texazzpete:

@Ola, Leadmyster
Apologies if i came across as rude. We'll get along better next time!

Now that we've got that out of the way. . .


Don't you see?! the answer is obvious. Elections are normally supposed to be free and fair and totally peaceful. Why report the mundane? it's when there's violence and destruction that it becomes a hot news item. Honestly, do you want to be told every single time a cow at obasanjo farms is milked? No! But we want to know if that cow develops mad cow disease! So why would it surprise you when stories of violence and oppresion fills the airwaves?
Good points! You are a very objective.


Wasn't it an American paper that reported on the prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison? Didnt the Virginia Tech shootings get lots of play in American media? SO let's stop with the 'Western media is targetting africans' story.
We musn't forget that lots of things happen in Africa that are incomprehensible to observers and journalists in the western world, like opposing politicians being arrested at a rally and beaten bloody (zimbabwe), MASSIVE rigging of elections (Nigeria), millitant attacks and kidnappings for ransom (Nigeria) etc. These make great news for their viewers.


At least i sincerely hope that none of y'all are weird enough to believe that Bush and Blair issue orders to CNN and BBC to tarnish africa's image for strategic reasons. if so, then you're no better than those waiting for aliens to come carry them in their spaceships, and second only to those geezers that line their caps with aluminium foil to prevent green martians from reading their thoughts  

Good points! You are very objective

Some Nigerians Run Their Mouths To Impress Foreign Media A times. I Wonder Whom They Are Trying To Impress.

I Read The BBC Article. The Guy Is A sell Out. I hope The Reporter Bought Him A Hot Meal?

It Neva Ceases To Amaze Me How Some of Us Try To Impress These Westerners. Good We Have Issues, But Do They Run Perfect Systems Too.?

We Are Getting Our Acts Together And Would Emerge Soon. This Is Scary To Them, Much Like the Asian Tigers Scare Them With Their "Roaring" Economic Booms. What about the Failed "Blair War Project"?

I Wonder What BBC Intends To Achieve With Their "Instigative" Rather Than Investigative Journalism. Do They Think We'd Go To War.?

I Thot They Were Smarter. Now I Know Better.

What Do They Even Have As A Nation?

All They Do Is To Establish Colonies And Neo-Colonies And Parasite On Them. They Have An Eye For Oil. Oil Vampires.

Parasitic Caucasians!!

Whether some of you believe it or not that is that is the truth and nothing but the truth!

*Genial sup bruva?*

Pain:

Some Nigerians Run Their Mouths To Impress Foreign Media A times. I Wonder Whom They Are Trying To Impress.

I bet they're also trying to impress the local media when they say the same things to them.

I Read The BBC Article. The Guy Is A sell Out. I hope The Reporter Bought Him A Hot Meal?

Your assertions do not add up. Read artcle, therefore guy = sell out. Difficult permutations there. Care to explain?

It Neva Ceases To Amaze Me How Some of Us Try To Impress These Westerners. Good We Have Issues, But Do They Run Perfect Systems Too.?

No they do not. I am yet to see anyone assert that they do.

We Are Getting Our Acts Together And Would Emerge Soon.

Amen.

This Is Scary To Them, Much Like the Asian Tigers Scare Them With Their "Roaring" Economic Booms.

Not impossible.

What about the Failed "Blair War Project"?

 

I Wonder What BBC Intends To Achieve With Their "Instigative" Rather Than Investigative Journalism. Do They Think We'd Go To War.?

LOL.

I Thot They Were Smarter. Now I Know Better. What Do They Even Have As A Nation?

Do you really want the answer to that?

All They Do Is To Establish Colonies And Neo-Colonies And Parasite On Them. They Have An Eye For Oil. Oil Vampires.

Maybe. Depending on what perspective you see it from.

Parasitic Caucasians!!

What was that about? Is this about racism?


_{*Sis I dey vex for you o!  . Why did you run away?*}

@Tex,

Apology accepted my brother, i know we all feel passionate about this topic but we should not always result to insulting each other, only pussies like TayoD do that.

The reason why i asked to hear your story is because i respect your opinions and i know you would not tell us a cock n bull story unlike the BBC guy.

The guy met a fully mechanised "vote rigging" squad and still decided to go and join them to vote

We all know how Nigeria works don't we? That was an illegal (based on timeof the day) polling booth and anything could happen


On the other hand, the thugs at your local booth took advantage of the fact that you were undecided over a senatorial candidate and decided to add your vote to their tally. Plus you voted PDP in presidential elections of your own accord, that translates to them that you are a PDP faithful and will vote the party in any election regardless of the identity of the candidate.

