A lot is happening on Nigeria’s political turf. The government appears to have received some numbing inoculations that have deadened its feelings. No matter how many people that die in the low-grade war going on, politicians do not give any hoot. They wade through the blood of their compatriots and constituents to go about their political activities. In fact, they have even couched their campaign slogans around the killings.
They dance on the graves of fellow countrymen and women. But when will the government declare national mourning for the victims of terrorism in the country, like the Orire mathematics teacher who continued to weep even when his head was severed from his body?
APC primaries and shadow of things to come
The All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries kicked off last Saturday with the House of Representatives. Last Monday was for the Senate. Reports across the country have not been salutary.
Apart from the massive imposition of candidates, the rights of many party members who aspired to contest the primaries were trampled upon.
Although Option A4 was adopted for transparency, in which case voters queued to be counted, it was worse than any method anybody can think of. The fraud was brazen.
In the full glare of the camera, some of the presiding officers in some states did some counting “abracadabra”. They invented strange mathematical formula.
In Abia State, an officer was caught, deliberately miscounting votes, skipping from 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 to 100, 200, 400, 500.
The same scenario played out in Ebonyi State where a female electoral officer confidently made a numerical blunder. She reportedly jumped from 85 to 201.
The primaries have left many members mentally bruised and emotionally drained. Many aspirants were unjustly screened out.
Former governors of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun and Gbenga Daniel stayed away from the exercise because other individuals received the anointing of the powers that be.
The party just handpicked and imposed its preferred choices. The Governor of Taraba State, who is one of the late entrants into the APC fold, reportedly warned those nursing gubernatorial ambition in his state on the party’s platform to go to another party. By this, he was going against the grains of democracy because it is the people, not governors, that should determine who governs them.
In some places, two people claimed victory for same position.
In Adamawa State, the electoral committee members were accused of alliance with the state governor. Results were announced without election. It was alleged that the result for the Senatorial primaries held on Monday had been trending since the previous day.
Disturbing and shameful stories also came from Cross River State where even those who contested could not have the opportunity to vote for themselves.
The major concern for many observers is that the party that embraced bold-faced anti-democratic method of election by imposing candidates could turn around to preach peace and the need for unity.
Many aspirants were disqualified simply because they are in support of certain persons and certain blocs in the party.
The apparatchiks in APC adopted the principle of “my enemy’s friend is my enemy” in its screening exercise. This was evident in Rivers State where all the loyalists and supporters of Governor Siminalayi Fubara were disqualified at the screening. In many other states, those not on the side of state governors were not favoured.
Even those who were allowed to contest the primaries against the wish of the powers that be were brutally rigged out.
One of the most concerning developments is that a number of people who had been in the Senate at one time or the other, but have been on retirement for many years, have been beckoned to return to the red chamber as lame ducks!
The party also handed tickets to persons, who in the estimation of many citizens, are unworthy to go near public office again as a result of their itching fingers. In our own very eyes, they are coasting to government houses and the National Assembly to spread their gospel of malfeasance.
While it is the hope and prayer of every Nigerian that Nigeria should get better from 2027, the indicators are not giving any cheer.
With the elements picking tickets to populate the public sector space in the next few years, the nation’s future looks bleak.
If cutlasses, guns, cudgels and other dangerous weapons could freely feature in an exercise that ordinarily should be a brotherly affair, your guess is as good as mine, what would transpire in 2027 when “enemies” meet themselves on the battle field at different polling units.
Read also: High-stakes battles, succession intrigues as APC holds gov’ship primaries today
One good lesson to be learned from the sweeping misfortune that befell a good number of serving senators and House of Representative members is that it is dangerous to throw stone into a market in session because you may not know who it will land on.
The affected senators, who are now weeping like a canary over their disqualification or disastrous defeat, were among those who were dancing acrobatics at the National Assembly, clinking glasses to toast to the anti-democratic insertions into the Electoral Act 2026, when the whole nation was perplexed at the height of their impunity.
It is fitting to say that the rabid dog they cultured is beginning to leave them in shreds.
But I am comforted with the saying that “it is only the deaf that can be overrun by an approaching train.” 2027 is loading.
