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DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL IN EKITI

September 28, 2008

VOTE FOR CHANGE That the preacher was under pressure to provide seditious entertainment to the congregation was not in doubt. That he was ready and armed with an eaqually potent sermon to meet the mood was to be expected. He had never failed to live up to any challenge in a prosperous carreer in evangelism. Everyone knows he would get his measure of entertainment far beyond the cost of tithes paid. Oh! what a monstrously great time they had . The ministrations were almost mutinous as Pastors spoke languages of coups. Only the Church exercises the immunity card at will.

VOTE FOR CHANGE That the preacher was under pressure to provide seditious entertainment to the congregation was not in doubt. That he was ready and armed with an eaqually potent sermon to meet the mood was to be expected. He had never failed to live up to any challenge in a prosperous carreer in evangelism. Everyone knows he would get his measure of entertainment far beyond the cost of tithes paid. Oh! what a monstrously great time they had . The ministrations were almost mutinous as Pastors spoke languages of coups. Only the Church exercises the immunity card at will. For the people, an opportunity one in four years knocks, and the Church wants to help in the process of decision making.. To make the votes of the powerless count. They got their sermons, they went out to cast their votes, as instructed. They voted for change. But tragedy struck as the votes did not count. PDP had tragically rigged Nigeria out of change. Elections are milestones in the life of a democracy. An opportunity to pass a verdict on the rascality of rulers. A rare privilege for citizens to assert their rights to arrest the sacrilege of the ungodly who superintendent affairs in Government House. A once in four year cycle for change. And the near naked poor filed out in line to throw out opulently fat vagabonds in political office. This finally, they hoped in their innocent minds, was judgement season . A time to give power to their silent protests . People were just too ready to vote and be counted. They prayed to be alive on election day. They hoped the electoral officers would be sober and count their votes right. But only if they knew how their hopes could not measure to the imminent fraud. Only if they knew, perhaps they would have stayed home and save themselves the bother. BALLOT RIGGING The crime was unprecedented in planning and daring in execution. The audacity of concept, the concentration of planning and the recklessness in execution are all historical in the anals of ballot rigging in Nigeria. At the end of this tragedy, the people had been killed, not physically by wasting their body but by vanquishing their hopes. Nuhu Ribadu was the first to make himself available for a hatchet job. He drew up a satanic list to eliminate innocent opponents on allegation of corrupt indictment. . Maurice Iwu showed his hands early too. Rigging started from compilation of voter registers. Voting machines were dispatched straight to homes of Political Godfathers who quickly thumbprinted on behalf of Mike Tyson, Muhammed Ali , Muhammed Uwais all in Yoruba land. INEC saw to that. Adedibu was at his elements as he got together most of the hungry area boys in Ibadan to come thumbprint for the price of Amala per thumb. Minimum thumb printing per Amala was 200 ballot papers, we learnt later. So, PDP planned without consideration of consequencies. Just like a serial criminal with pathological history of rape. Calm determination combined with greed and backed with power.Absolute power from the centre in Abuja. Before they proceeded recklessly to execute with carelessness and arrogance, they conscripted EFCC and INEC into the plot. They now dragged out soldiers, their traditional opponents from the barracks and with contempt on their lips, and leaves of paper money in hand, commanded a service in crime. Participants were uniform wearing paid defenders of the state. And their victims were innocent citizens eager to fulfill a mandate of four year frequency . Right from registration all through to ballot counting and announcing. Every colour of fraud, every shape of ignominious impunity was committed against Nigerian citizens. ELECTION TRIBUNALS Details of these criminal acts formed part of a thick folder of submissions on the tables of his Lordships at the election Tribunals in Ekiti State. These Tribunals had been looking at criminal conduct of the troublesome elections of May last year and the quadruplet judges of Ekiti Tribunal had sat from that time to August a year after. It had been a long trip from the confusion through the hopes to the disappointments of August. The wise men of the Bench admitted there was fraud all right. But they argued there was no nexus to connect the declared victor to the crime that brought him to power. They admitted violation of electoral laws, but they could not see how it would have substantially altered the equation. And the World including International observers of the shame gushed in wonder. To put matters in contest and clear all lingering suggestions of conspiracy within, the matter was now International in dimension. , Independent Elections observers had been shocked at the crude display of gross incompetence and corruption at INEC, the unprecedented illiteracy of electoral officials, the rather efficient conduct of brutal partisanship and fraud of the police, the unexpected participation of the Army in ballot snatching and relay race to dump fraud at collation centers. Everything that could be presented against good conduct was contested and discharged in bad faith for the perplexed World to see and to shout. And the observers did not just stop at looking. They took photographs and recorded in Digital video for their records and for the World to be shocked. A FOXY OPPOSITION But the opposition must be given credit for anticipating some of this crime. And they had gone ahead with unusual quiet preparation. Technology of the most modern in sophistication was deployed, The most brilliant and experienced lawyers the NBA could provide were hired The best software for computers to crunch data and filter out fraud in seconds were sourced. These were beautifully organized and arranged most logically and architectural maps of fraud were drawn, from voter registration, through verification and ward delineation all through to voting, collation of votes all through to result announcements were carefully condensed. It was quite obvious that in a class war, only like class can stand up to each other. And the opposition proved equal to the oppression of incumbency. They arranged their facts in the order of civil infractions to criminal violations. And they separated their thoughts into the General and the Particular. On the list of General were well documented evidence of fraudulent voter registration. They then went ahead with the unconscious cooperation of Chief Lamidi Ariyibi Adedibu, to get records of electoral machines dispatched by INEC to the Ibadan Chief to make registration easy for thugs and miscreants that have now registered at least two hundred times each, within his family and household. Part of the general preparations was also the video show of lamentations of of citizens at the insufficiency of the machines to honest citizens while the structure of distribution favoured criminal type of vote riggers earlier presented by favoured Godfathers. The willy opposition now registered in the consciousness of those likely to forget easily, the particulars of criminal conduct. Elimination without legal proof, citizens alleged to be corrupt but recognized as innocent by the laws of the Country. They got the likes of Nuhu Ribadu to draw up satanic lists of indictments without convictions and proceeded to INEC to enforce elimination of candidates adjudged unfavourable to the future administration of corruption. From that point on to election day and after, the particulars of crimes and civil infractions were now tabulated state by state. And a fraction of the population given to doubts were hugely reduced by the bold, calculated and uncaring processes of ballot rigging perpetrated in the mid day sun. JUDGEMENT These was the quality of homework done by a carefully coordinated group in the opposition. And this was the case the electoral Tribunal in Ekiti was begged to consider in the name of justice, the strenghthening of democracy and the preservation of the powers of the Judiciary as the final, most potent and most lethal weapon in the hands of the dispossessed against the powers that dispossess others. But the Tribunal refused these prayers and Nigeria, once again rolls on to the next corner.

 

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