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This year’s Nigeria’s general election will remain the most special election so far in her history. By the time you are reading this article, the first lap of this most anticipated election of our nation must have come and gone. Personally, I have a date with this particular election; reason being it is the first election I would not be participating actively due to my remoteness. But most importantly, we all as Nigerians have had a date with year’s election. Sometime in the middle 2000’s there was a popular anticipation or speculation that Nigeria would cease to exist as a nation by 2015. Severally, each time we came across this in the media, we consciously or unconsciously pray that either this year does not come or that this ‘prophesy’ does not come to fulfillment. But on a thorough observation of these humble prayers, one would notice that while the former does NOT depend on us as humans, we can determine the latter as Nigerians.
Yes as citizens, its our responsibility to make or mar the destiny of our nation, by extension the future of our born and unborn generations. We need no help from the outside to achieve this. Electioneering normally comes with its lots of controversies to manipulate the votes of the masses. That is why a lot part of the election campaigns were more of name-calling, mud sliding, devoid of the real answers the masses needs to the questions of insecurity, infrastructure and more. Not minding its evil potential to cause violence in the land, the tailored campaign types helps the electorates in no little to know the type of leaders they have. But according to the electoral act, election campaigns ends 24hours before the election(physical campaigns anywhere). This usually gives room for the system to at least recover a little from the stress and chaos of these campaigns.
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Back to my topic before I divulge much; the election has come. We went to the polls Saturday(yesterday) amid fear, violence and insecurity. As reported, Nigerians witnessed violence allegedly from the sunni terrorist sect which warned Nigerians not to take part in the election. Aside these election violence, the newly introduced card readers lived up to their controversially mixed reactions trailing its introduction. It was reported in some states that it fail to accredit voters caused INEC to revert to their manual system. By the way, the election went fine in many other states, in fact by now the results would have been collated in the states. During press briefing on Friday, Jega the INEC boss said that Nigerians should expect the final results 48hours after completion of ballot, so actually we should expect the final result on Monday morning or so.
One thing is for sure when these final results come out, there will be Losers and Winners. It’s never bad to lose an election but the worse is bad losers( that is losers that fail to concede defeat). Let also the winners be magnanimous in victory by appreciating the opponents and if possible extending an olive branch for them to partake in their victory. This is also the opportunity bad losers utilize to cause problem for the nation by fanning the umbers of violence and disorder. As responsible citizens, we need to shun such evil propositions as it will mar the utmost gains we have made towards this journey of our democracy. Let us remember that no person’s aspiration can supersede or deprive us of our essence of nationhood. It is even more responsibility to defend our democracy, hearing international news agencies call us ‘The black largest democracy’.
Nigeria is ours and we have no other fatherland. Let us defend her Unity, and Uphold her Honor and Glory. So Help us God!
By: Chibu Okoye
A political analyst, living in South Africa.
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