When will national mourning be declared?
Nigeria should be in a mourning mood by now if we were still humans. The leaders should have declared a week of mourning in sackcloth and ashes. But no. They are chasing political offices and plotting how to hoodwink the masses with a general election they have long assembled their arsenals to manipulate.
How does a nation continue to function in a river of blood? How can a nation continue to play politics with the lives of her own citizens? Who has taken away our conscience?
Our people are abducted and slaughtered like chicken in the forests in the 21st century when there are relevant items of technology that pick out grains of sand wherever they are.
Why are we so backward, that despite trillions of naira being voted to shore up intelligence gathering and deployment, relevant agencies have remained helpless? Is there anything going on that citizens are not being told?
Why has Nigeria become a laughing stock in the comity of nations? Citizens are kidnapped in places that no one expect such could happen.
Read also: Oyo Govt. confirms 32 pupils, students, teachers kidnapped
The roads have become death traps, affecting trade and commerce. Hunger is dealing a deadly blow on a country that is over-blessed with arable lands, simply because of lack of political will on the part of the government to end the orgy of killings and senseless attacks on farmers.
The farmlands have become a killing field. For this reason, the farmers have fled and the lands have become uncultivated to our shame.
Movements of goods and services have been impaired. Relationships have been bruised as people have either limited their journeys or completely cut off from their loved ones in their villages because there is no road to go visit them.
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a worthy scheme birthed to foster national integration and oil the engine of brotherliness across the country, is seriously under threat. Parents now prefer their children not going for the compulsory one-year service to losing them to bandits and terrorists that are marauding all over the country. Those who can afford it, influence the positing of their children to cities where they live.
Many universities and other institutions of higher learning in many parts of the country have since lost their appeal as applications for admission into such institutions continue to thin out. People are afraid to let their children and wards travel to such places for education which used to be a past time in the good old days. This is why public educational institutions in city centres are being over-subscribed.
A nation that closes its eyes to this abnormality, the way Nigeria does, is deliberately walking into doom or perdition.
In the same week when unspecified number of students, pupils and their teachers were abducted from their schools, in a sleepy community in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, the ruling party went ahead with its political activities. Even when the news broke that one of the teachers had been killed in a most horrendous manner, it was not enough for Abuja to put a hold to political activities and proclaim a national mourning. Why have we become so vain and unfeeling?
Read also: Bandits behead abducted Oyo teacher as fear mounts over remaining victims
A mathematics teacher was beheaded, just like that. His only “crime” as lamented by Femi Ojudu “was going to work to educate the future of our country. That was a father trying to provide for his family; a man whose chalk and blackboard were his weapons against ignorance.” That’s just sad.
While the children, many of whom barely two, four, or five years old — and their terrified teachers are enduring the horror in forests and wilderness where they are being held captive for no fault of theirs, politicians- their rulers- are engaged in primaries for a general election that comes up next year! Who has bewitched us!
Yours sincerely currently nurse a feeling of personal loss over the unfortunate episode in Ogbomoso. Thirty-two (32) years ago, I did my national youth service in Ogbomoso North Local Government Area, where I served as Corpers’ Lisison Officer (CLO). Some of our colleagues who served in Orire used to come to spend their weekends in Ogbomoso, a more developed community. That was when I knew those areas.
To think that the life of a school teacher, who sacrificed everything to render his service in Orire as a mathematics teacher, a much-sought-after subject, could end so tragically is not an encouragement to any citizen that aspires to give his/her all to fatherland.
For crying out loud, how much was his last salary? This is a country where politicians standing trial for allegedly stealing billions of naira of public funds are winning primaries to go to the National Assembly to make laws for the country. Some of those who should be in jail at the moment or should have faced public execution if it were in some other countries, are picking tickets to become next governors. What a country!
Observers have also expressed disappointment that rather than collaborate as government to effect the release of the abducted people in Orire, politicians are rather engaging in cheap politicking and finger-pointing.
Politicians must draw a line between seeking office and saving life. We are talking about saving the lives of the abducted; this must not be reduced to a political fight between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), or any other party for that matter.
Serious matters must be given serious attention, please!
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