Ayomide
“I thank God; I’ve left the place. I can’t do anything against my conscience… They want me to announce fake results. I can’t at my aga; for how much?” MRS. AYOKA ADEBAYO, REC, EKITI SATE.
“…the on-going election in Ekiti State was supposed to be the election that will enhance the image of INEC, electoral process in our dear country Nigeria and the whole black race. Unfortunately, the circumstances changed in the middle of the process; therefore, my conscience as a Christian cannot allow me to further participate in the process”. MRS. ADEBAYO, in her resignation letter, April 28, 2009.
At the end of the 2007 elections, it becam clear to discerning observers, that Nigeria might have shut the door firmly in the face of a credible electoral process. I was convinced that it would be difficult to have elections as the basis for governance legitimacy in Nigeria into the future, except something gives! My pessimism is premised on the fact that our electoral process is locked into a sickening lincestuous ménage-a-trois, between INEC, the PDP regime and the security forces, mainly the police.
INEC’s arrogantly combative head, Maurice Iwu, lives ina deluded denial about his conduct of elections, he puts up a spirited defence of the charade he has so far conducted, along with a piethora of abusive heired guns. But all re-runs so far have merely been used to railroad Nigerian back into the grizzly embrace of the PDP, by the complicit INEC and an equally partisan police force. The PDP’s philosophy remains in “capture” Nigeria! This is the background against which the re-run in Ekit State has been conducted. Yet the court’s order was simple; INEC should conduct fresh elections in ten local government areas in one of the smallest states of Nigeria, Ekiti. 120 hours after, INEC has been unable to release the results. It must be stated that the Ekiti re-run had all the ingredients of a do-or-die elections. For the PDP, too much was at stake that it was willing to endanger Nigeria’s political health, rather than accept loss of the the election re-run. But the question is, why?
A few weeks ago, a leading member of the PDP confided in me the depth of worry in the party about its state in the Sourth West of the country; the ouster of Agagu in Ondo; return of Oshiomhole in Edo; and the situations in Osun and Ogun, have all shaken to the roots the elaborate house of fraud which they constructed since 2003. There are structural defects and the foundation might be swept away, because PDP realizes that it does not have an organic link with the political tradition of this most politically volatile region of Nigeria. This is why for them, the Ekiti re-run is do-AND-die; PDP must win AT ALL COST, even if all hell is let lose!. The naïve assumption is that nothing can withstand ‘Hurrican PDP’; It sweeps all in its wake, with a mix of fury and illegality, and a complicit INEC and police in tow!
But in Ekiti, they chose the wrong place to apply the doctrine of impunity, because here they have a memory of resisting electoral injustice. The rejection of the NPN in 1983 is still a reference point; besides, who can easily forget the fact that it was in the south west, that the First and Second Republics found their way to the graveyard of Nigerian politics? So given the history of the area and the temperament of its people, why did the PDP choose an insensitive course of daring the Ekiti people? Maybe we have not even gauged effectively how far we have been taken on the path of patent lawlessness and impunity, by a regime and electoral system to unable/unwilling to conduct free elections in a few wards in one of our smallest state. INEC’s penchant for doing the bare minimum just because the answer has already been arrived at beforehand, which is to award it regime into utter confusion. That was on the back of the surprisingly effective determination of the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo.
The international backdrop to the re-run couldn’t by any more instructive; India’s near-800million electorate have been voting weekly without much fuss at the same time that South Africa also rolled out superb logistics to ensure that more than 30 million people can be part of a free and fair elections, whose results came out within 24 hours! Nigeira remains locked into a deliberate subversion of the electoral wishes of its people by a PDP regime which has made it clear in its practice, beyond its proclamations about electoral reforms. The Ekiti re-run has clearly shown that the portents for 2011 are very ominous; the regime in power cannot allow free and fair elections simply because it is a product of fraud itself; it is that simple! The track record of re-runs since 2007 justify this conclusion, and what has happended in the past week in Ekiti shows the depth of desperacy of the PDP and its regime as well as what to expect in 2011.
As it it could not get any bizarre, the reaction to the well publicized resignation of the Ekiti REC has seen a thoroughly embarrassed regime opt for what Fela would have termed ROFOROFO Fight. On Tuesday night we saw the meange-a-trois in action: Dora Akunyili, Maurice Iwu and Police IG, Mike Okiro tried some ‘Government Magic’, “The purported letter is suspect and there is a need for the weighty allegations contained in the letter to be properly investigated”, according to Akunyili. On his part, IG Okiro said Mrs. Adebayo should show up within 24 hours or be declared wanted. As for Iwu, there could not have been any interference or manipulation from anywhere! The truth is that they are shell-shocked; the triumvirate of INEC, PDP and the police hurriedly buried a political corpse, but a limb is sticking out of the badly dug grace! It took the Ekiti scenario to let Nigerians re-concentrate their minds aobut the incestuous ménage-a-trois that is ruining Nigeria. That is why they are terribly worried in the redoubts of the PDP, INEC and government of the day!
