Anambra poll: My final word! Our Reporter November 27, 2013 1 Comment » BY EBERE WABARA It seems all the losers in the Anambra governorship poll have been so stupefied to the point of ferocious confusion. If they are not calling for outright cancellation of the election, they are threatening to boycott the supplementary electoral exercise slated to hold on Saturday, November 30. On what basis are they saying that the election cannot stand? If polling does not take place in three LGs or there is suspicion of electoral fraud in a few areas, then the entire poll should be cancelled? So, anytime the opposition loses the results must be voided? I am bemused by this kind of whimsicality because you can only talk of quashing the outcome of an election when there is evidentially substantial electoral scam. If any party or persons decide to disenfranchise themselves in Saturday’s supplementary election, let them go ahead. It would not be the first time and cannot change anything. In the past republics in this country, we have had parties and individuals boycotting elections over one flimsy reason or another. Nigeria cannot set a bad precedent of cancelling elections anytime lachrymose oppositional forces self-destructively take over-the-counter APC drug instead of recommended Panadol! There is nothing unconstitutional to boycott elections, especially when it is obvious that the game is up. It could be painful when the opposition’s rigging strategy is aborted—and swiftly the security forces, the INEC and the leading party become the butt. Karmic laws cannot change. I equally feel scandalized when critics derisively say that the APGA is a clannish (Igbo) party. Apart from the PDP, to a large extent, which other party is national in holistic terms? The truth of the matter is that ethnicity and religion are the main defining elements in interpersonal relationships in this country and most other nations with multi-ethnic evolutionary history. Of course, there are other tangential factors like gender, “old boy” network and even shared occupational experiences. If it were not so we would not have federal character and quota integrated in all spheres of our national life from admission to employment, appointments, elections, et al. When it is capriciously suitable, some people gloss over this irredeemable reality. Today in Lagos State, for instance, if you are not a Muslim the chances of your rising in the civil service are circumscribed. The same thing obtains all over the country. That the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega admitted lapses in the poll and one INEC official arrested for complicity cannot equate to incontrovertible and substantial evidence to warrant outright election cancellation. Excluding the June 12 poll, possibly, which other election—including the acclaimed 2012 Ondo polls—had been totally hitch-free? We should all keep striving after credibility, fairness, freedom and civic responsibility in electoral conduct, not just crying wolf and pointing leprous fingers after losing bitterly. Since I began my series on the Anambra governorship election, I have received all manner of feedback—most sensible and a few just gibberish, unprintable! This entry serves as my final word on the exercise. Irrespective of the multifarious views held by one and all, the fact remains that everyone (observers, civil society groups, monitors, associations, advocacy agencies, individuals, journalists) has biases, fixations, interests, collective as well as personal preferences and emotive entanglements. Those who, in contradistinction, mouth objectivity and perfection can only deceive themselves and gullible members of the society. What you consider objective could have a subjective tinge for another person! The inevitability of this reality cannot be dismissed. And neutrality or sitting on the fence is like a mirage! We must have personal or group convictions we profess. When some columnists, especially editors emeritus like me, take a position on any national issue, they have highly confidential information unknown to the public and readers who beg the question in their hasty, frenzied and inarticulate responses to issues raised in columns. These days, even newspaper comments/editorials/opinions unprofessionally slant their standpoints because of suffocative proprietorial meddlesomeness, self-censorship and sheer survivalist pressures—how much less columns and reportage! There is even ethnic consideration in Nigerian journalism with the South-West press as the main culprit: did you notice the salacious treatment of the bulletproof car allegation against delectable Stella Oduah, the Aviation Minister, because she had earlier stepped on some powerful Oduduwa sons’ toes? And now is payback time! I can assure you, if she had come from this part of the country, the noise, if any, would have been minimal if not pigeon-holed. The Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is now the latest victim over the purported missing $5b excess crude revenue. At the risk of tergiversation, vacillation signposts feebleness of character and, by extrapolation, reputational debility. In their blissful ignorance of these undercurrents and deterministic factors in opinions canvassed in these columns, some of us are embarrassed by mechanistic stupidities in the name of arm-chair journalism, media commentary, analysis or feedback! At the risk of repetition, no amount of classificatory denigration of the .APGA as a “clannish/regional/sectional party” can change my attachment to it or its symbolism for Ndigbo. How did the so-called mega-parties evolve? Who does not know about the metamorphosis of the PDP? Let’s not waste time on this invidious family. What of the APC that claims to be a trans-ethnic party? The APC emerged from the deliberate and systematic ruination of Afenifere, Alliance for Democracy (AD), Action Congress (AC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and now a coterie of strange bedfellows under the duplicitous aegis of the APC—purporting to be a national party because it fleetingly has a few non-Yoruba renegades from the PDP who will still return to the ruling party at the opportune time. The APGA cannot toe this cliquish route of mass deception: it will progressively and organically grow, over time, into a credible and genuine national party, not domesticated by any kingly moneybags! Again, there has been so much hoopla about Senator Chris Ngige of the APC exterminating “god-fatherism” during his controversial tenure as Anambra State governor while Governor Peter Obi is allegedly reinventing it in his successor, Willie Obiano. Who does not know that the APC National Leader and financier, convertible multi-billionaire Bola Tinubu, is Ngige’s sponsor, shepherd and life-support mechanism—not just a god-fatherly relationship! Hypercritics should not pull wool over people’s eyes because they have a selfish grouse about the positive transitional continuity unfolding in Awka. No apologies to our detractors and name-callers, particularly the Mgbati-Mgbati press fraternity! Can anyone tell me who have been more sentimental and spuriously illogical on issues pertaining to the Anambra poll than reporters, editors, columnists and commentators on THE NATION stable? Yet they lampoon anyone with a contrary perspective, all to please the aristocratic paymaster! I await Obiano’s governorship inauguration—the supplementary righteousness notwithstanding.
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:48:32 +0000
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