By Igbotako Nowinta
The shameful refusal of General Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the current electoral amendment in Nigeria, which was perfected by the National Assembly, since November 16, 2021, is the highest demonstration of the wiles and viles of the desperate political class to stand against free and fair elections, right from the party primaries across the country. The 30 days grace for General Buhari to sign the documents into law has expired; he has failed to identify with electoral progress, basic democratic values and the people of Nigeria. Buhari’s affront to democracy really, is sending an Electoral Amendment Bill back to the National Assembly, which had via exhaustive debates and wide considerations cum consultations with their respective constituents and then strenuously and painstakingly put the bill together in the first place. This is simply an atrocious slap on our faces coming from General Buhari; in what has become a visible emblem of the worst insult that could befall a people and nation. This heart-wrenching betrayal has further put our impoverished country a step deeper into avoidable stress and disaster. The lack of credible election or electoral system has contributed in large measures to the country’s reputation for bizarre social political and economic adventures. The real issue for me is not whether the National Assembly will veto or not veto Buhari’s unpopular action, to make the progressive insertions (electronic transfer of election results and direct primaries by political parties) a stunning reality, but that Nigerians must seek a perpetual unorthodox way out of the present darkness.
The British imperialists and colonialists came to Nigeria with a single agenda – economic interest.
The likes of Lord Frederick Lugard, George Goldie, Lord Selborne, John Beeccroft and other Governor- Generals, who succeeded them, acted the script of economic interest to the tilt, and did not care a hoot about instituting sincere democratic system in the country.
This fact became more conspicuous to me when l was researching for one of my highly successful works: “Where We Are – A Call For Democratic Revolution ln Nigeria,” published in October 2009.
So what Frederick Lugard and his fellow colonial co-travelers succeeded in doing on January 1, 1900, was sowing a dangerous seed of social and political instability for a teething nation.
Because the British colonial masters had a hidden agenda of milking the resources of Nigeria perpetually, one critical components of democratic governance which they deliberately put in place was the act of election rigging.
Harold Smith, who joined the Colonial Office in 1954, deployed to Nigeria in 1955, and who worked closely with one of the Governor-Generals (Sir James Robertson), that betrayed the Nigerian nation, wrote that everything was concocted from the beginning.
According to Smith’s famous ‘How Britain Influenced Rigging in Nigeria: “lt must be remembered that British Colonial power was autocratic dictatorial power. The British did not practice democracy in Nigeria.
“They talked about it as device to legitimise the transfer of power…But the British to the end were fixing and cheating…those were the dictated terms of the sham Independence.”
Harold Smith, who decided to confess to have peace of mind then, in his eighties, was brutally frank:
“l was one of the British officers serving on the headquarters staff in Lagos, chosen by the Governor- General, Sir James Robertson to mastermind the covert action to rig Nigeria’s election.
“The secret operation hatched in White Hall was of course a gross betrayal of trust by Prime-Ministers Sir Anthony Eden and Sir Harold Macmillan.”
In clearing his conscience, Harold Smith was brutally attacked at home by ultra-conservatives, but for me the ‘great confessor’ solidified my view about fighting uncompromisingly for a ‘democratic revolution in Nigeria’ when he added as follows: “We are the ones who rigged the elections. We are the ones who gave them the examples. We used every dirty trick in the book. We did it to Nigeria.”
It is utterly disheartening that Nigeria became a victim of a vicious, malicious and well-orchestrated conspiracy.
Now, it is more disturbing affront that more than 61 years after Independence, another crop of internal colonial masters have perfectly put in place a humiliating spectacle, to continue to rob the electorates in Nigeria, the right to choose their political representatives?
It is now a grand conspiracy by the political elite, that the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment process in Nigeria, which had under gone thorough and rigorous procedures, with the insertions of the much talked about (electronic transfer of election results plus the popular direct primaries by political parties), inside the House of Representatives and the Senate, has been rejected by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Simply put, General Muhammadu Buhari has done to Nigerians what Harold Smith and his superiors did to Nigeria in the 1950s.
For a sitting President who benefitted from the process of direct primary to emerge the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress to be lecturing us today about dire consequences of allowing blanket primaries across the board of political parties, speaks volumes about his acute sense of insincerity and dirty trick.
The fact of the matter is that President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to be an eternal political legend in our clime; he has refused to be what Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt are to the United States.
Buhari’s gurus are the sitting selfish State Governors who do not want change, who are ever desirous of taking power from the people using the indirect primary process of conjuring up their successors in office.
If President Buhari wants to be honest and patriotic, why has he not generated an Executive Bill, to repeal disturbing clauses in our electoral book before now?
The shameful refusal of General Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the current electoral amendment in Nigeria, which was perfected by the National Assembly, since November 16, 2021, is the highest demonstration of the wiles and viles of the desperate political class to stand against free and fair elections, right from the party primaries across the country.
The 30 days grace for General Buhari to sign the documents into law has expired; he has failed to identify with electoral progress, basic democratic values and the people of Nigeria.
Buhari’s affront to democracy really, is sending an Electoral Amendment Bill back to the National Assembly, which had via exhaustive debates and wide considerations cum consultations with their respective constituents and then strenuously and painstakingly put the bill together in the first place.
This is simply an atrocious slap on our faces coming from General Buhari; in what has become a visible emblem of the worst insult that could befall a people and nation. This heart-wrenching betrayal has further put our impoverished country a step deeper into avoidable stress and disaster.
The lack of credible election or electoral system has contributed in large measures to the country’s reputation for bizarre social political and economic adventures.
The real issue for me is not whether the National Assembly will veto or not veto Buhari’s unpopular action, to make the progressive insertions (electronic transfer of election results and direct primaries by political parties) a stunning reality, but that Nigerians must seek a perpetual unorthodox way out of the present darkness.
The brazen poisonous agenda of the desperate political class must be set ablaze. These inconsiderate, incompetent and overfed political pussy cats in our polity must be made inconsequential in our electoral scheme of things.
This monumental festering trauma called election rigging must be disconnected from the bad current being supplied by political conspirators. Must we continue to allow them to steal power and destroy the fundamental notion that citizens get to choose who leads them?
No, never! Because this system is continuously lucrative for them; this catastrophic status quo must be swept away. Decades long electoral injustice, which has eroded public faith in the electoral process must be dismantled.
Political power must be seen and given back to the people of Nigeria, come 2023 general elections!
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call For Democratic Revolution ln Nigeria.
