Nigeria's elections have 3 stages: voting, legal challenges, and public debate. We have moved to stage 2 for legal scrutiny of INEC tallies.
It has been established that our elections must pass through three stages. At stage one, we cast the votes; at stage two, the candidates whose expectations were not met, cry foul and head for the courts where they believe that neutral Nigerians who sit on the bench will determine if INEC calculations reflect the choices of the people; at stage three, spokesmen and other hangers-on for the candidates engage in a war of words and heat the polity with inebriated sounds of sycophancy.
This stage is critical because it tests the impartiality of the judiciary and its capacity to dispense justice, right an alleged wrong and live up to its creed that all those who go before the temple of justice obtain justice. What happens at this stage also speaks volumes about the electoral umpire as an agent of democracy and the inherent right of the people to institute governments of their choice.
The war of words is a war waged by truth benders against the truth. This has always been a peculiar characteristic of our elections. If the race is lost at the polling booths, then a determined verbal assault will cast a huge doubt on the conduct and the results of the elections and tar the winners as hollow reapers of a system flawed by corruption. The foot soldiers are not required to bring facts – and they bring none. Local political champions emerge from this stage.
Sometimes I wonder at the audacity of such people. What is their capacity for carrying out their threats? None. They may, indeed, be men and women on the lonely path given to chest beating and without the capacity to carry out their threats. But they lay it on in a manner that generates fear among the rest of us. After all, a threat of violence in a country prune to violence is itself violence.
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