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2019 General Election: A More Desperate Political Class For Political Power by don88(m): 5:48am On Mar 30, 2019 |
2019 GENERAL ELECTION:
A MORE DESPERATE
POLITICAL CLASS FOR
POLITICAL POWER
March 12, 2019 Procyon News
By Osobu Suuru Alexander
The 2019 general election has taken place in
Nigeria even though the process has not
generally ended as many states (Adamawa,
Bauchi, Benue, Kano Plateau and Sokoto)
ended inconclusive and results collation
suspended in Rivers state. This arguably
might be seen as a step to strengthening a
democratic process where all electorates’
voices or votes matter to determining the
outcome of election especially where
election is keenly contested and in the real
sense of it, election should not just be a
walkover through the processes of
manipulations, mutilations of results sheets,
snatching of ballot papers and boxes,
political thuggery, assassinations etc.
However, the overall electoral processes in
Nigeria is still largely characterised by these
social vices of manipulations, thuggery and
assassinations which is largely caused by
monetisation of political offices, poor
security institutions and its misuse by
desperate politicians and officers within its
ranks, general belief of the political class
who see election as a ‘do-or-die’ affairs in
Nigeria, lack of independence of electoral
institution amongst others.
The 2019 general election has not actually
seen any major improvement from what we
saw in 2015 under Attahiru Jega and this
does not necessarily mean that the head of
the umpire; Yakubu Mahmood is less brilliant
but it suggests in a way that the political
class in Nigeria is still ever desperate to
acquire and retain power even with million
lives and blood of Nigerians. Between 2015
and 2019, like never before we saw money
bag-politics where bags of money was
practically moved to polling booths and
electorates were made to show their ballots
papers strategically to political parties
agents and get paid. This was witnessed in
the elections in Ekiti, Osun and other states
where elections have been conducted
recently.
Nigeria has also witnessed misuse of
security apparatus which has been since
1999 when we returned to democracy, but a
serious democratic nation would have
reduced this menace but unfortunately, it
happened in 2019 because people in power
irrespective of political parties benefitted
immensely from it and the implication of this
is a broad day light invitation for coup.
We saw how soldiers and other security
agents took over streets and even INEC’s
office in Rivers state and other states where
heavily militarised under the watch/
command of federal or state Governments
officials as the case might apply. The
obvious implication was the political apathy
recorded across the states of Nigeria as
Nigerians were hell-scared to die even
though they would eventually die by the
stray bullets of soldiers and hoodlums on the
pavement of their houses under the
supervision of Governments officials.
Blood flowing on the streets of Nigeria in the
name of election, many Nigerians died
including a serving Hose of Rep member;
Tope alias ‘Sugar.’ Before the election, we
have had killings and reprisal killings
especially in Kaduna state where ordinary
misunderstanding between two market
women could easily degenerate into religious
war because everything about the state
ranging from human interactions to
Governments’ relations is determined by
religion. The killing spree continues even
after election as this is gradually becoming a
way of life and none of these killings takes
place without political undertone.
Violence is gradually becoming an essential
ingredient in our political life in Nigeria as
hardly could we conduct any election without
perpetration of violence even in the LG
election that is expected to be the smallest
tier of Government. Eventually blood flows
and lives are lost!
All these are pointers to the desperation for
power by the Nigeria’s political class who
don’t mind killing all the citizens except their
immediate family members to acquire and
retain political power. And here we are after
they have acquired the political power!
To every sense of developments, be it
social, political or technological there is
always room for evolution that is
improvement/moving from one level to
another and a typical example is technology
where a phase is seen as analogue and
today, we are in the era of digital even
though we don’t know where Nigeria is
sitting. The umpire; INEC has carried out
many electoral activities such as new voters
registrations, transfers of voters’ cards,
political/electoral education etc with the aid
of budget which is the people’s tax.
Therefore, 2019 general election was
generally expected to be a great
improvement from what it used to be
unfortunately, the reverse is the case even
though the institution; Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) tried its little
best in terms of policies and social
arrangements but we saw that some of
these policies and arrangements
somersaulted as they were not fulfilled. A
good example is the failure to meet the
promises to the physically challenged
people, Albinos etc and this affected the
participation of these groups of people who
are also entitled to perform their civic
responsibilities without disenfranchisement.
