The presidential elections has come and passed. Nigerians finally made their choice, given PDP pass mark to rule us for another four more years beginning from May 2011. There are grumbles as you would expect at the aftermath of an election, especially in this continent (Africa), and even more especially in Nigeria. Surprisingly, however, most of these grumbling are not coming from the appropriate people who have justification to complain, i.e. political parties that contested and lost the elections, but rather from the youth who had every opportunity to change the government of PDP on last Saturday and who blew that chance off, and whom in my opinion actually have no justification whatsoever to complain afterward.
INEC chairman professor Attahiru Jega yesterday pronounced the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)'s candidate as the winner of the elections having polled the majority votes cast and getting the required 25% in more than 2/3 states of the Federation, thereby beating its closest rival Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) that came second. Even before this announcement and return of the winner of the election President Goodluck Jonathan, youth in many northern states took to the streets rioting, harassing and even killing innocent people that they perceived to be supporters of PDP, and in some cases attacking people they were not so sure whether or not they were PDP supporters.
I once stated on this forum that the Nigerian youth were very much ready to take to the streets to protest if the much anticipated free and fair elections were not held in this country. The burning question now is could it be said that there were no free and fair elections on Saturday to warrant the youth taking to the streets to protest? I know this is a very difficult question to answer, especially at the moment when more details on how the elections were conducted in various parts of the country are still emerging. And more especially considering the complexity of the various things that constitute free and fair elections!
I read some where that the CPC disagree with the victory recorded by the PDP in the South South, South East and also in some states in the South West. Now supposing there were riggings in those states as alleged by the CPC, could that be the reason that the ruling PDP recorded a 'landslide' victory in the elections? I believe the answer is big NO! This is why at the beginning I said the youth in these northern states that are rioting have no justification whatsoever to protest the results of the elections. They are the very ones who by their action or inaction aided the victory of the ruling party. PDP needed 25% in the 2/3 of the total states in the federation to win the elections even if it got the majority votes cast in the elections. They needed to get those votes in the northern states and by their actions they gave them.
When one looks at the statistics of the voter turnout in the north generally with the exception of some very few states, and compare it with the turnout in the South generally, one will certainly get the picture clearly. For instance, in Kano, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) registered over 5 million voters, but only a little over 2.5 million actually voted. In Adamawa there are over 1.7 million voters registered, but only a little over 800,000 actually voted. In Borno 2.7 million registered, and only a little over 1.1 million actually voted. In Katsina almost 3 million people registered, but only 1.6 million in fact voted. We can go on and on, the story is the same all over northern states, except Bauchi and Kaduna where the turnout was almost 80%. If one compares it with the turnout in the south generally, one will be left with only one conclusion that : the north just short itself in the leg and we really needed not to complain. In fact we have no cause to! In most of the northern states where CPC won the turnout was just 50% as against the total number registered, and worst still in most of those states the people made sure that the ruling party got the 25% of the total votes cast that they require. Whereas, in the South South and South East, the turnout was 90% to 95%, and amazingly, they all voted ruling party thereby given no chance to the opposition to get even 5% of the votes.
Even if there was rigging as alleged in those zones, one only needs to look at how the people in the north voted or not voted as the case maybe, for one to just shut up before anybody tells you to. People, and especially those youth protesting, slept at home during the elections and did not vote and now that their counterparts in the south, and who apparently needed it more than them, decided our future for the next four years, only for them to start rioting, burning, maiming and even killing innocent people. This is most unfortunate, and the authority should really rise to their responsibilities by dealing with those youth according to the laws of the land. As my friend said: "they are only crying over a spilt milk"!
All is not lost however, if at all we are serious of chasing PDP away and if the youth will actually learn their lesson, then we have LAST opportunity on the 26th of April to give PDP serious push towards irrelevance. If CPC can win all the 12 states they won in the presidential elections, they will of course be setting what could potentially be PDP's demise in 2015. This will only give CPC the necessary political base they need to give PDP strong opposition in 2015. This is more so as other opposition parties such as Labour Party (LP), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and APGA will surely get some states in the South East, South West and South South respectively thereby reducing PDP's dominance in the polity generally.
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