My point is, if you had made up your mind to come vote Atiku for president and Odili (for example) for senator from home in a legal polling booth, they would not have crowded on you to vote PDP, or rather you could go back home and refuse to vote.
I mentioned Lagos because i witnessed  Abiola's SDP and NRC elections which was probably the scariest elections in a highly volatile part of Lagos (Unilag environs), yet no one was forced to vote.

It will be stupid of them to force you to vote knowing fully well that you may "whistleblow" when they can easily manipulate the figures at INEC office  

@Leadmyster,

I'm not surprised you called me a pussy. What more can I expect from someone who thinks with his genitals and not his God-given brain.

Despite personal stories by those who witnessed these voting rape, you opened your filthy gutters to say: "Forced to vote, Thats just not true." Why don't you tell that to the scores of people who died during the course of the election!!

The problem is the short-sightedness of our people. Because you witnessed a free and fair election in your 'rich' neighbourhood, you assume that the poor people who live in Ajegunle or places like that enjoy the same luxury that you do. Once your needs are met, you forget those of others. How convenient.

I guess you do not believe the stories about the tanker that was going to be rammed into INEC building as well, neither do you believe the reports of the European observers who were witnesses. Results in the 2003 election that showed more votes for PDP in Ogun State than the registered voters must have been cooked up as well.

Keep putting your head in the sand. You are very much exposing your rear for a well-deserved kicking in the near future!!

Pain:

Some Nigerians Run Their Mouths To Impress Foreign Media A times. I Wonder Whom They Are Trying To Impress.

I Read The BBC Article. The Guy Is A sell Out. I hope The Reporter Bought Him A Hot Meal?

It Neva Ceases To Amaze Me How Some of Us Try To Impress These Westerners. Good We Have Issues, But Do They Run Perfect Systems Too.?

We Are Getting Our Acts Together And Would Emerge Soon. This Is Scary To Them, Much Like the Asian Tigers Scare Them With Their "Roaring" Economic Booms. What about the Failed "Blair War Project"?

I Wonder What BBC Intends To Achieve With Their "Instigative" Rather Than Investigative Journalism. Do They Think We'd Go To War.?

I Thot They Were Smarter. Now I Know Better.

What Do They Even Have As A Nation?

All They Do Is To Establish Colonies And Neo-Colonies And Parasite On Them. They Have An Eye For Oil. Oil Vampires.

Parasitic Caucasians!!

I think the most important question we need to ask ourselves is, do we really want Nigeria to progress? DO we?
Because i really think it's attitudes like yours that drag the country down even further. I mean, there's no difference between your attitude and that of the PDP spin doctors that keep on painting everything in a positive light. I witnessed the elctions in Lagos and i was in benin during the aftermath of the announcement of the PDP 'victory' there, i was in Port Harcourt for the presidential elections also. This election stands out as probably the worst ever, and there's no doubt in my mind about this.
How can you whitewash an election where millions failed to vote? 80% of the registered voters in Anambra couldnt vote. a large number of registered voters in many others states including Delta couldn't vote. massive rigging took place indiscriminately, intimidation was the order of the day.
We need these foreign pressmen to watch and condemn. we need all the criticism so we can build from it. Yet you take this shameful attitude of condemning outside criticisms of the electoral process.
All people like you do is advocate that we wait and see. What the hell do you mean by "we are getting our act together"? We're not! We're sliding further and further into anarchy, corruption is the order of the day and thuggery is becoming a part of every election. We're getting worse! Nigeria's never going to get greater at this pace, in fact we'll slip further into chaos. And this isn't a pessimistic poin tof view, this is a realistic point of view.

Before anyone comes forward to challenge my assertions, do what i did; sit back and think of what is possibly going to improve/redeem Nigeria. Consider the fact that the youth are even more corrupt than the elders (our near total acceptance of yahoo boys points to this), more prone to violence, more tribalistic and more morally corrupt.

We need all the exposure we can get on this negative practices. we need to work on educating our youth on the evils of electoral thuggery. we need to improve our electoral practices, and appoint unbiased people as INEC chairmen. we need to remind our new leaders that we know what they did, how they rigged, we need to shame some people in this country into decency.

What we do not need is to hide our heads in the sand and cast blame on outsiders and the west. That is what Mobutu focuses on doing, leading his country to a 1700% inflation while heaping blame on the West. It is his way, and it was Idi Amin's before him.


Think about this; before the elections, voters were disillusioned, many refused to register or vote feeling that their votes would not count. Now they have been proved right, how many people will register to vote in 2011?


