By Erasmus Ikhide
At the twilight of 2018, prior to Nigeria’s 2019 general election, I had — in a previous address — inundated a jubilant but revolutionary retinue of Civil Rights movement in Mozambique, that obsolete, compromised and banal electoral institutions like the Mozambique National Electoral Commission (NEC) and the Nigerian Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have been programmed to kill people and all fabrics of democracy in most African countries. True to type, the 2019 elections in Nigeria have truly become a disaster and Nigeria has become a disgrace to democracy.
The INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, can now sleep with an estrogen drip in the arm for further debasing the cancerous institution and using the blood of Nigerians to write the results of the most rigged presidential, gubernatorial and parliamentary elections in Nigeria’s history.
Nigerians or any other Third World country’s citizens who have been deliberately incapacitated or criminally miseducated to believe that a retarded and redundant electoral body such as INEC, headed by a lame duck chair who can’t think for himself — yet appointed by the ruling party’s President, must know that the people’s will can’t escape being subverted by the oligarchs and the political actors.
Nigeria and its democracy would have been pretty lucky if it had a dynamic legislature ready to override the veto of a sick President who isn’t aware he is the nation’s President but was given a second term of four years by the misinformed electorate with the help of a trade-off electoral institution.
How did we get here? Come to think of it, shall we by any change expect the APC and Buhari-led government to roll back the flow of blood and heads in 2023 general election with the present entrenched tradition of electoral heist. Did the PDP make any effort in 16 years to revamp INEC to a world acceptable standard so the poeple’s votes can count and not subverted. Shall we safely say PDP’s fictional proposition to rule the nation for 60 years is predicated on inordinate manipulation of the people’s votes. Which meaningful African country still depends on electoral body, thugs, police and the military to rig its leadership to office outside of the masses’ votes? How do we expect votes manipulators to take the nation out of the woods?
Would it be rocket science for INEC to make polling unit small machine like the ATM machine that can accept PVCs that are not dependent on the polling units so that Nigerians can vote from any machine nearest to them without human influence.
This idea is simple, slot in your PVC; accredit yourself by scanning your thumb. The polling unit machine (PUM) will validate the PVC for single vote and then detect the PVC Polling Unit. It will display the Election for that day or possibly all elections on the same day.
Then it will display the logo of all registered plitical parties, further tap the logo of the party you intend to vote for, you will be notified immediately (that you have voted. INEC also will receive a notification as well.
The selected political party’s vote will increase by one vote; simultaneously there will be a general display of the total result as voters continue to vote. The moment INEC concludes voting, the machine displays the total results. There is no need for a useful idiot who calls himself an INEC chair, Collation Officers, Returning Officers, Armed Personnel, sensitive and non-sensitive election materials, or ballot boxes and papers, burning of ballot boxes and papers and loss of lives.
The beauty of this method is that every PVC is registered to a polling unit so if a polling unit machine is hijacked or burnt, other polling unit machines can be used and PUM will just detect the PVC and assign the vote to the damaged machine. The profiteers profiting from the unnecessary chaos called elecrions know that between age 18 and 90 who are the actual voters do not need anybody’s guidance before withdrawing money from the regular ATM machines across the country. They know that their fate would be hanging in the balance if the rights are done.
There’s no gain saying that the PDP hopes to rule the nation forever by manipulating the people’s voices just the same way the APC muffled the voice of the masses and wrote election results, standing on the graves of the masses. I have said time and again that, the solutions to the nation’s electoral malfeasance will never come from the criminal political elites but from external pressure, labour unions, Civil Society movements and the media.
As we wallow in the dark in the land of generals without war; professors without discovery, politicians without ideology, wealth without prosperity, religion without piety, leaders without vision, the oppressed without worries, courts without justice, criminals without fears, history without glory, heroes without honor, schools without learning, artists without taste, intellectuals without thought, terrorists without identity,
politcal appointees without pedigree, hunger without famine, change without progress, next level without foundation, democracy without citizens, unity without love, leaders without sacrifice, policies without plans, crime without culprits, saints without humility, integrity without principles, wars without enemies, billionaires without business, youth without dreams, elders without wisdom, straddling between the devil and the deep blue sea remains our fate.
