Greetings! I have just spent the last thirty minutes changing the passwords to all my internet based accounts. This was an enforced audit, and frankly, I did not know that I had so many accounts until now. The reason I was forced to do this, will be explained, but it has to do with the coming elections.
The coming elections are without doubt a pivotal point in our short history as a country. It is plausible that for the first time ever, an incumbent will be unseated by the ballot box. If that happens, it will no doubt be a watershed in Nigeria’s history. Sadly, the signs leading up to these elections are ominous. None more-so than last Saturday’s postponement of the elections, and action which has all the hallmarks of a desperate attempt to compromise the independence of INEC, and which, if we are listening, tell us of the need to urgently restructure our country.
On my part, I have remained a bit neutral, choosing to look at both major candidates strictly from the prism of their utterances, and their achievements. Naturally, the incumbent President, would come under more flak because he has been in office for the last 4 years and 9 months, and frankly, on a personal level, the simplest thing I’d use to gauge him, power, has gone from bad to worse in that period. I took the liberty of tabulating his promises, and failures, a few weeks ago.
Having said that, his main challenger, General Buhari, an erstwhile head of state does not inspire me. Some of his comments, such as that regarding the banning of the importation of rice, come across as not being properly thought through, and I have had no qualms in saying that. I also hold it as a negative for the retired General, that he broke a promise made four years ago not to run for office again. But I don’t stress on that because President Jonathan made a similar promise, and has reneged on his as well.
In an ideal situation, my vote will be for one of the other candidates, either Chekwas Okorie because he has shown that he is a solid fighter over the last decade, or Remi Sonaiya because I know her personally, and she has a lot of lofty ideas. You see, idealistically, it would be a great thing if one of these alternatives garners a large enough number of votes to show thinking Nigerians that there could be a third force, because in reality, both the PDP and the APC are rotten fingers of the same leprous hand. Prof. Sonaiya’s KOWA party has definitely over the last four years, shown that it does not exist solely to collect INEC’s generous annual grant, a charge that neither Hope Party, nor Citizens Popular Party can deny if you really come right down to it.
But, in this life, there comes a time when naked pragmatism, has to overtake idealistic zeal.
This campaign season has been probably the most poisonous time in Nigeria’s recent history, and I am frightened as to what will become of us, if members of the ruling party do not get their way. They have certainly shown a willingness to push the envelope in terms of bad behaviour, when it comes to achieving their objectives. Of course there are a lot of members of the main opposition who have uncomfortable questions to answer, but, and this is important, Nigerians need to understand that when those in power behave badly, we reserve the right, as the electorate to remove them via the ballot box. Enough of this resignation to the idea that once someone gets in, he will be in office for eight years no matter how badly he performs. Enough of this belief that “it is our turn”. As thinking people, we must ask ourselves, what has it profited us when our “brother” has been in office? There are poverty stricken Nigerians everywhere from Otuoke to Daura, Christian or Muslim, and we need to, at some point draw a line and start asking ourselves who of the people placed in front of us at that point is the best, or who, in this case, is the least bad…
Over the weekend, I received an email that finally made my mind up. Apparently, I signed up to a petition, of which I had never heard of, nor had I endorsed. Whoever signed it, had access to my email address, but crucially, missed one vital part of it – my name is not Cyril.
For the sake of clarity, it will be hypocritical of me to complain about unsolicited emails, which is why I have taken the numerous emails, from Tunde Goma, Vera Lawrence, etc, with just a smile. But, falsifying my digital signature, in order to make up some numbers, is pushing things a step too far, and considering what the petition was about, can only lead to certain questions.
If people acting on behalf of the current government can falsify email signatures just to make up numbers to push an agenda, then one must ask, all the sweet economic data that they have been pushing out over the last four years, which of it is falsified? I can certainly speak to some of this because the field I work in deals with data collection and analysis. But that is not the thrust of this email. The thrust of this email is this – if people can perpetuate fraud so brazenly, how far will they go to achieve their aims? To be honest, I’d rather not find out. And for this simple reason I’ll do the pragmatic thing and vote for Buhari. If we are allowed to vote on March 28 that is.
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