Do-or-die is an evil command. Beneath it is ruthlessness. It’s over a decade it gained entry into the Nigerian political lexicon and ever since, it’s been live-and-let die. But somehow, those who chose the Do-side had always ended in the death-end, at least, of their ambition.
Why the Abia-PDP chose this path remains a question. Before the election, the talk of most PDP adherents was, ‘you vote, we write the result and indeed, it’s already written’.
That brings to mind the three strata of Nigeria’s political electioneering: the canvassing for votes, writing the result and announcing it. You may canvass very well, yet lose very well because you left two out of three. Indeed, canvassing is the only genuine interface between candidate and electorate. It’s to help them make up their mind. Occasionally, incentives come in to drive it. It’s not so with the other two. INEC officials will say they can’t be compromised, indeed, it’s against their operational ethics.
But go there without money and witness the painful side of democracy. It’s not ‘may give but must give, keep giving till crash-out or sworn-in and give is as big as an LG-budget each time. There, it’s a Last In-First Out (LIFO) system. The latest to give is the latest to be served; what’s given last week is dead. Now is it. The Abia-PDP has it and gives it because, they’re in power: workers salaries unpaid for six months take care of that. Why? Because, they want the result written in their favour to continue the desolation. You can do all the campaigning, win all the votes, if the hawk in you is not let loose, what’s voted may not be what’s written.
That’s the backbone of the boast, ‘you do the voting, we do the writing’. While the vote-count was on, the earth-gun shooting had begun, beer with whisky gulped down in wild celebration; all because ‘we have won’. But unfortunately, the results from the polling booths had been posted on the net; some papers had published them. In addition, the staggering figures the PDP lumped together for itself in areas where voting did not take place showed brazen inconsistencies to the extent that vote won was more than the number of registered voters.
Meaning evil does not know arithmetic. Somehow, the electoral officer noticed the inconsistency and announced a cancellation. That irked the influencers. The next day, PDP stalwarts, about four of them including Governor Theodore Orji stormed the INEC office, called the officer for a short discussion in the full glare of the angry public despite INEC rules that only party agents can access the collation centres.
Thereafter, the same INEC said they had reversed the cancellation. What transpired in the short meeting in INEC’s office, no one knows but for saying yes and no on the same issue at the same time, INEC itself is a victim of inconsistency or is the inconsistency itself. The people said NO. PDP youths brandished machetes, took a cock- the symbol of APGA- and chanted we’ll kill this cock today. The next day, youths from all over the state trooped in with their machetes far-outnumbering those of the PDP and threatened to burn down INEC office.
At that point, INEC postponed announcing the manipulated result. It’s clear from the forgoing that at the stage of writing/rewriting election results, reckless inducements play out leading to inconsistencies and democracy-by-machetes, in some states, guns. That takes us to stage three: announcing the result. If INEC announces an election result, only an electoral tribunal can reverse it. All over the INEC vicinity it was one chant: announce! announce! They tried to but failed.
Each time they tried, the gunshots, the drinking and brandishing intensified in blatant mockery of the people. That victory announcement did not come and will not come. Its effect however is, the people looked like orphans, everywhere quiet, each whispering and sighing with rumour sweeping through like hurricane per minute. PDP is winning, blood pressure up; APGA is winning, blood pressure down. I recall one disenchanted youth saying, if T.A. Orji can steal the people’s vote to hold power, nothing stops me from building a crime unit. These are the offshoots of denying the people their choice.
You would ask, what of the security outfit? They peeped and departed. What of the International Observers? They go to Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt and scantily others. We hardly saw them when the real observation was to be made. The re-run in the rigged local governments is coming but Abia-PDP is yet to realize that power has moved from them. They still will engage in PVC-racketeering, ballot-box stuffing and snatching but it’s all a failed project. Abia people want Alex Otti for the change they desire and deserve.
Steve Ayorinde
