Between Prof Jega, PDP and Nigeria

Many reasons could be attributed to this jittery, but of importance, here are two. One, this is the first time the electoral umpire is deploying all skills available to it to sanctify the electoral process by ensuring that only votes cast would count and this is seen through the proposal to use the card readers […]

Many reasons could be attributed to this jittery, but of importance, here are two. One, this is the first time the electoral umpire is deploying all skills available to it to sanctify the electoral process by ensuring that only votes cast would count and this is seen through the proposal to use the card readers which ultimately would eliminate multiple voting and deny the possibilities of having votes that cannot be accounted for at the end of the elections.
Second, this is the first time in the last 16 years and the four previous elections held that the umpire is telling Nigerians that after voting, they should wait, have the results at the polling units released and counted and figures recorded by everybody and that not just the party agents but even interested voters are at liberty to wait after the voting is concluded to ensure that the ballot papers unused are mutilated by the presiding officer and others on election duty.
We are told further that we are free to use our mobile devises efficiently to ensure that the results in our polling units are not tempered with by anybody. I want to think that the objective for this is to deal with previous cases of mysterious changes in results while transiting between the polling units and collation centers and to increase therefore the credibility of the process.
These among several other sincere steps that INEC under Attahiru Jega has taken are responsible for the cry to hang the Professor. When in 2011, out of what people like Prof Sagay referred to as naivety, Jega presided over the election that brought this government to power; he was a PDP national hero and all those who saw nothing wrong with the irregularities in that elections simply because it served their purpose well. The government and its leader sang in loud tunes for the whole world to hear about the sanctity of that election. They even said it was the freest and fairest after the June 12, 1993 elections.
How come the same party in cohort with its agents are today casting doubt on the capacity of the same team to deliver good polls?  Something fundamental is wrong here. When I hear people like Edwin Clark insisting that card readers must not be used, I get confused about the level of decay in Nigeria today. I don’t mind Femi Fani-Kayode who is a certified incongruent.
I mind when I read on the twitter postings of Ahmadu Muazu, the PDP chair that the fuel scarcity experienced across the country during the week was product of the opposition APC. My students in a post graduate seminar on Wednesday laughed over the pronouncement but came up with a startling conclusion that Nigeria definitely is not in safe hands. I am sure they will soon say that the slide in the value of Naira unequalled in the history of this country is also a creation of the APC because the PDP is always right.
The message one gets from these and other degrading postulations is that indeed Nigeria is a failed state. When Professor Isaac Olawole Albert tutored me and a few colleagues some weeks ago on the contours of a failed state, even those who see everything good about this government were convinced that of the 12 indicators, Nigeria has in fact crossed the red line in 11. The 12th item is external intervention which if looked at from some points of view is not totally out place yet.
The agitation against the INEC and the attempt by the government and its forces to infiltrate the commission to either cause compromise on the elections or possibly set aside Jega is another indicator of the gargantuan frustration and desperation of the ruling party and those in government to hold on to power by all means. The dream of every country even on the continent of Africa is to see that elections are conducted freely and fairly. This is a hallmark of democratic attainment and thus a necessity if a country and its leadership require recognition from abroad and legitimacy from inside.
Sixteen years of civil rule has come with it tremendous progress and it is necessary that those insisting on business as usual to continue should learn to live with contemporary realities. There is no way elections in this country can be conducted in the manner it was a few years ago. My thinking was that the government would be proud that it has in place an umpire that can conduct fair polls and that can guarantee internal and external acceptability of the election results when they are eventually concluded. Why would the president be talking from one end and those who work and talk for him talk from another end?
My advice to the PDP and its government is that the INEC must be allowed to function freely. The government mustn’t inch towards a collapse that would make people act publicly and possibly violently against it. An election under this system is a referendum on a siting government and representatives and any attempt to thwart it has the potency of truncating the system.
I am of the view that Nigeria has moved miles away and certainly the will of the people will triumph. The option left to the elite class is to begin the process of subordinating  themselves to the will of the people. This is a sign that democracy is in the making in  Nigeria.
The fact is that our elections must be sanctified. This is why INEC and similar electoral bodies across the globe are made independent of governmental control. The time when government would emasculate the body seems far away and all that is required are people of principles and conviction to see the process to the end and that is in my view precisely what   Jega stands for and the government that sees visible electoral defeat in sight is trying to strangulate the commission and its leaders.
This we all must not accept by coming out and boldly to tell the architects of electoral fraud that enough is enough. While the INEC tries to give Nigeria a fair deal, the ball is in the court of the citizens to encourage,     stand with and by them in the process.
God bless Nigeria.