BEYOND THE OPPOSITION’S CLAMOUR

Moses Ogbona asks opposition politicians to be good losers

Sometimes we pander ceaselessly to herd mentality without sparing thoughts for the bare facts. We should resist being led by the nose of the opposition and their hirelings who appear to have dug in to make mincemeat of the results of the presidential election and even imperil our hard-won democratic experiment because it does not turn out in their favour. It’s like they forget that crying fire in a marketplace blows no one any good.

Looking at the outcome of the 2023 presidential election which returned the All Progressives Congress (APC) Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner, it is anomalous not to accept that he got the nod of a wider section of Nigerian people. His votes reflect his greater support base, acceptability, and validation by the different geopolitical zones except for the southeast which opted to lock itself against poaching by other contestants besides their son, Peter Obi who contested on the platform of the Labour Party (LP). Even there, the APC garnered seven of the total 15 senatorial seats and a considerable number of seats in the House of Representatives to up its ante.

In the history of the country’s general election, there has been none as competitive where the three leading candidates were almost edge to edge, winning 12 states apiece. Tinubu, also a former Lagos State Governor, defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the election, scoring a total of 8,794,726 votes, the highest of all the candidates, thus meeting the first constitutional requirement to be declared the winner. He also scored over 25 per cent of the votes cast in 30 states, more than the 25 states constitutionally required.

INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who declared the results said Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) came second in the election with a total of 6,984,520 votes. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) came third in the election with a total of 6,101,533 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,496,687 votes. The votes of the other political parties put together is 666,298. Only the top four candidates won the presidential election in at least one state. Tinubu, Atiku and Obi won in 12 states while Kwankwaso won only in Kano.

Although there were some skirmishes by some miscreants which affected the turnout of voters in some polling units, it was not sufficient to substantially undermine the electoral process. The gale of losses by several sitting Governors who angled for senate seats also points to the validity of the election. As at the last count, seven Governors were defeated by politicians regarded as dark horses to the delight of many who loath the upper chamber’s reputation as a dumping ground for former Governors. Apart from Governors who are licking their wounds and having failed to install their anointed successors, the Zamfara State Governor, Bello Watawalle who lost his seat to the opposition PDP is still gnashing his teeth. There were also upsets of Okada riders in Kaduna and Delta States winning the House of Representatives seats and unknown candidates putting a stop to the long checkered ride of some legislators.

The other interesting scenarios of heavyweight politicians of the ruling APC losing their states to the opposition make the election a reflection of the people’s wishes. President Muhammadu Buhari lost his state Katsina to PDP in the presidential election. The President-Elect, Tinubu, also lost Lagos State. So also is the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, and the Director-General of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, Simon Lalong, who also could not deliver Nasarawa and Plateau States.

Although the total number of voters came to 25 per cent as opposed to the 35 per cent of registered voters who took part in the 2019 election, it only reflects some slide in voter apathy which has nothing to do with the outcome of the results of the presidential election. With the number of registered voters rising to 93 million and the youth constituting more than 70 per cent, it was the general belief that the 2023 general election will witness unprecedented turnouts of voters. But this didn’t happen, raising suspicion that the voters’ register may have been padded with fake names. Although INEC needs to resolve the many cases of registered voters who are yet to receive their PVCs, the commission also does have a big task to ensure that it further cleans up the register not only of these fake names but also of minors who were seen voting in some parts of the country.

The opposition needs to be wary of its antics to de-market the presidential election results and bring our democracy into disrepute, particularly before Western countries, who have been severally indicted on schemes to truncate democratic experiments in Africa and assassinate political leaders who do not do their biddings. What really does the US or Britain have to teach having been indicted in these schemes? From Sylvanus Olympio, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and Abdel Naseer to Muamar Ghaddafi, the West has always cut down forthright leaders in Africa. They should therefore be mindful not to be willing pawns in the political chess game to undermine democracy in the world’s most populous Black Country. Rather than join the unwholesome clamour for the rather unconstitutional interim government, they should embrace the olive branch offered by Tinubu who has not only promised to form a government of national unity but also massively drive development across the different sectors in order to tremendously impact the lives of the people.

 Ogbona is a Development Consultant based in Lagos