The fallouts of the 2023 nigeria presidential election and lessons for the opposition.
The 2023 presidential election held on Saturday 25th February and it was a disaster. The independent national electoral commission led by professor Mahmoud Yakubu set a new record of conducting the worst presidential election in the history of Nigeria’s democracy. The electoral body ended up doing the exact opposite of all it promised to guarantee a free and fair election. I listened to the president of the Nigerian senate, Mr Ahmed Lawan who tried but failed woefully to explore flaws in the 2022 electoral Act that he midwifed. He tried to justify the non transmission of results from the polling units as optional. I felt the shame of a nation after listening to the number 3 citizen, a lawless lawmaker I would say.
The widespread electoral malfeasance across the country was obvious to all and sundry including the international observers. Infringements such as voters suppression, massive thumb printing outside the polling area, ballot box snatching, and above all, failure to use available technology paid for by taxpayers is the worst crime of this election. The use of BVAS for accreditation and transmission of results, real-time from the polling units to the INEC server is supposed to be the game changer in this election. This was not to be because certain persons ensured that it didn’t happen. If the most important tool to guarantee a transparent election is thrashed, it would be imbecilic to expect a free, fair and transparent election.
Though the candidate of the ruling APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been declared winner of the marred election, the legitimacy of his government is called to serious question.
Before the final results were announced, some key opposition parties addressed a press conference calling for the outright cancellation of the entire election due to their claim of massive rigging and lack of compliance with the 2022 electoral Act. Anyone who understands power play in Nigeria and indeed anywhere in the world would know that such cancellation is almost impossible. The battlefield will now shift to the courts. But how dependable is our judicial system? Let’s hope the court will pleasantly surprise the people this time around.
While the legal briefs and fireworks are ongoing, there is another set of elections staring us in the face, that is the governorship and states houses of assembly elections. This forthcoming election is as important as the just concluded presidential election for those with political foresight
LESSONS FOR THE OPPOSITION PARTIES
From the comraderie witnessed between the opposition People’s Democratic Party, Labour Party and other smaller parties after the just concluded election, one can infer that beyond every other considerations, the common enemy here is the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, which has mismanaged the Nigerian state over the past almost eight years. If the opposition parties could find it convenient to come together to fight perceived electoral injustice, why didn’t they come together to team up to defeat the incumbent Party before the presidential election? In order to defeat a ruling party in a country like Nigeria, overwhelming numbers are required to drown the malfeasance of the government and electoral body. A combination of the PDP and Labour Party could have sufficed but no common ground was found before the presidential elections. Now that reality has downed, more than ever before, synergy is urgently required from the major opposition parties. If that cooperation is explored, at least two third of the states government Houses in the country will be controlled by the opposition parties, and that is the only sure roadmap in taking back the country from the ruling party in 2027.
For instance, it would be foolhardy for PDP to think that they can win Lagos government House on Saturday 12th March after the strong statement of intent from Labour Party during the presidential election. The wise thing for PDP to do at this juncture is to declare support for the Labour Party candidate and encourage its members to vote for the party come March 12th. In the same vein, Labour Party should support PDP candidates in states where PDP has shown better performances at the presidential election. Other smaller parties should be encouraged to join the bandwagon.
Four years in the life of a nation is a short time. 2027 is around the corner. The best time to win the 2027 presidential election is on March 12, 2023. If the opposition governors are in charge of majority of the states, organised rigging will be curtailed.
In conclusion, I leave the opposition parties and concerned Nigerians with the words of Martin Luther King Jr, ‘we either live together as brothers or perish together as fools’. An African proverbs says ‘when brothers engage in a fight, strangers take over their inheritance’
Meanwhile, we are now in a townhall, I cannot tell if it will be different from balablu. Whatever that means.