I'm shocked that someone who stays in Abuja and who voted at 10am could use that as a benchmark for the conduct of elections in all part of the country. It's like writing JAMB inside JAMB office and then using that to claim that there were no cases of cheating in the whole country. Terrible, terrible assumption.

All i do know is, even my dad (he's a Professor) is disillusioned now. you know why? A ballot box was brought to his university for the lecturers and students to vote. Within 30 mins, security agents caught an INEC official in the back of the INEC van thumbprinting hundreds of ballot papers, and invalidating the ones that didnt vote for PDP. So far, so Nigeria, nothing strange.

Know what shook the old man so much? The INEC Official was a 23 year old girl. and he thought the youth would be different. . .

Texxazpete, it`s good to hear someone tell it like it is! Noone likes outsiders telling them how to run things but only a foolish man pretends everything`s fine just to save face. I would believe any election stories i hear beacause i know the level of corruption in this country and i even think this year we`ve taken the word to an even uglier level. If th BBC report wasn`t enuff to convince me, the footage of 10 and 12 year olds being given ballot papers to vote by INEC officials  would have done the trick. True the voting was peaceful in some areas but that was obviously window dressing  . But for anyone who choses to believe that the BBC`s Nigeria`s problem,

@flakes,

it`s good to hear someone tell it like it is!

Thanks for that piece. Unfortunately, it appears some people prefer the praise of fools to the constructive and objective criticsm of the wise.

Now,will some people stop blaming the BBC.I mean even if the guy had been suborned by them does not mean all these is false in its entirety.In my own case,maybe b'cos I'm not a popular face around I was told my name could not be found in the voters' register without proper check.By the way the election is not a secret one because all these polling agents were almost the same with party agents who were all over the units.
By the way if the fellow was gainfully employed maybe he wouldn't have danced to BBC's tunes(I mean if his future was assured).

texazzpete:



All i do know is, even my dad (he's a Professor) is disillusioned now. you know why? A ballot box was brought to his university for the lecturers and students to vote. Within 30 mins, security agents caught an INEC official in the back of the INEC van thumbprinting hundreds of ballot papers, and invalidating the ones that didnt vote for PDP. So far, so Nigeria, nothing strange.

Know what shook the old man so much? The INEC Official was a 23 year old girl. and he thought the youth would be different. . .

Honestly, Now Im Touched. I Guesss I Didn't Meditate Well B4 My Submission.

May B Overzealousness And Nationalism Took Hold Of Me At The Moment I Was Posting.

This Gives Me Deep Cause For Worry. I Really Love Nigeria. I Swwear I Do. My Heart Is So So Heavy

Its rather unfortunate anyway.God help Nigeria abeg.

@TayoD,

I see u can now read minds cos i actually do not believe the INEC office bomb story. Don't no one try to make me think different. And i still think its pointlesss to force anyone to vote.

I quote yor statement on the 2003 elections in Ogun state, thats the simple thing INEC does, manipulate figures which no one in or outside Nigeria can dare counter. The 2003 guys were much smarter

However, considering the fact that the 2007 candidates for PDP are dumber than usual (Imagine Yaradua as Nigerian president), i am beggining to see reason why they would have had to use such crude methods.

In agreement with Tex, my fear for Nigeria is that the youths are actually more corrupt. Ten years back, we were clamouring for the youths to take hold of affairs and hoped that things would be better, that time has come and youths fare worse.

Who will save Nigeria

Finally people are beginning to see reason, that this pictures and reports are actually the truth. Texx thanks if it will take your epistle to remove the scale please preach it more, and more.

@ pain i appreciate your patriotism and Nationalism and others but we need to face facts, it doesnt make you less patriotic in my opinion the patriotic charater is one that can stand and speak the truth objectively irrespective of your own individual pecularity.

We should actually be grateful to the BBC and the western media for taking out time to show this ills and not taking the sycophant stand. The reports from the elections have been so disgusting that i was close to tears watching CNN and BBC, knowing that this is what the world is watching, it was a big disgrace so much more because i knew it was true generally and not a few odd cases.

The question of degredation in values especially among the youths gives me so much concern, this "yahoo boys" syndrome that has captured our society, people accept it and they are actually becoming role models. All this can be penciled down to the stagnant economy and extremely low standard of living of the masses, in a bid to break out of the poverty bracket the youths are turning to crime.

We need purposeful leadership more than ever before, our economy must grow and at a much higher growth rate than we are expereiencing. These things are not rocket science but requires first a willing and purposeful leadership, then a followership that demands accountability and are objective in their assertions, not taking the lazy way out of issues.