his stomach. He remembers the
incoming call from his fiancée, and failing to
answer it. The days that followed were a blur,
family meetings to reschedule the date, frequent
and random outbursts of crying from his wife-to-
be. Now they’ve postponed the wedding till June,
because no one is sure what even May might look
like. So he has another three months to live as a
bachelor – all because of an unserious country
and its politics.
Across the country, much of the predicted
violence has yet failed to materialise. But it’s
still too early to rejoice, considering what
happened when the results of the last
presidential election emerged. Unlike that
election — with its 10 million vote gap between
the winner and the runner-up — this one
promises an alarmingly narrow margin; perhaps,
the first presidential election in Nigeria’s history
that an incumbent will be going into without a
solid assurance of victory.
In the last one week, everyone and their
grandmother have published projections, throwing
up the idea of “Buhari’s States”, “Jonathan’s
States”, and “Battleground States”. There are
the ones that bear the indelible mark of
consensus – everyone knows the 12 northernmost
states will be taken by Muhammadu Buhari, and
that all the southeastern states and all the Niger
Delta states will be taken by Goodluck Jonathan.
No one is sure of Adamawa, Gombe and Niger
states; where they will swing, and by what
margins. Or whether Ekiti State will go the way
of Osun State, or Ondo State?
By evening today, we will have a clear view of
where Nigeria is headed, for the next four years.
All eyes will be on Kaduna. And not just for the
battle between the Governor and the Ruffler. In
the violence that followed the 2011 presidential
election, close to a thousand persons were killed.
More than 800 of those people died in Kaduna
State; 80 per cent of that number in southern
Kaduna.
It will be a tense Sunday; the most tense of the
52 this year, no doubt. Where will the victory
parties break out? And where will the machetes
and Kalashnikovs show their unforgiving faces;
their unstoppable resolve to sow sorrow, tears
and blood?
http://www.punchng.com/opinion/the-morning-after-march-28/

Hope I finish reading dis news, so help me God!

Photos

the write of this have such a creative imaginary mindset working for him

Lo, and behold! The day is cometh soon!