Prof. Yakubu, just get on with it

Mid-afternoon on the Friday preceding last week’s botched polls, I drove to my hometown Numan, taking care to reach before the Juma’at prayers which tended to pile up route traffic. On driving into town, it looked clear to me that the polls might just not hold. I did not see the usual preparation of the polling stations, the booths, and the black on white banners that clearly marked the polling stations. As I settled preparing for a long weekend, I found two online news outlets reporting authoritatively that the elections would be postponed.

When I saw that it was well after the prayers and INEC had not dispelled the rumours, I shared the two news reports on my social media page and began to get reactions from my 30,000 odd followers which included caution from some well-known friends of mine that it was not tardy to have shared the speculative reports however authoritative since there was no confirmation from INEC. Then I was tagged a denial of the report credited to INEC Chairman Professor Mahmud Yakubu, I immediately obliged and pulled down my earlier updates, sharing instead the assurance that the polls would hold as planned. I killed the evening storytelling my grandchildren to sleep and retired early. I “slept the sleep of the dead”, undisturbed “by the dreams of the living”.

Saturday morning, the supposed polling day, I put on the TV and found sleepy eyed Professor Yakubu postponing the polls on all the networks. I hastily pulled down all social media updates, replacing with the disturbing new development in wonderment that Professor Yakubu, just like Professor Attahiru Jega before him, had postponed the polls, only this time, “nicodemously” in the dead of dawn, while men slept and snored.

So much of what this disastrous eventuality meant has been written and looking at the ongoing reactions and blame game being played by the different political camps, I worry about how precarious our national stability is. I see the puerile quality of the response of our political leaders to a very grave situation. It is sad that all our contending political forces are trying to gain capital out of the disappointment which we all agree, INEC had no reason to inflict on the nation. Some of the scenarios being painted are as outlandish as they are unbelievable.

Yet were I close to APC National Chairman Adams Oshiomole, I would have advised against his unbelievable and unconvincing grandstanding feigning lack of foreknowledge of the disastrous postponement. Then his swearing that INEC had briefed the opposition party the PDP of the postponement beforehand proved so disturbing. I and several media channels, including international stakeholders were certain midafternoon Friday, that it was unlikely that the elections would hold as planned, and we are not PDP. Thus before APC Chairman Oshiomole serves the guillotine treatment to Professor Yakubu, the words of Theodore Roosevelt on failure come to my mind.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”.

Equally disturbing is the reaction of President Muhammadu Buhari, himself also claiming no prior briefing by INEC before the announcement, which is believable, because a TV News reporter had given an update on how sleepy Daura the President’s hometown was that morning, and the fact that when he visited the residence early that morning, there was sleepy calm. President Muhammadu Buhari would not sleep on such a disastrous last minute development for the planned elections. Even more worrisome was the prospect INEC could thus fail without the National security structure getting an inkling days or even weeks before the failure, for strategic planning and tactical response to the likely critical fall out? I was disturbed to find the government grappling with the development and updates just like everyone else, giving the impression that it had no earlier warning that this would happen, indeed as if INEC postponed the polls without duly referring to the President. The apparent lack of preparedness for disastrous consequences would account for the overreaching order for ballot box snatchers to be shot. Clearly, President Buhari is justifiably angry, but God forbid, our trigger happy security operators act in obedience. Professionalism and the laws of the land dictate differently.

Just a note for the President, that when Jega postponed the elections in 2014, the PDP somehow convinced President Goodluck Jonathan that money would win the elections. He ordered Dasuki and Diezani to do the needful. Some of those Goodluck’s men are now Buhari’s men in APC and I smell a rat in their accusation of rival Atiku Abubakar dolling out funds to compromise the election process. Money will not win the election. It did not for Goodluck Jonathan. I know that no one will crack President Buhari’s integrity to open the vaults of the treasury for similar slush election funds. History should not repeat itself.

Professor Mahmud Yakubu the INEC Chairman exudes confidence and had so far handled the steps leading to last Saturday appropriately but what could have gone wrong should not be left to speculation. Things go wrong if they will. The President is right. An enquiry is required when this whole election is over. For now, let INEC get on with the job and deliver to the nation, transparent and credible elections. Nigeria is better than this.