What is the price of a million dreams shattered or of
hopes dashed by the dastardly acts of those whose desperation turned
them into desperados on election day?
Where
lies the moral impetus or imperative for those who jettisoned all norms
of decency and trampled on the fundamental rights of others in their
quest to achieve their inordinate ambition to enforce any laws
thereafter?
What message
do we pass to our young ones when we deploy all manner of deplorables,
including shooting at innocent people simply trying to exercise their
fundamental right of franchise, snatching or burning election equipment
and ballot boxes in broad daylight, visiting violence on innocents,
threatening harm against people who refuse to vote a certain way, or
inducing officials to rig and to alter results?
What
message do we send to our young ones when institutions that are
supposed to be independent and neutral become immersed in abnormal and
illegitimate processes designed to skew the process and thwart the will
of the people, without recourse to law or fairplay?
What
message do we send to our young ones when security operatives who are
supposed to protect us and enforce the rule of law become private
mercenaries bent on flouting the law or looking the other way when laws
are broken and when people are put in harm's way simply because they
want to vote in a general election?
And
what manner of people will be so afflicted by tribalistic myopia and
dementia that their conscience becomes dead to decency, truth and
justice when what we need is patriotism?
What
message do we send to the rest of the world when the giant of Africa
continues to miss every opportunity to set a good example for the
continent and continually demarkets itself and its citizens in the
diaspora, on the global stage, and in the comity of nations?
And
what do we say to those who stood in line for 12 hours or more, those
who braved rain and other dangers, those who slept at polling units, and
those who were wounded and harassed, all in a bid to exercise their
right to choose their next leader -- believing that INEC would adhere to
its own rules and that their votes will count?
And
what was the essence of spending over N300 billion ($500 million USD)
of money we can hardly afford to purchase the finest electronic
equipment designed to checkmate human error and manipulation of results
when the whole process ultimately devolved into manual transmission of
results days later in most cases?
How
do we discourage our youths from thuggery, grand theft, cheating and
violence when, through our collective actions as adults, we have just
demonstrated that those ideals do not matter?
What
justification do we still have to call this a democracy (instead of a
kleptocracy or thugocracy) when it is clearly no longer a government of
the people, by the people and for the people?
How
do we create a civilised and an upright society when we have no qualms
crowning and celebrating brigandage, cheating, cutting corners, and
using intimidation and bribery to achieve our selfish ambitions?
What
consolation do we offer to those who have endured hunger, deprivation
and, in some cases, loss of a loved one because of naira scarcity touted
as the panacea to election rigging, when this last election was far
worse than most previous ones in Nigerian history?
So
I wept. I still weep. And I will continue to weep for my beloved
Nigeria because I know the damage we have done to ourselves will take a
long time to heal -- if it ever does.
By Dr. John Osonwa
(Climate Change & Environmental Expert; Good Governance & Rule of Law Crusader)
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