Besides, the umpire also gave room for
some of these manipulations as some of its
personnel are on the payroll of these
desperate politicians. How could we explain
people being recruited as ad-hoc staff of
INEC without formally undergoing the
necessary trainings but got on the list
because the LG Chairman, Governor or one
Minister has forwarded the name while those
who were initially shortlisted and attended
trainings were shocked to see their names
removed on the hour of reporting for
assignment in order to collect both sensitive
and non-sensitive electoral materials.
In 2019 general election, most of the
international observers have spoken and the
statements have all been pointing to the fact
that there were irregularities. These are
obviously seeing in the high militarisation,
violence, ballot box snatching, killings etc
and this is gradually defining us amongst the
comity of nation.
The choice is in our very hands as this level
of desperation by the political class must be
totally eliminated in order to have a
democracy where lives are sacred, where
elections outcomes are the true reflection of
the people’s wish, where security agents are
more professional in the conduct and
exercise of their roles, where political parties
see governance as a clarion call to serve
people and where electoral body is truly
independent of unnecessary interference.
Recommendations
1. Adopt modern technology, it is easier
said than done, the fact remains that
going fully digital in our electoral process
won’t be an easy task as it requires huge
amount of money, the data management
and right expertise to manage it is
another area that must be put into
consideration. The type of technology
and the technical knowhow is as
important as the election itself. But I
have always believed that if some
countries in the world are doing it then
we could and Nigeria as giant of Africa
must as a matter of fact go
technological!
One bitter experience people had in this
election was the untold hardship they
suffered from the sudden February 16th
postponement as many as travelled to their
villages to vote but if we have modern
technology this would be avoided; accidents
that claimed many lives in the process of
travelling for election would be avoided;
money would be saved; adopting modern day
technology would make us have our
elections in one day instead of using one
month and paralysing the nation’s economy;
wastage of materials would be avoided,
imagine over eighty (80) million ballot
papers printer and less than thirty (30)
million was used as a matter of fact it is
unimaginable.
Going fully digital would make us avoid
violence, thuggery and snatching of ballot
boxes because it would be useless to snatch
the machines as data would have been
saved on the central database.
1. Demonetisation of the nation’s politics is
a step that must be taken and prior to
2015, all hope was hinged on Buhari as
the man that could do this! We are still
waiting patiently for him to take the step
even though I know it a process of the
laws that requires other arms of
government but he must initiate the bill
to that effect.
Still a mind-boggling matter what people
holding political offices take home every
month that’s why people would do anything
including taking lives to acquire and hold
onto power otherwise check out the reason
people would swore on their graves that
their business associates, friends, sons in-
law etc would be the ones to succeed them
in office.
1. Electoral education must be taken
serious in Nigeria and I should as serious
as the election itself. All relevant
institutions must be committed to this
assignment starting from INEC to
National Orientation Agency (NOA) to
political parties etc.
2. The legal framework of the electoral
process must be strengthened,
regrettably, Mr. Buhari refused to sign
the electoral act before the 2019 general
election hinging his reason on closeness
to election period even though, it’s a
public knowledge that the document was
returned back on several occasions to
the National Assembly
3. Training and re-training of electoral
personnel is an integral part of electoral
process which helps capacity building
and administrative comparison especially
when it is international training and
networking.
4. Knowledge and information sharing
should be a constant practice and culture
within the electoral umpire. This was
more pronounced under the leadership of
Attahiru Jega probably partly responsible
for the level of success he recorded.
5. Involvement of stakeholders is also
important, bringing expertise who are
knowledgeable in this act is important
and it must be said that international
observers are part of the stakeholders
who help build electoral process as their
recommendations in most cases are
genuine and useful.
Osobu Suuru Alexander
donalexander88@yahoo.com |
Re: 2019 General Election: A More Desperate Political Class For Political Power by don88(m): 2:01pm On Jun 15, 2019 |
don88: |
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