Win another day!
It was a national shame! An election that was three years in the making was aborted at the last minute in spite of all assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that everything was set for a hitch-free exercise. What a way to de-market our country!
Let no one spin the yarn that the fiasco could not have been foreseen. One Nigerian who claimed to have foreseen problems ahead, politics aside, was Dan Nwanyanwu, Chairman of the Zenith Labour party. According to him, he had warned several weeks ago that INEC would not be able to meet up with the date. He said he had assessed some of the indices relating to timelines for normal expectations of political parties and came to the conclusion that INEC could not be said to be ready. Nwanyanwu even thought the one-week postponement was not adequate and that even more time was needed to get things right. He said the embarrassment would have been avoided if the nation had listened to him.
President Buhari sounded inconsolable, even as he appealed to Nigerians not to allow the postponement dampen their spirit: “INEC had all the time anyone could wish to have to plan for this election. They kept assuring and reassuring us, we all departed to our various polling units to vote. There is negligence of duty here, obvious irresponsibility. I urge Nigerians to please be more patient. I mean, we all need to be more determined than we are today to vote and participate in this election. We must not be discouraged, we must refuse to be frustrated by the failure of those who ought to have risen to their responsibility...”
Development expert Tom Odemwingie has rightly wondered if INEC did not engage in scenario simulation during the planning stages. How come nobody saw this coming? And couldn’t a more contrite messaging have been done in conveying the fiasco to citizens? (What’s the big deal in using the word ‘sorry’ or ‘apology’?)
We could have been spared all the conspiracy theories on social media alleging a hidden agenda and sowing seeds of social dislocation.
Well, the deed is already done. Progressively, less and less percentage of registered voters have been participating in elections. In 2003, 59% of registered voters participated in the elections; in 2007, the figure dropped to 49%; in 2011, 47%; and in 2015, 31%. It will be interesting to see the percentage of the forthcoming 2019 polls.
In future, I do hope that distribution of election materials will be handled by professional courier companies and project managers whose forte is logistics instead of the current system of ad-hoc logistic collaborators/contractors. Also, INEC has to be unbundled so that it can concentrate on its core function of organising elections while the number of parties should be drastically pruned down. Ideologically, there’s no reason why we should have more than six or seven parties at the national level.
Immediately I heard about the postponement around 2.30am last Saturday, for some reason my mind went to those ordinary folks who would have been casting their first ballot but who, because of the postponement, may not be able to take another trip to their villages to exercise their franchise. Without doubt, many people would be disenfranchised by the postponement.
I know several 40-year-olds who have never voted on account of several social/ systemic factors conspiring to make it impossible or them to show up. Their predicament is comparable to that of Fela’s poor man who struggled for years to buy an electric fan but whose ambition was repeatedly sabotaged by government and the system.
Each time the fellow’s savings neared the targeted 70 Naira purchase price for the fan, something happened and the price was jerked up. Eventually, inflation revved the price to 200 Naira - which sent the poor man into a frenzy of self-denial to increase his savings to meet up with the increases. So, according to Fela,
Him dey try to save and save again
Him save for one year and six months Inside cupboard
Under pillow
Under, under cooking-pot
Inside socks
Under carpet…
Just when the poor man thought he would become the proud owner of a brand new electric fan at last, government dashed his hope in the form of a new foreign exchange arrangement called the Second-Tier which made imported goods become more expensive; even the fan was now 700 Naira:
Fan don become seven hundred Naira Me and my friend start to look ourselves He remain small make my friend dey cry
Na laugh laugh to catch monkey Na now he come understand him life Enjoyment can never come him way Na now him life dey go reverse
In Africa, him fatherland …
The poor man in Fela’s song and the 40-year-old first time voter whose ambition to vote has been repeatedly frustrated over the years, have everything in common. Postponement is the electoral equivalent of inflation!
The real heroes of the current situation are the masses of hapless Nigerians whose lives have been dislocated by the cancellation. In an African setting where weekends are reserved for weddings, burials, dedications family parties, side-by-side with artisanal and traders’ opportunities to make money, the postponement has implications for people’s happiness in their private lives.
The people had hoped to produce winners of the presidential and national assembly elections last week. It was not to be. They should brace up to the challenge and show up next week. That is how to win another day.