Of Public Protest, Electoral Disputes And The Fuss About Interim Government -By Gozie Irogboli

After the shambolic election conducted by the Independent national Electoral Commission (INEC) and the ensuing gale of protests and the fuss that trailed the call for the establishment of the interim government by protesters, my mind flashed back to the unheeded call by the respected legal icon Chief Afe Babalola (SAN). When the legal luminary early last year proposed the installation of interim government to oversee the conduct of the 2023 general elections and other sundry issues affecting the nation, I think it was because he envisaged what is happening in the country at present but nobody seemed to pay attention to his proposal then. Having analyzed the previous performances of INEC under the All Progressives Congress (APC) regime, he probably foresaw the fact that INEC has been compromised and therefore incapable of conducting free, fair and credible election. And he was right if that was his thought. The woeful performance of INEC in the just concluded elections is causing ripples, creating tensions and unrest in the land.

Thus, I was not in any way surprised when I watched the video clips of some protesting youths under the aegis of Free Nigeria Movement (FNM) kneeling in front of Defense Headquarters appealing to the military to intervene to save Nigeria. I would say that I was jolted but not surprised. I would also say that I am not surprised by the strident calls for interim government by Nigerians. But I was surprised and outraged at the hypocritical response by some self-seeking individuals who were quick to condemn the action of the aggrieved agitators without asking the fundamental questions. Those upbraiding the protesting distraught youths, can they honestly say that what is being practiced in Nigeria today under the APC regime in the name of democracy is real? What brand of democracy is it that politicians use thugs to stop the electorates from exercising their franchise?

The demands of protesting Nigerians are clear and legitimate. First, the 2023 general election is flawed as attested by local and international observers and therefore the result is unacceptable. Two, INEC should declare the real winner of the election or cancel the election outright and call for a fresh election. Three, INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu should resign or be sacked and the conduct of the election probed and all those involved in electoral malfeasance sanctioned as appropriate.

Four, the current Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola should resign or be sacked as Nigerians have no confidence in his integrity or neutrality. Five, the electoral cases should be given accelerated hearing and all disputes properly resolved before May 29th handover date and in the event of non resolution of the electoral conflicts, an interim government be installed to conduct fresh election. And the reasons for these innocuous demands are obvious. The generality of Nigerians have lost faith in the INEC and the APC regime that is hell bent on perpetuating itself against the will of the people.

But as always the government is notorious for chasing shadows, glossing over real issues and ignoring the substance or the cause. The crux of the matter is that a general election has been conducted and was rigged in the most bizarre and brazen manner to which the international observers asserted that what they witnessed was a crime scene and not an election and rather than look dispassionately look into the complaint of the electorates whose will have been blatantly subverted by the erring INEC, the government is more interested in suppressing genuine protests while they are busy preparing the handover ceremony while the electoral disputes are yet to be settled.

And the people feared that once a new government is installed, all the court cases and electoral disputes are as good as being foreclosed because it is believed that the power-hungry INEC’s selected president, Tinubu would suppress them given his antecedent and because the people did not trust the courts to be neutral more so as the current CJN has shown by his conduct and utterances to be partisan. Many Nigerian lawyers many of whom are senior advocates have expressed their lack of confidence in the Nigerian courts and their bizarre and controversial verdicts under this regime.

Thus, I must state unequivocally that swearing Tinubu in without first resolving the issues surrounding the electoral disputes will bring an end to the current democratic dispensation as nobody will vote in any future elections except maybe Tinubu’s acolytes and the hooligans domiciled in Lagos. Nobody under any form of persuasion or coercion will want to waste his time participating in an election where his vote will not count. Already, some people are so disenchanted and traumatized with the shambolic election just conducted by INEC that they have destroyed their PVCs. Some have torn their Nigerian passport, some are even protesting naked while some have committed suicide. Clearly, it will create crisis of legitimacy, increase tension, youth restiveness and separatist agitation in the country if the government undermines the will of the people and go ahead with its swearing-in plans without first settling the electoral disputes.

