….2024 Edo Governorship Election Death Kneel
By Aniekan Udofia
After the outcome of the 2024 Edo State Governorship election, I told a follow political scientist that there will be mass defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2027 general elections. My submission was that hardly will many of the current crop of politicians see the brazen rape of the electoral process and broad day light robbery of the will of the people and consider that they stood any chance to win an election under this current administration at the centre. I held that if by the end of the judicial journey of the election petition, the Supreme Court of Nigeria upholds the 2024 Edo State Governorship election, the coffin of our democracy would have received the final death kneel
Today (June (12), the acclaimed heroes of democracy gathered in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly to extol their virtues as symbols of democracy while a state in Nigeria, Rivers State is grappling under military rule. The heroes of democracy could only find solace in an institution that gave a seal in the most undemocratic manner of voice vote to the undemocratic declaration of a state of emergency in the oil rich Rivers State and suspension of an elected governor and the parliament.
Today, the ballot has been reduced to a mere exercise of fulfilling all righteousness. Money politics define the system because of the level of poverty that has enveloped the masses. The failed democratic process has thrown up the worst of us as rulers and decision makers for our nation.
Today, our democracy has been reduced to carcass for the scavengers to feed fat and find every assembly any opportunity to spew their rhetorics of standing for democracy regardless of the obvious civilian autocracy.
Today, those who have assembled to sing, “The anthem of national disgrace” in the word Tunde Bakare, “On your mandate we shall stand” and declared support for the Tinubu administration do that for political survival and can hardly convince themselves that they believe in the capacity of the current administration to lead the Nigeria out of the current economic woes. The fear of the undemocratic hammer wielded by the president has whipped many politicians to line up in the APC. An APC ticket today is considered a guaranteed announcement of a winner in our “selection” during the funfare of the election.
How the man who stood side by side with MKO Abiola in the struggle for democratic rule and man who claim to be at forefront of the struggle by the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO can precide over the rape of our democracy would leave even our founding fathers in tears. The National Assembly the bastion of democracy has been reduced to the largest viewing center in Nigeria with cheerleaders drumming the beat of “On your mandate, we shall stand” while the president plays Nigeria offside.
Udofia writes from Afaha Abia in Nsit Ibom LGA, Akwa Ibom State.
