Increasingly, Nigeria’s election has been compromised. Ever than before, individuals, and groups are raising concerns over the shambolic elections in Nigeria.
William Penn Adair Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist says: “The more you read and observe about this politics thing, the more you’ve got to admit that each party’s worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best!”
Nowhere in the world are elections 100 percent free and fair, but the degree of manipulation ranges from one country to the other and from one continent to the others. All political parties are guilty of this.
A former Chief of Staff to Richard Nixon (former president of America) said what matters in America is not vote, but those who count it.
In the same view, Joseph Stalin, a former secretary-general of the Communist Party of Soviet Union, was quoted as saying: “It isn’t the people who vote that count. It is the people that count the votes.”
William Marcy Tweed of Tammany Hall fame was also quoted as saying something rougher. “As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?” What that implies is that the government in power, to a large extent, counts the votes and determines the figure to announce!
Manipulations to win elections are lower in countries where the overriding motivation is service. It is not so in other countries where people see electoral victory as a meal ticket or an end to poverty.
In Europe and America for instance, where many citizens are politically aware and where democracy makes a lot of sense, a lot of things are put into consideration before a vote is cast for a politician.
It is not so in third world countries where greater number of the populace live in abject poverty. And the voting masses willingly give themselves in for crumbs and freebies in exchange for their votes.
Since, the return of Nigeria to civil rule in 1999, except the election that was held that very year, others thereafter have been tagged non-transparent, rigged, manipulated or compromised, meaning that the elections were neither free nor fair.
The situation was worse during the 2007 general election that brought into power, the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. It was so bad that Yar’Adua himself acknowledged in public that “my election was not free and fair.”
In the days when the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) held sway at the centre, some power brokers in the fold at that time delighted themselves in the mantra, “There is no vacancy in Aso Rock.” That was rooted in their ability to manipulate figures to their advantage.
The late Tony Anenih was reputed to ensuring victory for PDP by “doing one or two things during elections”, hence the confidence the party exuded. The late Anenih was so tilting the scale of victory towards the PDP that he was given a sobriquet, “Mr. Fix It”. While he lasted as a vibrant party man and political juggernaut in the PDP, he played his card “well”.
Pundits say that the secret behind the PDP victories at that time was in the “power of zero.” They allege that the then ruling party knew how to employ that to arrive at victory, even in places where they would ordinarily not clinch victory.
That was when it was convenient for the party to brag that it would occupy the nation’s power stool for 60 unbroken years. But in 2015, “the counsel of Ahithophel” was “turned into foolishness”.
Today, probably bitten by the same bug of over-confidence, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is making the same boastful claim of everlasting inheritance of Nigeria.
Lasisi Olagunju, in a published article in the Nigerian Tribune of Monday 3 December 2018, quoted Bola Ahmed Tinubu, national leader of the APC, as saying in Osogbo, during the recent inauguration of the new administration in Osun State, that APC has conquered the South West, forever.
Olagunju said: “The victorious big boss (Tinubu) spoke on behalf of a future that belongs to no one. He declared that his tendency had prevailed forever, and never again would another party defeat his APC in Yoruba land.”
He quoted Tinubu as saying that “There is no room for any other party in the South West.”
“He vowed and was sure nothing would change his verdict a million years from now. That is how a Mafia don, a ‘boss of all bosses’ should talk. All Capos think they see and own tomorrow,” Olagunju said.
Like the PDP in the days when it could easily fix anything including election results, the APC probably believes everything is now under its feet.
It has every reason to think so, seeing that with what analysts, described as the “power of zero” the broom party wrested power from the PDP’s grip in Ekiti State in the month of July. Two months later, in Osun State, it re-enacted the feat by allegedly adding additional zero(s).
Although the ruling party is massively hit by an internal crisis arising from the troubled primaries in some states across the country; despite the fact that a huge number of aggrieved members have dumped the party, and even as confidence is waning in the leadership of the party, it still believes, so strongly, that it has the key to victory next year.
Pundits have said that the 2019 general election may witness the employment of numerous “zeros” in a bid to run away with victory. According to them, the “power of zero” is a rigging method; a manipulation of total votes cast by simply adding a zero or a multiple of it, depending on the situation that arises, to knock off a powerful contender, who probably may be coasting home to victory.
In 2015, although the likes of Anenih, were alive and kicking, they could not fix anything to make the PDP remain in power.
Hence, President Goodluck Jonathan threw in the towel even when the result of the poll was yet to be made public.
With the combination of many factors, including the level of sensitisation of the masses on the need for them to protect their votes; the willingness on the part of many more Nigerians to participate in the voting process next year, and the determination of the electorate to ensure that the “dog and baboon soak in their own blood” if the election is rigged by anybody, it could be said that the “power of zero” may not work this time around.
In politics, rigging is done after the balloting, during collation. This is the time the “power of zero” works. It is not always possible without the connivance of party agents who look the other way after accepting bribe money to that effect.
Russell Wayne Baker, an American columnist, said: “The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when the human spirit is at its lowest.”
Politics is never a holy game. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814 -76), Russian revolutionary, said: “Even in the purest democracies, such as the United States and Switzerland, a privileged minority stands against the vast enslaved majority.”
In a related quote, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American writer said: “Politics is strife of interests masquerading as a context of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
When you talk about the ceaseless unrest in many parts of Africa, the root cause is politics. Political leaders in these countries have always perpetrated their evil policies against the people and they do everything to perpetuate themselves in power. Rigging has always been their stock-in-trade.
Pundits say that rigging in 2019 may not be as easy as Nigerians have become conscious about their role in election process.
“I see a situation where those planning to rig may find out they have no opportunity to do so. If it is vote-buying, the noise that has been made about it, I think is enough to put every voter at alert and the danger of accepting N4,000 or N5,000 today and mortgaging your future. Again, unlike when people manipulated figures at the polling units, this time around, voters will be willing to wait until they hear the result and they video everything and post on the social media. I also want to believe that the situation in Ekiti and Osun will not repeat itself because since the election is taking place same day and time, the security agents will be deployed to various places to keep the peace. There will be no case of flooding a state with soldiers, policemen and other paramilitary personnel for the purpose of intimidating opponents in order to “capture” such a state. “So, it is going to be a little bit difficult; except they decide to announce an outright false result; and then, the INEC would have the world to content with in that case. But mind you, nothing is sacrosanct,” a pundit, who craved anonymity, said.
