In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt When we warned the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that stealing elections has consequences they never listened, and now they know. The price for stolen electoral mandate in the 21st century world is rising and you either choose to live as a pariah in the committee of nations or respect the will of the people.
Any tyrants, be it, Iran or Nigeria that will not allowed the will of the people to triumph in a free and fair election should prepare itself for world opprobrium. The days when dictators use the East, West divide to prolong the subjugation of their people, a la Mobutu Sese Seko, Haile Mengistu and Jonas Savimbi is over!
The current occupants of Aso rock in Nigeria don’t seem to get this message. President Umaru Musa Yar’adua encouraged by his co-traducers in PDP, conspired to steal the electoral victory, the Ekiti people won for themselves at the polls through “mago mago” electoral fraud and he expects the world to take him and his fraudulent government seriously? Nah! It is not going to happened.
We are no longer in the 1970s or ‘80s, if you want legitimacy and respect from the international community, then have respect for the will of the people, a will that should be freely expressed vide the ballot box.
I often laugh when I hear the “misfit-minister” of information, Dora Akunyili, talks about her new money making scheme, i.e. the re-branding of Nigeria image. Here is the truth; nothing can re-brand our image better than having a free and fair election. What part of free and fair election don’t they get? Electoral disputes is bound to happen, but an open and brazen stealing of an electoral victory in the presence of foreign observers will neither get us a seat at G8 summit nor G400, (if they ever expand the field)!
Just this week, the senate published the names of debtors of failed banks. The lists read like a compilation of who is who in PDP. They are not just debtors, by the way, they were directors of some of these failed banks and they used their top perch atop the banks to give out loans to themselves. In a sane and democratic country, everyone on that list would have been arrested and locked up in jail awaiting trial or put on electronic home monitoring before trial like Bernie Madoff.
In Nigeria, they are celebrated, in actual fact, one of them, who once had his daughter served as minister under former president Olusegun Obasanjo informed the press that he owed no dime. He made no explanation as to how the bank he founded and managed went under. Here is the problem these folks looked at themselves as being above the law, and they are. Why wouldn’t they? The senate that is probing them, are themselves mired in corruption saga every 3 months.
There is an internecine war going on in Niger Delta, no one in government in Abuja, have any clue on what to do to nip it in the bud. They have fumbled and wobbled through an obvious crisis that they knew going in. This is what happened when you win a kangaroo election. Which of you readers can recall any statement by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua before his election on how to address the Niger Delta? Zilch!
What was his campaign position on the Nigerian power problem? None, because the election that brought him to power was not really an election but a selection by the ex-president Obasanjo. He picked whoever he fancied and anoints him to be president. There were no serious campaigns. No debates, in fact as a matter of principle no PDP presidential candidate has ever attended nationally televised debates organized by government owned NTA.
It is beneath them to campaign for office. They have the power and they can do whatever they want. Who are we mortals to challenge their murderous stranglehold on power?
This is where we are in Nigeria; many countries in Africa are moving on to the 21st century. No thanks to Obasanjo, Yar’adua and the behemoth called PDP we are back in the Stone Age. Democracy in Nigeria is a big joke to the politicians, if it were not, they wouldn’t have laugh in our faces with that Ekiti election.
The only folks who still take democracy serious in Nigeria, are the suffering Nigerian masses, who still troop out on Election Day to exercise their vote, even though they know, PDP will still play “hanky panky” with their ballot
Now, the PDP government wants President Obama to add fillip to their stolen mandates by visiting them in Abuja. It is not going to happen. When the Washington post correspondent asked a Nigerian official about the Obama snub, his retort is what snubs? He then made reference to the recent visit by the president of Russia as comparable to Obama’s visit to Ghana. What a dot!
Maybe he thought the world is still stuck in the cold war era. That game is so ‘70s! Perhaps maybe they should made do with President Medvedev, their new found friend. More so, when you consider the fact that Yar’adua and Medvedev looks like marriage made in heaven. They are both childishly weak impostors. Imposed on their respective country by their predecessors, whose anti-democratic credentials is uncanny to say the least.
They both have the enviable record of stealing elections, sending their goons to invade and close down independent press offices. They are both surrounded by corrupt oligarchs with stolen wealth. That is a marriage made in hell!
Even though it looks like they won a victory when they stole the Ekiti gubernatorial election, the war is not over yet. Every stolen mandate is a further nail in the coffin of the impostors in Abuja. They will fall like Abacha before them. They will rue the day they stole the mandate of the people. The Nigerian people may be patient, but they are not docile.
They understand that their country is under subjugation by perverse, corrupt and mindless oligarchs whose directive principle is their belly; and whose obligatory service is first and foremost to their bank accounts. The hand of justice may be short now; it will soon grow to catch up with their perfidy! What else can we say, thank you Obama for ignoring Aso rock. You did not snub the Nigerian people. You snubbed their corrupt and apoplectic regime in Abuja!
Francis Adewale (aka furiously frank)
Spokane, WA
USA
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Andy Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia July 12, 2009
I must say thank you for observing and speaking out.Obama said it all.That no country grows through corruption.
Severe purnishment is the key to successful government. As long as the looters are proud walking on the streets of every part of the world,we need to take up the challanges ourselves by matching to Aso Rock to protest against non implementation of the law and purnishment of the old and present looters until our message is clear.
Tony Mustaph London, UK July 12, 2009
This is poor. We nigerians and africans as a whole must see things for what it is. Obama in Ghana has nothing to do with demcracy.
A country that detained people without trial, killed innocent civilians and drop bombs on people would not care about democracy. Obama in Ghana is because of oil and do not get carried away. It is the same USA that support Uganda, Ethopia, and Egypt. Democracy indeed. As for him talking about Ekiti electoral fruad, is the writer in Ekiti during the election and did witness anything?
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