₦airaland Forum

I once read a post where the son of a Northern politician thanked the British for handing the country over to them and I couldn't help but agree.

There is a peculiar spectre that haunts every election cycle in Nigeria. It is visible in the wide gap between the people's choice and the announced winner, it manifests in the mysterious mathematics where votes seem to multiply in favour of certain candidates. Nigerians have long joked that spirits must be voting - because how else does the person everyone knows won, lose? How else do the dead outnumber the living on election day?

This phenomenon, which saw the late Aminu Kano-beloved by the northern talakawa (commoners)-defeated by Ahmadu Bello in the First Republic, and Peter Obi-the candidate of Nigeria's youthful population-defeated by Bola Tinubu in 2023, has a genesis that predates Nigeria's independence. The culture of election rigging was not invented by Nigerians; it was bequeathed to us by our colonial masters as part of their exit strategy .

The Colonial Blueprint: Two Secret Files and a Rigged Foundation

In 2007, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) aired a documentary titled 'The Gift of Democracy?' that sent shockwaves through Nigeria's political consciousness. The 27-minute exposé revealed what many had long suspected: the British colonial administration actively rigged Nigeria's pre-independence elections to ensure the country was handed over to the North .

Central to this revelation are two top-secret files - one concerning Governor-General Sir James Robertson, and the other relating to Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe-that have been sealed by the British government for 100 years. Anyone seeking their contents must stay alive until 2060. Requests through the Freedom of Information Act have been repeatedly refused, suggesting these files contain secrets Britain is determined to protect .

The documentary featured Harold Smith, a British Colonial Officer who worked in Nigeria's Ministry of Labour in the 1950s after graduating from Oxford University. Smith revealed that he was handed a secret file containing orders to get involved in regional elections-making vehicles, staff, and other resources available to the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) colleagues of Festus Okotie-Eboh, who was standing for election .

When Smith expressed shock at the request, the explanation was chillingly pragmatic: the election had to be fixed because the Northern Region was destined to hold power at independence. Professor David Anderson, Director of the African Studies Centre at Oxford University, confirmed that in almost every single colony, the British attempted to manipulate election results to their advantage. "I would be surprised if they had not done so" in Nigeria, he stated .

The Northern Strategy: Why Britain Needed a Conservative Ally

Britain's preference for the North was no accident. The Northern region, comprising three-quarters of Nigeria's landmass and roughly half its population, was politically conservative, predominantly Muslim, and had enjoyed a cosy relationship with its colonial rulers through the system of indirect rule via the emirs .

The British government feared that independence might lead to partition. They viewed the Northern region as a bulwark against both southern radicalism and the spread of communism in West Africa, which was then considered highly vulnerable to Soviet influence .

However, there was a problem: the Northern People's Congress (NPC), led by Ahmadu Bello, could not rule an independent Nigeria alone. It needed the support of a major party from either the East or West. This is where the manipulation became sophisticated. Smith explained that the British "had to fix Zik [Nnamdi Azikiwe] of course, there was stuff they have got him for that could send him to prison... [they] forced him to do a deal with the North" .

According to Smith, these orders came from the very top—Governor-General Sir James Robertson, whom Smith described as "a thug" with a terrible reputation, connected to the Secret Service and MI6. When Smith refused to participate and requested to see Robertson, the Governor-General threatened him: "The Colonial Service is just like the army; you know what happens if you disobey orders on active service and that is what is going to happen to you" .

The 1959 Election: Independence Won Before Votes Were Cast

The blueprint for Nigeria's electoral fraud was perfected in the 1959 general elections—the vote that would determine which government would lead Nigeria to independence in 1960. Before the results were even known, rumours swirled that the NCNC (East) and Action Group (West) were considering a coalition that would command a majority in the House of Representatives .

Sir James Robertson, anticipating that this might lead the North to secede from the federation, took pre-emptive action. He invited Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the northern leader, to form a government even before the election results were officially declared. He did this without consulting the British Secretary of State .

Adding to the manipulation, the British-conducted census preceding independence was accused of overestimating northern numbers to grant the region greater parliamentary representation. Professor David Anderson confirmed it was "certainly in the interests of Britain to have done that" .

The result was a carefully crafted political landscape where the NPC could form a coalition with a compromised NCNC, ensuring that the North would control Nigeria at independence. Sir Ahmadu Bello became Premier of the Northern Region, while his deputy, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, became Prime Minister of Nigeria, a arrangement that satisfied British strategic interests while marginalising genuinely nationalist forces .

The Talakawa's Champion: Aminu Kano vs. the Colonial-Anointed Elite

The pattern of popular candidates losing to establishment figures was established in this pre-independence crucible. Mallam Aminu Kano, founder of the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), was the undisputed champion of the northern commoners—the talakawa . His party represented the masses, the ordinary people of the North who had no voice in the emirate system.

