Nigeria on the verge of an abyss: isn’t it time we go our separate ways? ~ By Bayo Oluwasanmi
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Violence, ballot box snatching, voter intimidation, voter suppression, vote buying, manipulation of numbers, and failure of the INEC to upload results once again confirmed that Nigeria is a failed state.
The papers are plastered with stories stemming from the inconclusive presidential election held Saturday, February 25, 2023.
Violence, ballot box snatching, voter intimidation, voter suppression, vote buying, manipulation of numbers, and failure of the INEC to upload results once again confirmed that Nigeria is a failed state. Nigeria is a failure by every global metric.
Nigeria as a failed state breeds poverty, corruption, disease, refugees, terrorism, and potential civil war. The Nigerian government has lost control. The government can’t provide services to its population, can’t defend its borders, doesn’t have monopoly on the legitimate use of force. What binds Nigeria together as a country (if any) is hanging by a thread?
In the conduct of the presidential election, the incompetence and outright fraudulent acts of INEC have been exposed and magnified beyond our belief. Criminal irregularities reserved for a banana republic marred the election. As I write, the results of the four-day old election have not been released. No one is sure when it will be released. Obviously, INEC is perfecting the final phase of rigging for its anointed candidate.
Like I have argued severally in my columns, elections are not the solution to Nigeria’s endemic problems. We have been wrestling with the same issues for 62 years. And it’s getting worse every time. The root cause of our problem is: we are a separate, hostile, unequal and a divided country. Nigeria is not one country. It is impossible for election to force or fuse Nigeria into one united country. Dissolution is the solution.
With the maladies and human suffering going on in the country, anyone who still believes in one Nigeria needs to have his or her head examined by a psychiatrist. What separates us is more than what unites us. Nigeria is on the verge of an abyss, a country of hell characterized by a bottomless pit.
Isn’t time we go our separate ways?
Mumusvillians, What More Do You Want from Independent Nuisance Electoral Criminals (INEC)?
I’m sick and tired of these Mumusvillians. No one can satisfy them. They have the best form of democracy in the world. They have changed to a new economy – trade by barter. Their 120-year-old ex-President presided over their country as a benevolent grandpa. He gave them his all. He gave them everything he promised them. He left the country better than he met it.
One of his revolutionary acts was making sure the Independent Nuisance Electoral Criminals (INEC) were professionals to the core. He appointed someone as the chairman of INEC who is not only a university professor but who had successfully conducted similar elections both in heaven and hell. The angels and the devil gave him a five-star rating.
Mumusvillians, you cried to INEC saying “we want thugs to conduct our election.” Your prayers were granted. You asked that elections be held at different locations, different days, and at different times. Your request was granted. You said your grandpa president should divulge the party and the candidate he voted for. He did just that. You said INEC must ensure that ballot boxes are snatched and carted away for safekeeping. INEC did that. You instructed INEC that some ballot papers must be torn, missing, mutilated, and dumped in the lagoon. INEC said “you got it.”
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The elections have delivered the expected outcome — a victory for the winning party with greater numbers than was perhaps anticipated. INEC delivered all it promised:
- Election results were ready within 24 hours.
- The election was free and fair meaning all the thugs of the political parties had free hands to operate by snatching ballot boxes, intimidating voters, changing voting figures, killing voters, burning polling stations, etc.
- Election results were transmitted electronically in the Mumusvillian way – manual counting of votes.
- INEC accounted for all PVCs. None was missing. All registered voters exercised their civic rights painlessly, conveniently, and comfortably.
Just as the decision of the third umpire is final on the cricket field, so is the decision of INEC the ‘third umpire’ in Mumusvillian politics – final and binding!
Mumusvillians, what more do you want from Independent Nuisance Electoral Criminals (INEC)?
Bayo Oluwasanmi; bjoluwasanmi@gnail.com
