There is a barrage of accusations of rigging, election fraud and malpractices as it stands it is essentially rhetoric without evidence, a lot of negative conjecture and assumptions without any real substance or evidence


Initially I questioned the credibility of the elections but I have been forced to have a rethink. The evidence as it stands is overwhelming and gives credence to the fact that we have had a credible election, indeed it may be the first largely credible election we have had. If there has been rigging it was definitely minimal comparative to past elections.


Since all the bitter wrangling is centred in the North the question has to be asked if we accept that rigging was minimal what then were the motivating factors for the northern voter’s decision choice.


Amongst the myriad of factors you will have religion, tribalism, monetary inducement, etc, etc. It is expected politicians will take advantage of the high level of ignorance stemming from illiteracy, parochial thinking, negative perceptions, paranoia of the Christian south and or indeed the Muslim North.

Hypothetically speaking if I was a Christian living in Kano, Zamfara, Bauchi and the like having seen the outcome delivery of Sharia, religious police and associated social restrictions. I would not vote for Muhammadu Buhari call it misplaced paranoia, I would vote GEJ irrespective of his corrupt PDP, who would you vote for ?

On the other hand if was an informed, educated Muslim moderate I would be in the middle, undecided. In the same vein, if I was a young uneducated or educated Muslim in the Northern states, I would be under the influence of my patriarchal guardians and if a female young or old that influence will be almost law. Then the final group street kids, almajiri, under age youths and illiterate aboki’s this whole group very easily led by whoever PDP, ANPP or CPC just a question of how well the party machinery is set up to influence and the which party has incumbent power in that state.


Considering the vast number of observers of this election process it would be safe to say that these permutations reflect election voting patterns so far and not wide spread rigging.


Finally it is quite evident that voter turn out and response has been unprecedented in the history of our elections. The process management of INEC(excellent) was such that it pre empted various pre planned strategies for rigging particularly in the North, consider Kano state 5,135,415 registered voters however only 50% of that number voted and that included all the well recorded under age voting in Kano. Can somebody tell me how 2.5 million voters went missing in Kano state?