Afrigather 
When the Folks’s Democratic Celebration was in energy for 16 years, from 1999 to 2015, many Nigerians, particularly members of the opposition, complained of the get together’s haughtiness, highhandedness and fixation with victory. PDP was accused of seeing election as a “do-or-die affair.”
The President, Main Normal Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was a member of the opposition then. The President-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, whose election in February has been condemned as missing in transparency and never following the principles of the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee, was additionally a member of the opposition. As opposition members, Buhari and Tinubu often condemned the PDP as missing in democratic ethics and often flouting the rule of legislation. Buhari and Tinubu always projected themselves and the political events as the higher various to the PDP when it comes to imaginative and prescient and democratic ethos.
Between 2003 and 2007 when Tinubu was in his second time period, he was the one governor of the Alliance for Democracy (which later morphed into Motion Congress after which Motion Congress of Nigeria), having misplaced 5 of his colleagues to the PDP in 2003. He was, due to this fact, like an orphan within the political terrain of Nigeria, and bought the sympathies of most Nigerians, together with these not resident in Lagos.
In 2003 when Tinubu added further 37 native authorities areas (which have been later tagged native council improvement areas) to the prevailing 20 LGAs, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration selected to grab the month-to-month allocations to the Lagos State LGAs. Tinubu took the case to courtroom and finally bought a judgment from the Supreme Courtroom ordering the Obasanjo administration to launch the funds to Lagos State.
Obasanjo made himself a courtroom above the Supreme Courtroom and determined to not launch the funds. He was roundly condemned as a dictator carrying the garb of a democrat. It was apparent that Obasanjo had not purged himself of his navy previous.
Tinubu seized each alternative to take pot pictures at Obasanjo as a despot, portray an image of how he and his get together have been true democrats who would institute an exemplary model of management if given the chance. He additionally had a political previous to boast of. He was a member of the Nationwide Democratic Coalition, established to battle in opposition to the navy following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Finally, he was elected the governor of Lagos State in 1999 and ran two tenures of 4 years every. Since 2007, he has been the “political father” of his Motion Congress of Nigeria, which in 1993 merged with the Congress for Progressive Change and the All Nigeria Peoples Celebration to type the All Progressives Congress, which grew to become the ruling get together in 2015.
Like Tinubu, Buhari had been within the opposition till 2015. Though he had dominated Nigeria as a navy dictator between December 31, 1983 and August 27, 1985, he joined politics and ran for president in 2003. At each alternative, he assured the general public that he was a reformed democrat. Though his recognition was primarily within the North of Nigeria, he complained that the election was rigged in opposition to him after it was introduced that he misplaced the election.
In 2007 he ran once more and complained once more of rigging. In 2011 he ran underneath the banner of the get together he shaped referred to as Congress for Progressive Change. He misplaced and his supporters unleashed violence on folks in some northern states in Nigeria, inflicting the deaths of many and destruction of property. In 2015, he ran once more underneath the APC and beat the incumbent president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP. Instructively, Jonathan didn’t use thugs or affect the electoral physique to win that election. The APC gained as a result of Jonathan acted in a statesmanlike method.
In 2015, following the style Jonathan approached the election, constantly stating that his ambition was not definitely worth the lifetime of any Nigerian, urging no person to rig the election on his behalf, giving INEC the free hand to conduct the election and announce outcomes, conceding defeat even whereas the entire outcomes weren’t in, refusing to go to courtroom, and handing over easily to Buhari, Nigeria was praised as maturing in democracy.
Curiously, after a few years of providing themselves as democrats who would carry an exemplary model of politics into Nigeria, Buhari as president and Tinubu as president-elect have pushed down the standard of democracy in Nigeria, making Nigeria the butt of jokes. And so they have been brazen about not permitting the electoral course of to be clear. The identical individuals who complained concerning the PDP and its makes an attempt to not enable the needs of the folks or the courtroom to face have grow to be worse than these they criticised.
Along with the violence perpetrated underneath the watch of Buhari, he has not solely disobeyed completely different judgements of the Supreme Courtroom, he has even executed what no civilian president has ever executed by eradicating a sitting Chief Justice of the Federation, the top of the legislature: one of many three arms of presidency that ought to be impartial of each other. Moreover, INEC, which was praised in 2015 as setting the tempo within the conduct of elections as an impartial physique, has grow to be like an appendage of the federal government.
Nonetheless, no matter occurred previously has been dimmed by what occurred on the 2023 elections. Within the February 25 presidential election, INEC was accused of breaking its rule to transmit outcomes electronically from all polling items to its server. INEC ended up asserting outcomes from end result sheets that have been clearly mutilated regardless of the complaints of opposition events, and hurriedly declared the candidate of the ruling APC the winner of the election. The election was additionally marred by violence: thugs attacked voters somewhere else, destroyed votes and chased away voters and electoral officers.
On the governorship election held over the weekend, what occurred on the presidential election grew to become baby’s play. Earlier than the election, an unprecedented ethnic marketing campaign held sway, particularly in Lagos. Even the spokesman for the Tinubu Marketing campaign Organisation made a threatening tweet wherein he mentioned amongst different issues: “Let 2023 be the final time of Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2027.” By interference, Onanuga was referring to the truth that many non-indigenes in Lagos didn’t vote for Tinubu in Lagos in the course of the presidential election, resulting in his get together not profitable Lagos for the primary time since 1999. To him and those that suppose like him, for a resident of Lagos to not vote for Tinubu or Tinubu’s candidate in Lagos is against the law.
It was not shocking that on the governorship election day, weapons, machetes, bottles and golf equipment have been used on voters. Apparently, the attackers have been supporters of the APC in Lagos. Thugs screened folks and allowed them to vote based mostly on their ethnic group. If there have been repeated agency phrases from the APC management in opposition to such violence, such violence wouldn’t have occurred.
Regardless of the inciting feedback made by folks like Onanuga, there was no report that Tinubu reprimanded them or sacked them or that they have been arrested by the police and even warned. This has emboldened extra folks to say or do no matter they like as a result of they know there is no such thing as a consequence for that.
Violence appears to have been normalised by the APC as a part of our democracy. Sadly, it’s coming from individuals who have been victims of political highhandedness. With the official endorsement given to thuggery, ethnic baiting and suppression of the opposition, Nigeria goes right into a harmful part of its existence. However there’s nonetheless sufficient time to step again from this harmful path.
- Twitter: @BrandAzuka
