In the civilised world, election is a ritual of democracy, the purpose of which is to allow people the freedom of choice, the freedom to think for themselves and the freedom to elect their leaders without fear of harassment and intimidation. This presupposes that for an election to be free, fair and credible there should be free speech and freedom of thoughts. Free and fair election is not the exclusive preserve of the umpire. The people, the political parties and their supporters also have responsibility to respect the rights of others to think for themselves and hold their political opinions. These features I dare say were scarce in the run for 2023 presidential election.

Election as a ritual of democracy commences from expression of interest, primary elections, nomination process, campaign, voting , declaration of results and judicial interventions. In Nigeria, over 50 per cent of election outcomes are litigated . Rather than the people, the court decides.

It was Late Chief Arthur Nzeribe who said that in politics, winning is everything. He argued that all politicians deploy underhand tactics to win, but that who wins is the one that is better organized and with better strategy to outmanoeuvre others.

No politician is a saint. And according to Bishop Kukah of Sokoto Diocese, those looking for saints in politics are better advised to direct their search in the cathedral where the bones of saints are interred.

When the then little-known Senator Osita Izunaso defeated Chief Nzeribe to become the Senator representing Orlu Senatorial Zone, the maverick politician refused all entreaties to go to court. He told all that cared that he did everything in the playbook to win the election but that Izunaso outmanoeuvred him. Rather than begrudge Izunaso, Nzeribe respected him. Izunaso is currently an APC Senator elect.

Chief Nzeribe, in his brutal frankness admitted that politics is a dirty game, but warned that only politicians can make politics clean and decent by accepting the outcome of elections. Nzeribe insisted that the courts should not decide elections, hence he never challenged any of his electoral losses in courts. I will urge our politicians to ponder on Nzeribe’s thesis, knowing that in politics you win some and lose some.

Since after the 2023 presidential election which has been decided and a winner declared by the umpire, many have used unprintable names to call out INEC whom they accused of being complicit in ‘subverting’ the electoral process. No one is happy about rigged election where almost all the major candidates are claiming victory. If truly the election was badly flawed, who then is the credible winner?

I must admit that the declared winner wasn’t my choice candidate. I didn’t vote for him and certainly had mixed feelings about his winning. I was Obidient before the emergence of the new ‘Obedient Movement’. I was nevertheless turned off by the fascist tendency of the group. I had misgivings with their virulent attack on dissenting opinions. I was frightened by the disastrous consequences of such group gaining political power. That was how Hitler and many other leaders were made. I never hid my preference for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, but sadly he lost an election he could easily have won.

Atiku lost 2023 because PDP wasn’t thirsty for victory. The party was busy eating each other. You know a party that will lose an election when you see such party refusing to get help from those who are eager and genuinely willing to help them. Atiku support groups were nowhere in the election and you cannot win a major election in the modern time without an active support group.

If I were to advise Alhaji Atiku, I will suggest that he should hibernate like Nzeribe did and accept the outcome of the 2023 election. PDP with its four factions had little chances of winning the incumbent APC. In fact, a fractured PDP in the real sense rewarded the incompetent APC government with victory. The G5, Peter Obi, Prof Iyoricha Ayu and all the others in and outside the party created the pathway for Tinubu’s victory, hence PDP should honourably accept defeat and congratulate the winner.

I have also listened to the Labour Party candidate speak of his stolen mandate and I shudder in disbelief. I think it’s delusional for the gentleman to believe there was a stolen mandate. It’s not true that there was a mandate, much less a stolen one. That’s a propaganda taken too far. Such tendency is injurious to democracy.

There is no way LP would have won the 2023 presidential election without meeting the constitutional requirement of 25 per cent of 2/3 of 36 states and Abuja. The best that can come out of the case is the judicial interpretation of the mathematics of the real intentions of the framers of our constitution on whether Abuja is clothed in a way that makes it a super state.

In my view, Abuja is not a super state and cannot be accorded with a special statute that now makes it more important than other federating units of Nigeria. The fact that LP didn’t win could be gleaned from the number of seats the party secured in the National Assembly. The spread wasn’t there, even though it made significant impact. I nevertheless respectfully disagree that LP mandate was stolen as there was no mandate. This does not mean that INEC was not constrained and had some corrupt scoundrels as staff who must be held accountable.

As for the LP candidate, I am not in a position to advise him against his court action which is well within his right to pursue. The court, as I already observed, is part of the electoral process. What I am against are people threatening the judiciary, making audacious claims and incitements capable of causing insurrection. Some of the statements credited to some leading politicians if true should be condemned.

Ever before the Department of State Security issued her statement on how some politicians who lost election were mounting pressure for the establishment of interim government, those in the news corridor knew this for a fact. After the voting and INEC declaration, some who felt that the election will be decided on the streets rather than the courts sponsored and called out different street protests, hoping to ignite a meltdown.

A particular group with definite partisan leaning went as far as demonstrating in front of the military headquarters, invariably inviting military intervention. That’s treasonable.

I know most of those chaps on the streets hardly understood the cost of keeping the military out of politics. I am sure they don’t realise that MKO Abiola paid the supreme price for democracy.

As the emotional youths toy with treason, I doubt if they knew that politicians who packaged and promoted the ill-fated interim government and even those that invited the military became victims of the draconian regime and lived to regret their actions day after day and for too long.

Interim government is an aberration and has no place in our constitution. Calling for interim government is not just misguided but toying with treason. I disagree with Falana that people who call for subversion of the constitution are merely expressing their opinions. I also disagree with the notion that people who took their misguide protest to the gate of the military headquarters were not inviting military intervention. We should be careful and beware of what we ask for.

I know this is not the best of time for the judiciary. The judges may not have lived up to our expectations with regards to their judicial activism. However, we must understand that judges rarely give judgements based on political coloration hence I take strong exception to the Supreme Court being threatened by failed politicians.

If the DSS is serious about their allegations, nothing stops them from saving the country by allowing the heavy hand of the law to descend on those whose grand plan is to cause chaos. No one and not even the president should be above the law. (Saturday Sun)

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