This week , if the eerily loathsome Maurice Iwu, his INEC as well as the political masters he defers to in the PDP have their way, substantial parts of Yorubaland in the South-West will be virtually under armed military occupation. It seems that the desperation by Yar’Adua and the gang around him to continue to forcibly impose PDP hegemony on not just Ekiti where gubernatorial re-run polls have been ordered but also elsewhere in the region, is partly being fuelled by the president’s amazing desire to seek re-election in 2011. Yet, the PDP may be in for a rude shock on account of the fact that Ekiti citizens and the rest of the south-west zone have apparently come to terms with the ghosts of the recent past when, succumbing to atavistic proclivities, not to mention self-serving calculations disguised as political pragmatism, a great number of their leaders mainly within Afenifere and the AD did allow Obasanjo, the tyrant in power in Abuja at the time, to extend his reign of terror and truancy in the South-West states which had previously been under the control of the AD, the party of the late Bola Ige whose assassination in 2002 is seen in some quarters as part of the PDP scheme back then to ensure the ‘capture’ of the South-West and thus make the ex-tyrant’ look good’ in the company of his confederates. Is it a coincidence that the embattled current speaker of the National Assembly,Mr. Bankole, himself a ‘son of the soil’ from Ogun (South-West), is today engaging in a bellicose, reactionary and yet deeply reckless rhetoric intended to conscript the Nigerian army once again into the PDP’s war against the people of Ekiti and Nigeria in general?
In a grim reminder of its reputation as a sinister outfit in the service of the anti-people reprobates regrouped under the canopy of that vehicle of greed and pedestrian hustling called the PDP, the national electoral commission did reportedly request some weeks ago for armed soldiers to be deployed in Ekiti ahead of the court-ordered gubernatorial election which has been scheduled to take place there on April 25, 2009. What must be seen as a sad re-enactment of the illegal and criminal deployment of armed soldiers and members of other security agencies by the ruling PDP regime as part of its rigging plot in the ‘419’ elections of 2003 and the electoral travesty of 2007 has further eroded any semblance of credibility the lackluster Yar’Adua government can lay claim to.
The highly provocative use of armed soldiers and the police in particular to intimidate the electorate is to a large extent informed by the realization that the cumulative effect of years of misgovernance in Abuja and the state capitals where the PDP rigging machine threw up impostors with proven records of sleaze and incompetence has alienated beyond belief a long-suffering populace in desperate need of change. That the Nigerian people are in dire need of the kind of leadership that would transform their desolate society on the brink of perdition, thanks to the turpitudes of a sadistic bunch of leeches, has never been in doubt. Today, the stakes seem to be higher and the situation much more precarious. The time for fence-sitting is over. It is crystal clear that the political gangsters now holding sway in the PDP and, to a lesser extent, in other parties, will not relinquish their criminal hold on power without a determined and forceful response from the people whose sovereign will must at all times count in the choice of their representatives. Today, the Nigerian people have no choice other than frontally confronting the scourge that the PDP power-mongers and their associates have become. We should discard the silly and naïve notion that helping defeat those who have for the past decade been most responsible for turning Nigeria into a land of hopelessness is tantamount to helping the organized opposition whose representatives may suffer from the same moral deficit as their PDP counterparts. It is in our self-interest as a nation to lay a sound foundation for us and for our children.
The signs are all over the place that Umaru Yar’Adua and his éminence grise are not interested in free and fair elections. The cynical and dodgy way Mr. president is handling the critical issue of electoral reform coupled with his increasingly worrisome partisan antics do paint an unflattering picture of an abdicating usurper whose apparent break from a long hibernating presence at Aso Rock is informed by a pressing reality – the imperative to maintain the untenable status quo, ‘by all means’! What this implies is that Nigerians must be more vigilant than ever before. The unintelligent, marauding band of interlopers in the likes of the sepulchral Anenih, the thuggish Bode George, the corrupt ex-tyrant called Obasanjo and all those members of Sleaze Inc. can continue to scheme if that suits their wretched souls, but the citizenry must be prepared to tell these men of Cro-Magnon that it has had enough!
The good people of Nigeria can help themselves by deciding today to take these and other practical measures in order to salvage their society. The first practical step is for the people of Ekiti and elsewhere to henceforth vow to jealously protect their vote. The use of undemocratic means like the kind being contemplated in the South-West by Yar’Adua and his friends should never be tolerated. In this regard, the eminent economist, Professor Sam Aluko, has reportedly advised his fellow locals not to allow themselves to be intimidated into submission by those bent on thwarting the will of the people. In a lecture in honor of the memory of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Aluko has asked the electorate to respond in kind in the face of armed intimidation. Here is an excerpt from the report by Mr. Odunayo Ogunmola of The Nation ( Internet edition) regarding Professor Aluko’s injunction: ‘The public lecture which was entitled:"Awolowo’s development strategy" was organised by the Ekiti State chapter of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG).
Aluko said Election rigging is worse than armed robbery, adding that those who rig their way to power have committed the greatest sin against their compatriots.
He backed the philosophy of the Action Congress (AC) which has adopted "Rig and Roast" as its slogan for the governorship re-run. He urged the electorate to use guns to defend their votes when the riggers are using cutlasses.
His words: "Rigging an election is far worse than the case of armed robbery; so there should be no room for mercy for election riggers. They are not worthy of living because they have committed the greatest sin against their fellow men
"Election riggers are human beings like the electorate, so if they are using cutlasses to steal ballot boxes around, the electorate should use guns to defend their votes" ‘. The dire situation we are faced with does, no doubt, require a sober assessment of the entrenched modes of resistance against the unthinking and wayward political élite and their terrible ways.
Another practical step in our bid to hold transparent elections is for members of the state security agencies to refuse to act as de facto thugs at the beck and call of politicians. They should endeavor to be on the side of the people by resisting the assault on the constitution which their partisan implication in the electoral process presupposes. The anger and revulsion which they share with the rest of the traumatized citizens should be constructively engaged in revolt against the oppressors.
These and other practical measures will be ineffective without any unity and sense of purpose. “Ekiti Parapo” is a notion that requires renewed consideration in the fight against the current predatory forces holding the people down. Devoid of any jingoistic and limiting import, the concept of “Ekiti Parapo”, meaning solidarity in the face of adversity, will become a potent tool in our collective struggle to liberate the country from the destructive dominion of the PDP and its allies.
It is interesting to note that the South-West is increasingly assuming a crucial posture in our collective bid to have a truly people-based administrative set-up. The democratic effort there should be supported and sustained by all progressive forces across the nation for the fact that its success or failure is bound to have far-reaching consequences for the rest of the country. Yar’Adua, his godfather, the ex-dictator called Obasanjo and their associates have declared a vicious war of attrition on the Nigerian nation and the people must be prepared to take no prisoners.
Finally, let us all ponder this note of caution from ‘Yinka Odumakin of the Afenifere renewal Group (ARG). Writing on behalf of his outfit, Mr. Odumakin said, inter alia, in an open letter to Predident Yar’Adua, that the latter “should bear in mind how the thoughtless intervention of the Balewa government in the Western House of Assembly situation in 1962 precipitated a series of unpleasant events”.
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