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| FEATURE ARTICLE |
| Chidi Anyaeche | Wednesday, May 2, 2007 |
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chidi_anyaeche@hotmail.com London, UK 
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NOW THAT THE VOTING IS OVER....
oting results as declared by INEC are only a part of the electoral process in Nigeria going by the 2006 Electoral Act. The voting results can be challenged in an Electoral Tribunal as the final arbiter with the outcome marking the end of the electoral process. Hence, the title of this article: the voting part is over but the electoral process continues.
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A quick recap of the current political situation in Nigeria for the uninitiated is that there were supposed to be democratic elections for congressional, gubernatorial and presidential candidates on April 14 and 21, 2007 but this process was totally flawed. In a nutshell, there were no elections but day light robbery of the franchise of Nigerians to determine who will rule them, who will lead them to the promised land, who will deliver the dividends of the modern state that has eluded them since independence in 1960, who will provide succour to the needy, jobs for the jobless, healthcare for the sick, education for the uneducated, pension for the pensioners, housing for the homeless, pecuniars for the broke. The electoral body called INEC in cahoots with the government of the day and its allied agencies denied Nigerians of this divine right called democracy: Government of the people by the people for the people. But there is hope. That hope is the judiciary.
The US State Department has this to say on the outcome of this charade of Nigerian election: -
"The United States regrets that Nigeria has missed an opportunity to strengthen an element of its democracy through a sound electoral process. Analysis of the process by most international observers does not conform to what Nigeria's national electoral commission has reported. There are credible reports of malfeasance and vote rigging in some constituencies. The scope of violence that occurred also was regrettable. Overall, the process was seriously flawed. In spite of these significant shortcomings, the commitment of ordinary Nigerians to democracy remains noteworthy: We praise those Nigerians who adhered to the democratic process by exercising their right to vote." Released April 27, 2007.
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"LAST Saturday's presidential election should have marked a major consolidation of democracy in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and biggest oil producer: the first free choice of one elected civilian leader to succeed another. Instead, it was an ugly travesty - not just procedurally flawed, but completely lacking in basic democratic plausibility".
That bible of international capitalism, of foreign investors, of the foreign recognition so much sort after by President Obasanjo, The UK based Economist magazine in its April 2007 edition has this to say about the elections: -
"…Plenty of votes were rigged on the day itself, just to make sure. In Anambra state, most people could not vote at all. They turned up at the voting stations, but often INEC's officials simply did not arrive. When a polling station did open, usually about six hours late, the officials did not have enough materials, notably a register, to let voting begin. On a tour of a dozen voting stations in the state capital, Awka, on the afternoon of polling, your correspondent did not see a single vote being cast, just angry mobs of frustrated would-be voters saying they had been "disenfranchised".
It is, indeed interesting, that the Economist magazine homed in on Anambra State out of the Thirty Six states in Nigeria but that topic is for another day.
The European Union described the elections as "deeply flawed".
Back home, Professor Pat Utomi, the ADC Presidential candidate in an article published in the Guardian newspaper of May 01, 2007 titled "This struggle is now my life" wrote: -
"….The pains of seeing so many middle class people come out to vote on April 14 and witnessing their retreat on April 21 after it became clear their votes were not allowed to count increases the essence of the struggle"
The erudite journalist, Okey Ndibe, writing in Sahara Reporters posited thus: -
"Here, then, is a puzzle that Mr. Iwu might help Nigerians with. If seven out of every ten Nigerians endorsed Yar'Adua as their next leader, how come the nation has, since the announcement of the candidate's triumph, been cast in a doleful state? Where, pray, is the seventy percent of the populace that should by now be heady with celebration? Why, instead of a fiesta of dancing and merriment, is the nation enveloped by a certain lugubriousness, a stillness and indeed stunned silence?"
The Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka cried foul. The clerics echoed as much.
These soul searching outbursts sums up the feelings both from international and local observers but more importantly the Nigerian electorate about the outcome of the 2007 elections: a shameful and disdain act by the PDP controlled federal government and its organs primarily INEC. But there is hope. That hope is the judiciary.
George Alfred Henty wrote in the book Sheer Pluck that "Africans…Left alone to their own devices, they retrograde into a state little above their native savagery" Nigerians are Africans and the whole world have witnessed this native savagery with devastating effect in Liberia, Somalia and Sierra Leone to name a few African countries.
If the judiciary does not play its role in correcting these Nigerian sham elections and the Nigerian masses are left alone to their own devices to do so, they may have no option but to retrograde into a state little above their native savagery and with earth moving consequences that will make Somalia a childs play but more importantly will prove the US 2021 predictions right.
The Nigerian judiciary, the ball is now in your court. Odenigbo is watching, Nigerians are waiting and the whole world is adjusting. There is hope and you the judiciary are that hope.
