Election Tribunals should watch it
We should always bear in mind that the numerous ills besetting the nation have their root chiefly in political corruption which manifests itself principally in electoral malpractices. Therefore, if we must fight corruption generally we have to start from elections and every commentator should be prepared to call a spade a spade. To simply warn […]
We should always bear in mind that the numerous ills besetting the nation have their root chiefly in political corruption which manifests itself principally in electoral malpractices. Therefore, if we must fight corruption generally we have to start from elections and every commentator should be prepared to call a spade a spade. To simply warn election tribunals that the world is watching them may be quite apt but to my mind it doesn’t go far enough. A more courageous headline would have unequivocally admonished the various tribunals to steer clear of lucre by saying no to politicians’ bloody money. I used the word “bloody” because that is the right label for any pecuniary inducement that may take place in the course of portraying the grievous anomalies that characterized the April 26 elections in many states, especially Akwa Ibom, Benue, Kaduna, Katsina and any other state where members of the main opposition party who were apparently poised for victory were not only brazenly battered and bruised, but also needlessly forced to make the supreme sacrifice before, during, or after the elections. And those Nigerians must not die in vain.
Therefore, as a concerned Akwa Ibomite and Nigerian, I cannot stop wondering whether the judges who will seat on the election tribunals are no living witnesses to all the chicaneries and acts of intimidation and impunity that marked the build up to the polls. I say so because any tribunal composed of Nigerians and not visitors from the Moon or Mars should be fairly conversant with circumstances and facts of any petitions before it, and therefore need not be reminded of what to do in situations where justice is openly known to have been flagrantly subverted and submerged in the cesspit of electoral fraud that have only succeeded in tarnishing the nation’s first ever credible poll to be conducted by a democratic dispensation. Anyway history will be kind to President Goodluck Jonathan for his humility, concerns and sincerity of purpose. It is common knowledge that he did warn from the beginning that no one should rig any election for him; neither should anybody kill for him because his election, as he put it, “is not worth the life of a single Nigerian.” Interestingly enough, Jonathan voiced these sentiments in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, during one of his visits there. But did our politicians listen to him? Hardly! Hence, the enormous task before the judiciary today.
Dr. Aniefiok E. Bassey writes from Abuja ([email protected])