Yet, despite his popularity among the grassroots, Aminu Kano was consistently outmanoeuvred by Ahmadu Bello's Northern People's Congress. The NPC represented the conservative establishment, the emirs, the traditional rulers, and the elite who had collaborated with British colonial rule . With the backing of British administrative machinery and the inherent advantages of incumbency and traditional authority, the NPC could deliver results that did not reflect the people's true wishes.

This historical injustice is not merely academic. As the Igbo proverb reminds us, "Only a fool doesn't know where the rain started drenching him" Nigeria's crooked foundation has determined its crooked journey. The country was "not designed to excel. Those who created it moulded it to serve a purpose; only they know that purpose. And they have been the unseen driver of the vehicle". This can even be evinced by the recent invitation extended to Mr Bola Tinubu, the current president of Nigeria.

From Colonial Rigging to Indigenous Industry

If the British taught Nigeria how to rig elections, Nigerians proved to be apt pupils who surpassed their teachers. By 1959, the electoral rigging culture had become so brazen that Governor Robertson was openly threatening British colonial civil servant Harold Smith to accept playing a part in rigging the elections or be punished. Since 1951, every election in Nigeria has been rigged.

The First Republic collapsed partly because of the legitimacy crisis engendered by electoral fraud. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo presciently observed, "A rigged election is worse than armed robbery". The Western Region crisis of 1965, triggered by a blatantly rigged election, provided the immediate context for the first military coup in January 1966 .

The pattern repeated in the Second Republic. By 1983, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had perfected what critics called "electoral brigandage," declaring results with such impunity that Bola Ige famously remarked, "It was not an election; it was a selection" . The resulting legitimacy crisis invited another military coup.

June 12, 1993: The Exception That Proves the Rule

The annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, widely regarded as Nigeria's freest and fairest, stands as the most dramatic example of the people's will being thwarted . When Moshood Abiola was presumed winner, the military establishment, still operating on the colonial logic that certain elements must not control power, annulled the entire process.

This annulment plunged Nigeria into its longest period of political crisis, from which the country did not recover until the return to civilian rule in 1999 . Yet even that transition was managed, controlled, and carefully calibrated to ensure that fundamental power structures remained unchanged.

The Digital Age: Peter Obi and the 2023 Election

Fast forward to 2023, and the ghosts of 1959 were still voting. Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate, emerged as the undisputed champion of Nigeria's youth and urban middle class. Opinion polls, including those sponsored by international media, showed Obi with overwhelming support, as high as 72% in some surveys .

Yet when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced results, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress emerged victorious with 8.8 million votes, followed by Atiku Abubakar with 6.9 million, and Obi in third place with 6.1 million . The gap between popular expectation and official announcement seemed to replicate the pattern of 1959: the candidate beloved by the masses defeated by the establishment figure.

Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, explicitly stated what many Nigerians believed: "The result available to me at that time showed he (Tinubu) didn't win the (2023) election." Lawal claimed his team monitored the election, collected data, and tracked results from the field, alleging that "some of the results were altered" .

An appeals court subsequently rejected opposition petitions challenging Tinubu's victory, ruling that petitioners failed to prove allegations of voting irregularities . Yet for millions of Nigerians who had queued for hours to vote, who had believed that technology—the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) - would protect their votes, the outcome felt like 1959 all over again.

The Architecture of Fraud: How Ghosts Are Manufactured

The persistence of electoral infidelity in Nigeria rests on a carefully constructed architecture of manipulation. At its foundation lies the voters' register, which contains millions of ghost voters. In the 2023 elections, INEC posted 93,469,008 registered voters, but critics argue that less than one-third of that number represents the actual voting population . This "fake data" serves as "readymade raw material politicians draw from to cook up the figures they post as winning numbers" .

The mechanisms are varied and sophisticated: double or quadruple registrations, clandestine printing of extra ballot papers, bribery of election officers and party agents, ballot box snatching, voter intimidation, and manipulation of collation processes . When all else fails, there is always violence, the ultimate guarantor of electoral robbery .

I'll like to highlight voter intimidation as seen in Lagos in 2023 and in the northern part of the country in 2015. In some cased, electoral officers maliciously concealed accreditation list that they knew was dominated by people from certain part of the country. In Nasarawa state for instance, I witnessed voters force an officer to retrieve a list he his where all the names starting with the EZ alphabets were listed. We also witnessed deliberate distruction of PVCs in some quarters prior the 2023 elections.

Worst of all, Nigerian courts have often served as "final rigging centers, awarding victories on technicalities rather than merit" . The judiciary's role in post-election adjudication has deepened perceptions of "cash-and-carry justice" .

