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Ekiti: Can Doa Akunyili Rebrand This?

April 30, 2009

The Ekiti election re-run has acted as an acid test for the Yar’Adua government on the controversial electoral reform. As succinctly observed by one public affairs commentator recently, the Ekiti rerun is a mirror of what to expect from Ya’Adua’s electoral reform. Unfortunately, the government has not only failed in projecting what it has been preaching but the election has exposed Yar’Adua and his government in their true colours. The true face of deceit and hypocrisy! 

 Akunyili’s re-branding project received a lot of condemnation, not because Nigerians do not believe in re-branding but because she was putting the cart before the horse. How can one bend a dry fish? Re-branding ought to have started from the originator herself by promising to always say the truth and nothing but the truth. Re-branding is not about telling the world what does not exist.



 In the context of this discussion, Yar’Adua ought to have been re-branded too. Sincerity of purpose should have guided him in administering the affairs of this country. If Yar’Adua wants to reform the electoral system, he should do just that. Doctoring a well commended report of an Uwais panel to suit his political ambition would harm the success of a re-branding project.  Telling the world that soldiers would not be deployed to Ekiti to help in the rigging of election but only for Nigerians to wake to sight men of the armed forces perambulating the land of the fountain of knowledge is also not a good case for re-branding.

 Maurice Iwu should have been re-branded too before attempting to re-brand Nigeria as a whole. The man Iwu is still his old self. He has not changed a bit. To him, manipulating election results requires some professorial prowess and he is always eager to prove it to his paymasters. All the noise about re-branding does not make any sense to Prof. Why compel an old woman in her seventies to announce fake election results in favour of Segun Oni? How does Prof want Aunty Dora to re-brand that?

 Many countries world over are organizing elections and we can see the civility they brought into the conduct of such electios. South Africa has just conducted her general elections and results were seen in days. The country’s electoral chief officer did not have to make broadcast upon broadcast to that effect. Our own Iwu showed his ugly face several times just because of an election in a few local government areas of a State. At the end of the day what do we get for it? Indefinite postponement, cancellation, cooked up figures, stories etc.

Organizing free and fair polls is not as difficult as Professor Iwu would want us believed. What is difficult is when the result is to be manipulated. Just like they say, you have to tell ten more lies to cover up the first. Iwu’s job becomes a Herculean task because of the extra job he has to do to perfect his rigging plans. That in turn makes Akunyili’s job an uphill task. She has to clean up the mess of others.

 Still on the issue at hand, the Nigeria Police needs to be thoroughly washed down. They should be tutored on their primary assignment which is that of providing security. Providing a conducive environment for ballot stuffing and ballot snatching is not part of their bit. The IG of Police should also be lectured that even though there is no integrity left in the Force, some Nigerians still have theirs intact. If the Ekiti REC has chosen the path of honour, which scarcely exists in this part of the world, she should be left to enjoy her peace. Intimidation, harassment and declaring her a wanted person would never change the facts on ground. The whole world knows that she no longer enjoys her job because she did not to be used by Yar’Adua’s PDP as a tool for the do-and-die affair. Period!

If Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo, the Ekiti REC, has chosen to play by their rules, she would certainly have bagged an award from the federal government in no time. But her conscience would torment her for the rest of her life. She has however chosen to play by the rules of her God and that is why the present uproar erupts.     

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The day Akunyili succeeds in re-branding this set of people, her re-branding job will be made as simple as ABC. I can bet my last naira on that.

 


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