This nation will rise again (ll)

What it was, where it was coming from and how it will play out, I could not tell. I found that this was not an isolated case but a general phenomenon was raging. All over the country, except in a few isolated cases, like what happened in Port-Harcourt, the election was peaceful. And in spite […]

What it was, where it was coming from and how it will play out, I could not tell. I found that this was not an isolated case but a general phenomenon was raging. All over the country, except in a few isolated cases, like what happened in Port-Harcourt, the election was peaceful. And in spite of the technological challenges of failing card readers here and there (yet there was a general consensus that INEC’s card reader’s innovation to check-mate rigging should continue to be used ad perfected), the election was remarkable credibly and peaceful and welcome!
I am hardly ever superstitious or overly spiritual in the conventional sense of it. But my perception of what is happening in Nigeria, from immediately after the election, wheeled out echoes of a verse I read in the Bible recently. It was spoken by Apostle Paul to the Corinthians thus;‘…he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things have become new.’  From an election entered into with so much trepidation and from which a bang, an eruptive explosion of brimstone, was feared, there was a whimper; in the place of violence and blood-letting, there was peace and stupefying quietude. I could not help the quaint spirituality that seized my temperament. I could not admit the spiritual sensation that was running through my being-that something positive is happening to my country!
First was the way in which the challenges that arose from some of the ‘unexplainable’ inadequacies (to borrow a word from Jega’s explanation from the errors of rendering by INEC) such as late or non-arrival of materials, the failure of the card readers in a few polling centres, the frustrating lateness of the INEC officials in some polling stations and so on. Now, the equanimity and disarming calmness of the INEC boss in the face of problems as elections proceeded, including his handling of the disgraceful disruptive tantrums of Elder Orubebe before the world as announcements of results went on, gave a major signal that something new will transpire in these elections. INEC performed credibly, innovatively and transparently. Errors were simply largely ignored, tolerated or ignored by the electorate. This is because, in spite of all the shenanigans that surrounded insinuations of his removal, the provocations by parties before and during elections, Attahiru Jega gave a leadership that was unruffled, purposeful, determined and intent upon delivering an election that was unassailable. His leadership became infectious across the ranks of his workforce, including the youth that manned the polling stations. I am referring to the National Youth Service Corps contingent that officiated the elections as ad hoc staff. It says something about our key problems arising from dysfunctional or ineffective leadership. Jega has, through this national assignment, executed with such devotion, such panache and such integrity, that if the leadership is right, and the institution is strong, progress is possible.
Jega, as I have always said and known him, is unassailably credible, carrying his integrity built  over the years like a jewel and magical armoury–from the trenches of the ASUU struggle to his Administrative leadership as Vice-Chancellor unto the exemplary handling of the election management of INEC.  His candour in the midst of composed humility and stolid charisma carried the day. And the electorate believed him in the most turbulent of times. INEC set the tone for the emergence of massive acceptance of election outcome. He and the rest of us are not out of the woods yet, but it is safe to say that the worst is touchably over. He will get a hero’s welcome.
Then the most unexpected response of President Goodluck Jonathan, hours before the official announcement came out of the lips of the Umpire! It was a bolt out of the deepest blues! Nobody expected what he did, especially given the piled -up rumour making the round, as I have stated earlier-that whoever won the election, there would be uprising. The President has been branded a desperado who must win at all cost, failing which a disruption of the democratic process will be evoked-either through an unconstitutional interim contraption-the Shonekan fidihe re-enactment! or worst still, a coup would be compelled. Whatever, he was carved in a post-election image of a recalcitrant incumbent who will not hand over to his APC opponent. Remember that he had been likened to Gbagbo! Ditto, for the robustly competitive opponent! There was so much internal conviction that the opposition would win that a reversed occurrence was inconceivable and therefore unperceivable! Either from the South South or from the North East, the aftermath of the election left an anticipation or expectation of a national nightmare.
Never mind that Goodluck Jonathan had constantly refrained that he would hand over to whoever won, and that no position was worth spilling the blood of Nigerians. That was largely taken as an exercise in political deception or sheer facetiousness from a power-obsessed politician. Then the phone call to the opposite who was coasting home to victory, raising the national adrenalin of what will come. And Goodluck Jonathan put a phone call trough to General Buhari, not only congratulating him but repeating his earlier statements of his commitment to a truly united Nigeria and his promise of a credible election. This very action, this vey unexpected action from a man adjudged as power-possessed, evoked the exclamatory, transcendent quote, back to the days of Paul and the Corinthians. ‘…he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things have become new’
In other democratic climes, this act of concession of victory was expected, normally. We know that we are not in those normal climes and such an act is not given, given the build up to this wondrous elections. I am not at all surprised that the opposition used the word, heroism for Goodluck Jonathan, after this most patriotic action. This is an action from a President whose party has been in power for sixteen years, and which in moments of uninhibited political arrogance, claimed that it would be in power for at least a diamond age! This is an action from a President in an era of do-or/and-die politics of power mongering. If there is a calmness of national tension; if there is, as there is, a general atmosphere of calm relief after an anticipation of a whirlwind, it is to this statesman-like gesture of the first incumbent President to be voted out of power democratically, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, that we owe that.
The onus lies on the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari and his party, which has performed creditably well in the circumstances surrounding the election, to reciprocate this action of the President through a governance of grace, of national reconciliation and of national reconstruction, which the country direly and sorely needs, and which his party has promised, from the roof-tops! The nation has been bruised and brutalized. The people have shown, in no uncertain terms, that they need to move on, to higher pedestals, among the comity of progressing nations. Like Jonathan in 2011, general Buhari has been tumultuously thronged unto power, on the promise of change. So much is expected from him and his APC Party.  Let this nation rise again!!
Concluded