Why It Persists: The Existential Battle for the Treasury

Electoral infidelity persists because control of state power guarantees access to oil rents, contracts, and patronage . For Nigeria's ruling class, elections are not contests of ideas or programmes; they are existential battles to capture the treasury. In a poverty-stricken society, vote commodification is inevitable. As Chinua Achebe lamented, "The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership" - a failure sustained by electoral infidelity .

Former President Muhammadu Buhari inadvertently revealed the structural problem in 2016 when he declared that he held "the instruments of rigging" - INEC (whose officials he appointed), the police, the DSS, and the armed forces . When one person controls both the electoral umpire and the security agencies that should protect the electoral process, the outcome is predetermined.

This concentration of power creates a self-perpetuating cycle. Opposition politicians flock to the ruling party because survival demands it . Those who remain in opposition do so knowing that the instruments of state power will be deployed against them. Democracy becomes "democracy without opposition"—a political monoculture where elections are rituals rather than genuine contests .

The Cost: A Nation's Democratic Promise Betrayed

The consequences of this entrenched culture of rigging are profound and measurable. Voter turnout has plummeted from 69% in 1999 to 27% in 2023 . When voting changes nothing, citizens disengage. The "Japa" phenomenon—the mass emigration of young Nigerians—reflects not only economic despair but political hopelessness .

The political scientist's warning is dire: if electoral infidelity continues unchecked, Nigeria risks following the trajectory of Weimar Germany, where institutional fragility enabled dictatorship; or Zimbabwe, where manipulated elections bred apathy, economic collapse, and emigration. The military coups of 1966 and 1983 that overthrew civilian governments both cited electoral manipulation as justification.

Pathways to Redemption: Breaking the Colonial Curse

Breaking free from this colonial inheritance requires more than cosmetic reforms. It demands a fundamental restructuring of Nigeria's electoral architecture.

First, INEC must become truly independent, with autonomous funding and appointment processes insulated from executive control. The president must not control the appointment of the very officials who will oversee elections that might remove him from power .

Second, the voters' register must be overhauled and purged of ghost voters. Some have proposed establishing a National Civic Registration Commission responsible for organising national identity infrastructure, from which every Nigerian would use their National Identity card to register to vote . Ghana's transparent collation process, where results are tallied at polling units and publicly verified in real time, offers a model Nigeria could adapt .

Third, electoral offenders must face swift prosecution, regardless of their political connections. The culture of impunity that protects election riggers must end .

Fourth, political financing reforms must curb the monetisation of politics. When votes are commodities to be purchased, the wealthy will always win .

Finally, civic education must empower citizens to resist inducements and demand accountability. An informed and engaged citizenry remains the ultimate guarantor of electoral integrity .

Confronting the Ghosts

As Nigeria approaches future electoral cycles, the warning signs are clear. The ghosts that have voted since 1959 still haunt the ballot box. The colonial blueprint—manipulating outcomes to serve elite interests at the expense of popular will—remains operational.

Yet there is hope. Nigerians are no longer passive recipients of manufactured outcomes. The same technology that some seek to subvert—BVAS, IReV, social media—also empowers citizens to document, share, and resist manipulation. The youth who voted massively for Peter Obi in 2023 did not disappear after the election; they remain, watching, waiting, and organising.

The question is whether Nigeria's institutions can be reformed before citizens lose faith entirely. The Constitution declares that sovereignty belongs to the people. Subverting their will through electoral fraud is not merely malpractice; it is constitutional infidelity - a breach of the supreme law .

As the maxim goes, salus populi suprema lex- the welfare of the people is the supreme law. Until Nigeria's elections reflect this principle, until the ghosts are exorcised from the ballot box, the nation will remain trapped in the colonial curse: a country where spirits vote, but the people's voices remain unheard.

The files remain sealed in Britain until 2060. But Nigerians do not need to wait for their opening to know what they contain. The evidence is written in every election where the people's choice is defeated, in every announcement that contradicts lived reality, in every ballot box stuffed with ghosts. Nigeria's election rigging culture was a colonial gift that keeps on giving—a poisoned inheritance that must be rejected before democracy can truly breathe.

What is Obi doing on this thread?

Flangelo12:
What is Obi doing on this thread?

This your work is the same thing that Reno does. When are they appointing you an ambassador or will you end in s l a - v e ry?

Igbophobia:
This your work is the same thing that Reno does. When are they appointing you an ambassador or will you end in s l a - v e ry?

Hahaha.

Trust, me if your uncle that you always tell his accomplishments to your friends is wishing to be me.

Help me ask him o!

Igbophobia:
This your work is the same thing that Reno does. When are they appointing you an ambassador or will you end in s l a - v e ry?

Flangelo12:
Hahaha.

Trust, me if your uncle that you always tell his accomplishments to your friends is wishing to be me.

Accomplishment ko, decompression ni

Igbophobia:
Accomplishment ko, decompression ni

E pain am.

Flangelo12:
E pain am.

Pain am ko, painment ni.