But as is characteristic of them, the APC gang has quickly and invidiously reacted to the protests raging on in the country and the call for the installation of interim government stating that the call is treasonable and unconstitutional. I am not a military apologist but I do not believe in the hackneyed expression that the worst civilian regime is better than the best military regime. The APC regime in Nigeria has proved this superannuated hypothesis wrong. The APC regime has proved to be the worst in the annals of Nigerian history. For twenty-four years of the practice of democracy, what we have witnessed especially in the last eight years that is the APC regime is mere anarchy: the will of the people is subverted with impunity. The judicial process is compromised. The NASS is in disarray as it seems to be functioning only as an appendage to presidency with the mandate to approve every loan request from the president. The systems and the institutions are in shambles and are programmed as tools to subvert the will of the people. The APC has brazenly used poverty, ethnicity, religion and recently violence to latch on to power. So the APC regime is worse than the worst military regime ever experienced in this country.

The fear of the Nigerian electorates and protesters is germane. The politicians have proved that they cannot be trusted to respect the wish of the people. They have failed the people and violently denied the people their inalienable right to decide who leads them. It is evident that what they did in the just concluded election is coup against the people.

Rigging election under any guise is coup de tat against the people. So, the people that have planned coup against Nigerians are members of the ruling APC juntas and they the ones directly and indirectly inviting the military. The protesters are exercising their democratic rights. Why are the APC members feisty about peaceful protests? Why are they harassing media houses over innocuous comments about the election when its officials are on daily basis making provocative and inflammatory statements unhinged?

Without doubt, those directly and indirectly inviting the military are the do-or-die politicians who are heating up the polity, the unscrupulous politicians that are fighting dirty to win, the tribal irredentists stoking ethnic tension in Nigeria, the drones and the godfathers who feel it is their entitlement to lord it over us and the election riggers and their agents. The APC and the unconscionable political pettifoggers must be held responsible if our so-called democracy is truncated. And if the APC regime is booted out today, Nigerians will celebrate their exit with fanfare.

I will therefore advise those condemning the protesters to direct their umbrage to the right place. We cannot have peace without justice. Our interest should be on doing the right thing, fast-tracking the resolutions of the electoral disputes and not on suppressing civil protests against injustice and official misconduct; and definitely not on swearing in the INEC president elect without looking at the supervening circumstances. Tinubu cannot get legitimacy by force of coercion, intimidation or blackmail. He can only get legitimacy by winning a free, fair, transparent and credible election.

The message from the protesting Nigerians is clear: Nigeria will not tolerate the installation of a man who was unilaterally selected by the INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu and expect to have any positive result from the court processes after swearing in the same man as president. How do you expect the youths who have participated actively in the electoral process with the hope of a positive change fold their arms and allow the insensate politicians subvert the will of the people and toy with their future and destinies? Nigerian wasted time and man-hour queuing in INEC offices across the country and queued in the sweltering heat of the February sun to vote only for INEC to dash their hope after frittering away #355 billion public funds to conduct the shambolic election.

Those who said installing interim government is undemocratic should tell me if election rigging is democratic. Why would some pretend to be democratic and yet want to suppress agitation, civil advocacy, criticism and the right of the people to vote? What is democratic in election rigging, violence and thuggery that the APC has institutionalized in Nigeria? In APC’s Nigeria protest is treasonable while election rigging and xenophobia are constitutional. Indeed, those who speak against the call for interim government and yet turn blind eye the electoral fraud perpetuated by the INEC and APC are obviously hypocritical.

In the light of these, I will appeal to the DSS as an esteemed state organization not to allow it to be used by unscrupulous politicians to clamp down on protesters as already being insinuated in some quarters. The protesting Nigerians have the democratic rights to do so under our laws. I will advise the DSS to focus on the electoral offenders and let the aggrieved protesters alone. You cannot beat a child and force him not to cry. It is against moral justice. The only people that need to be arrested for prosecution are: the INEC chairman and his RECs who have frittered away public funds to conduct a shambolic election. Tinubu the president selected by the INEC and members of his team should be arrested for electoral fraud and for stoking ethnic violence and xenophobia. Again, rather than harass the protesters the DSS should arrest, Femi Fani-Kayode, Festus Keyamo, Bayo Onanuga and Tinubu button boys who have been flippant and logorrheic with their mouth. Again, the notorious Musiliu Akinsanya alias MC Oluomo and his touts should be arrested for xenophobic attack and for breeching public peace in Lagos.

Gozie Irogboli,
An economist, a novelist and a public policy analyst
(goziei@yahoo.com)