2011 ELECTIONS: A FINAL THOUGHT
As most campaigns by leading presidential candidates round up around Nigeria, here is a final thought on situation on ground. The crowds that welcomed the individual candidates in some regions of the country gave us a feel of their popularity in those places. President Jonathan received crowds in some region of the nation, mostly the south-south and south east, though his critics say many of them were rented. We saw, however, people in the north openly rejecting his candidature on account of his sacrificing the zoning arrangement for personal ambition. With this region commanding 40.2 million of the 70 million voters in Jega’s register, the PDP has a lot to worry about.
Hurricane Buhari is the term used to describe the retired General’s acceptance among the poor majority in the north. The crowd that have welcomed the Buhari team on his campaign trip have never been recorded in Nigeria’s history and may never be. His choice of running mate, Tunde Bakare, which his opponent at first termed political suicide, has actually given him acceptability in the south of Nigeria, particularly the south west. Not a few people have observed Bakare over the years on his widely broadcasted TV messages and have come to know him as a no nonsense, focused and visionary preacher, and thus see his running with Buhari as a good omen for the country. These people have for this reason thrown their weight behind the BB team.
Then we have Mallam Nuhu Ribadu whose anti-corruption antecedents at the EFCC and his party’s hold of 4 south-west states (including Edo), gives him some popularity in that region. And there is Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, who many agreed was the winner of the NN24 presidential debate, has warmed himself into the heart of the electorate in the south by his stellar performance that day, in addition to the following he has already in Kano State.
If the ideal situation is allowed to hold, General Buhari has a greater possibility of pulling president Jonathan into a run-off, and when he stands one on one with him he has a good chance of trouncing him at the polls. But that is the ideal. The reality on ground is that the PDP has perfected plans of rigging the elections again. If the rumours making the rounds are true, last Saturday elections were aborted because the PDP were largely being beaten at the polls in every region of the country. Certainly the logistics challenge were there; but the greater challenge was that the PDP was being disgraced out of the National Assembly. So the possibility of the PDP deploying their most lethal rigging machinery is so high and the nation is again in danger of conducting elections that everyone would see as not being free and fair. Nigeria has a history of not having an incumbent who has conducted free and fair elections before, and Goodluck Jonathan is not likely to be an exception. These were the fears in some people’s minds when they advised him not to run for office, but he refused.
If 2011 elections are rigged, Nigeria will be in danger of becoming a failed state. While our nation does not share a similar political situation with North African countries, a rigged poll is likely to spur protest of similar magnitude in those countries (especially in the north), and if not well managed can lead to civil war. General Buhari has said he would not contest the result of the polls at the courts. Which means he is leaving it to the court of public opinion and the people are most likely to take the law into their hands. That will result to anarchy. The PDP government has told us that we cannot witness a ‘Libyan’ situation here because we have a ‘working’ democracy. The people’s reaction to a rigged poll will tell everyone whether our democracy is working or not.
In times like these one is forced to turn to faith and hope in God through prayer that Nigeria would not cease to exist in 2015 as the Americans had predicted. But then we are reminded that God is most likely a Nigerian, because which other nation has witnessed just half of what we have known and is not a failed state today? it is this element of hope that tells us that the divine hand will yet work in our favor. Nigeria will have free and fair elections beginning from this weekend. The opposition will take the day; General Buhari would be installed President of this nation on the 29th May 2011. The legislative house will be taken over by the opposition and only 3 or 4 states will be left for PDP governors. It will be the dawn of a new day… the beginning of a new beginning… and everybody say, AMEN!