Afrigather Although the bandit who takes individuals hostage for ransom and plies that commerce with gun stays condemned, he’s a lesser evil, when weighed on the identical scale of values, than the politician in Nigeria who, from experiential proof, has proved to be the true kidnapper within the nation.
The politician doesn’t use gun and so he doesn’t kill; he doesn’t demand for ransom because the bandit does. However the politician kills destinies; he ambushes the long run particularly of the younger individuals. He dashes hope and, in a brazen method, truncates processes and upturns guidelines and order to his benefit.
For 4 complete years, the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) was busy, or so it appeared, making ready for a common election to elect a brand new president, new governors and new nationwide and states meeting members.
INEC assured Nigerians it had accomplished glorious work, infusing fashionable know-how that might make the electoral course of not solely seamless, but additionally incorruptible by which it meant the politician can be stored at bay whereas the method took its course resulting in a free, truthful and credible election by no means seen within the historical past of Nigeria’s democratic journey and electoral processes.
However the Nigerian politician was additionally at work, evidently, working more durable and seeing farther than each the electors and the electoral umpire. He was relentless and brutal in his planning. He knew the consequence even earlier than the election was performed and, by his nature, he knew the dangers and find out how to derisk the dangers.
That explains how, the INEC know-how on which assurance was given lower than 24 hours to the elections correct by Mamoud Yakubu, the INEC chairman, collapsed virtually irredeemably only a few hours into the Presidential and Nationwide Meeting elections on February 25.
Pronto, the politician went to work and so, between the polling models and the collation centres, he was in a position to ambush the hope of many Nigerians who noticed within the poll paper which they dropped into the poll field not as a bit of perishable paper however as hope, their future and that of their kids.
Lots of them, particularly younger Nigerians, who’re lamenting right this moment are doing so as a result of their votes, representing their future, aren’t a part of the consequence they’ve heard right this moment. Theirs have been the votes that have been ambushed by the politician who manipulated, falsified or utterly destroyed them.
Many Nigerians have reacted to this rape on democracy that gave the politician undue benefit over the remainder of them estimated at 200 million. Some have paid the supreme sacrifice just like the 19-year previous boy in Plateau State who determined “to finish it now fairly than reside in a hell known as Nigeria” as a result of his candidate, Peter Obi of Labour Social gathering, didn’t win. He took his personal life!
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An unconfirmed report has it that earlier than the pissed off younger man died, he left a notice saying, “no hope for Nigeria for the subsequent 20 years after Obi misplaced the election; I fairly finish it right here than reside in a hell known as Nigeria.” To date, that is the foremost sufferer of the unwholesome actions of the Nigerian politician.
One other younger Nigerian felt so pissed off that he determined to curse the Nigerian politician who he described, in between sobs, as “enemy of democracy on this nation.” To show his interior ache and hopelessness he sees forward, the younger man took out his everlasting voter’s card (PVC) and lower it into shreds with a pair of scissors. In response to him, INEC who he sees as an confederate in dashing his hope and killing his future ought to go forward and appoint the state governors from the record already submitted to him by the politician.
“They murdered sleep; they killed democracy on this nation; it can by no means be effectively with all those that participated on this evil; that’s your voter’s card; I don’t want it once more,” he stated as he threw away the shreds of his PVC
A middle-age man was additionally filled with lamentation as he painted the hideous and invidious image and actions of the Nigerian politician who, in keeping with him, has reset destinies, dashed his hope and ambushed his future and people of different younger Nigerians between his polling unit and the collation centre.
In response to the younger man who merely launched himself as ‘an Obidient’ that means that he helps the candidacy of Peter Obi and was a member of the Obidient Motion, he had numerous that means and hope connected to the piece of paper he dropped contained in the poll field on February 25 which was why he endured starvation, thirst, rain, sunshine and log hours of ready to see that his vote counted.
“I voted for Peter Obi,” he stated, including, “however I didn’t be a part of that queue for Peter Obi; I didn’t smuggle anyone into the polling sales space for Peter Obi; I didn’t brandish a knife or threaten anyone for Peter Obi; I didn’t snatch, stuff or break a poll field for Peter Obi; I didn’t bribe anyone; I didn’t steal or kill anyone for Obi.
“What I did for my candidate was to face in line from 8 o’clock within the morning on Saturday until 8am on Sunday. When the solar obtained too sizzling and I considered going again residence, I remembered the gunshot on the prepare going from Abuja to Kaduna.
“When the heaven opened and poured out rains and I considered taking shelter, I remembered the scholars who have been caught at residence for eight months due to ASUU strike and I stood, enduring the starvation and my fear in regards to the kids I left at residence,” he stated.
Persevering with, he stated, ”I stood there as a result of what I wished to offer my candidate; what I ended up placing in that field was not an strange piece of paper however my hope, my nation the place kids wouldn’t be so disillusioned by the actions of their very own mother and father or their very own leaders that they are going to be keen to cross the Sahara Desert, taking all the chance, simply to flee. That hope was what I put within the poll field and that was what my presiding officer refused to add.”
He recalled standing on the queue with a younger boy, a primary time voter, who stood with all of them by way of the evening counting these votes. The boy, he stated, noticed his future within the votes and was pregnant with hope.
“However someplace, between our polling unit and the collation centre, that boy’s future was ambushed by the politician who used biro to cross out that boy’s future and has written a brand new phrase—hopeless.
It’s a horrible factor when a Nigerian is kidnapped on his method to Zamfara or Makurdi or Enugu. However it’s infinitely worse when Nigeria itself is kidnapped on its method to the collation centre,” he lamented.
For this younger Nigerian, it’s not Nigeria as a rustic that has its foot on residents’ neck; it’s not the Fulani or Igbo; the Christian or Muslim which have wrapped their fingers round their neck and squeezing life out of them. He added that it’s not Yoruba people who don’t give a rattling whether or not residents have homes to reside in or jobs to do; it’s not the north or south that has failed to repair their roads or present different basic items of life for them.
“It’s that politician who’s keen to steal to remain in workplace that’s the enemy. Identical to the serially abused, lots of you’ve got fallen in love along with your kidnapper; you admire the swagger of those that steal future; you admire the arrogance of those that use your future to gas their vehicles,” he fumed.
The Nigerian politician has accomplished the unimaginable in uncountable numbers and to think about the impunity and conceitedness that observe deadens our collective psyche as a individuals. After inflicting ache on the remainder of Nigerians, the politician goes about gloating with ‘victory’ tune.
That’s the reason it’s only in Nigeria that anyone thinks that “for democracy to flourish, solely those that can endure the ache of rigging, sorry defeat, ought to take part in an election.”
