By Kenneth Okonkwo
12th March 2023.
Winston Churchill once said that: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.” He said this in the House of Commons, November 11, 1947, when he postulated that “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. His cynicism was perhaps justified after the British people voted him out from his position as Prime Minister within months of winning the Second World War.
Democracy has its own flaws, but it’s certainly better than dictatorship or monarchy. Countries that insisted on democracy after their independence, despite all its flaws, like the United States of America and India, are on their way to becoming super power nations, while the countries that allowed undemocratic interventions in their journey to nationhood because of some temporary setbacks are still wallowing in confusion and misery, most of them situate in Africa. The only difference between those countries and Nigeria is that the citizens of those countries are vigilant, but our citizens are docile. Whenever they have a setback, they continue fighting until they bring their errant leaders to justice. This happened in South Korea and the vigilance of South Koreans led the country to join the successful democratic countries on earth. In Nigeria, we chicken out too fast, making the evil and dishonest leaders think they can do whatever they like and get away with it. They will always think that whatever agitation the people will do will soon die down. They will unleash their evil money on the agitators and they will abandon their principles and purpose and allow the evil to perpetuate.
These leaders may have succeeded in the past, but certainly not with this generation. They woke up after the EndSARS protest to a new generation that has only one purpose in mind – a new Nigeria. This generation is enlightened, focused, determined, principled and relatively less corrupt than the generations of vipers, scorpions and serpents before them. They are united in their purpose and relatively blind to ethnicity and religion as basis for the recruitment of Nigerian leaders. They spread across all geo-political zones, all ethnic and religious nationalities. They are tired of the dishonest and incompetent leadership that is the only problem of Nigeria which is blessed with intelligent men, materials and money. They suddenly realised that their leaders have been dividing them along ethnic and religious lines so that those evil leaders will get away with all the atrocities they commit against the people. They have all their children studying in different universities abroad yet they have the children of the poor Nigerians staying at home for years in ASUU strikes. These innocent children comprise Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, but it doesn’t move these corrupt leaders into action. So also fuel scarcity, lack of electricity, water, money etc. Indeed, the people are wallowing in abject poverty and misery while their political leaders have become predators flourishing in the midst of their misery and poverty.
We have always believed that history can be mad at times, but history must be made all the time. The Nigerian people seem to have been fed up with the antics of these evil leaders and decided to make history in the election of 2023. The progressive elements of the Nigerian population, made up of predominantly the youths, who are in the forefront of the birth of a new Nigeria having been fed up with the old order started looking for a new direction. In 2019, they mouthed the idea of a third force, but unfortunately they couldn’t find a qualified symbol for the third force to lead them. The old order of PDP and APC which were part of their problems were the only choices available in 2019 and they decided to back down from throwing their weight behind any political party.
The EndSARS protest was a game changer. The protest was organic, social media-instigated and social media-managed to fruition. Their protest was based on fighting injustice of police brutality on the citizens. Nobody saw it coming and within a short while it became an international phenomenon. The government acceded to all their Five-point demand. It was a huge success. As usual, when some outside elements saw the success of it, they came in with their own unrelated agenda of burning down things which led to the suspension of the protest to prevent further breakdown of law and order. But they did not suspend their quest for a new Nigeria free from injustice and corruption from any angle.
In the preparation for the general election of 2023, they warned all the political parties not to field any of the corrupt politician of the old order who has contributed in ruining Nigeria. The political parties took their admonition to be the usual ranting of an inexperienced group of people who do not understand the workings of Nigeria politics. They didn’t realise that they were dealing with the wrong generation. This generation, after painstaking scrutiny of all the politicians who were aspiring to be president, narrowed down on Peter Obi to be the symbol of the struggle. They reached this decision based on Peter Obi’s track record of ability and performance in Anambra State, where he turned Anambra State from being the worst governed state to the best governed state after just eight years in office. Obi refused to be paid allowance from the coffers of Anambra State. He was the first in poverty alleviation, in fulfilling Millennium Development Goals, in education, building best network of roads, paying up Anambra State debts and leaving a whopping savings of N75 billion and $150 million in savings. They also saw in Peter Obi, a jinx breaker: He was the first governor to regain his mandate through court in Nigeria; first person to introduce staggered election in our electoral system in 2007; first governor to win without structure in 2003 with APGA in Anambra State. Their mind was made up, Obi is the answer for the call for a new Nigeria.
Obi was originally in the PDP aspiring to be president. This group of maverick Nigerians who are party blind stormed PDP secretariat to demand the party to give them Obi as their presidential candidate and consider their support given. PDP scorned them and lost the opportunity of winning this presidential election outrightly. They preferred to sell their presidential ticket to the highest bidder prompting Hayatu-Deen, one of the presidential aspirants under the PDP, to conclude that PDP primary was obscenely monetized. These maverick Nigerians encouraged Obi to move to a neutral party and be rest assured of their support unconditionally. They named their movement the “Obidients” and revealed that they do not give shi-shi (bribe) or receive shi-shi in the execution of their mandate of enthrroning the new Nigeria. The battle line was drawn between the new order and the old. Obi, advisedly, moved to Labour Party to fulfill the constitutional demand that no politician can run for election in Nigeria except under a political party. The die was cast. The mavericks went into action and etched themselves into the political map of Nigeria with their stellar performance during the February 25, presidential and national assembly elections.
Some of their achievements are already well known: First presidential candidate to challenge the big dominant parties without an elected representative in government (no structure); first person in Nigeria to win equal states (12 states) with the ruling parties during collation of results with a party (LP) without structure; first presidential candidate to use a party (LP) without elected representatives to win over 40 seats in National Assembly in his first attempt; first presidential candidate to make an Okada and Bus Driver unseat great legislators in Nigeria during parliamentary elections; first presidential candidate that denied PDP and APC 25 per cent of votes in FCT since 1999; first person to defeat a presidential candidate, Tinubu and another running mate, Okowa, in their home states, plus defeating the National Chairman of the ruling APC and the DG of APC Presidential Campaign Council in their home states.
The old order is undoubtedly rattled. They unleashed their serpentic vernom on the maverick Obidients who voted in their comfort zones. In Lagos, hell was let loose. Men and women were brutalised for coming out to vote for candidates of their choice. The Southeast people were attacked for voting candidates of their choice. Ballot papers destroyed in areas of opposition candidate’s strongholds. Ballot boxes snatched. Worst of all, after the voting, the presidential election results were not transmitted from the polling units. INEC wilfully and intentionally manipulated the BVAS to ensure that results were not transferred to the BVAS server and portal. The helpless INEC Ad hoc staff were told that there was no code for them to transfer the presidential election. Since it’s the code that was the problem not physical malfunctioning of the BVAS machines, it’s obvious that it was the criminal activity of INEC officials who refused to provide the code that was responsible for the non-transfer of the presidential result. Section 60(6) of the Electoral Act was clear that any INEC officer who fails to transfer the result from the polling unit on the day of the election is a criminal offender of the law who should be prosecuted and sent to jail.
Despite all these electoral shenanigans, even by the votes allocated to the Labour Party by the compromised INEC, Labour Party still won Lagos. It’s obvious that the Obidients are the largest united voting bloc in Nigeria. They are being wooed and begged by governors nationwide. The Obidients believe that their presidential election victory was stolen from them and they have vowed to recover it. The old order believes that the Obidients will soon lose steam and allow them escape with their stolen electoral loots. The battle line is drawn and only the future shall tell. But whatever outcome that ensues, a new Nigeria has come and the emerging political era will never be the same again in Nigeria.
