It was, indeed, the dawn of a new electoral process for a nation that had been reeling under the unbearably crushing weight of a shambolic voting regime.
Yesterday’s elections, which suffered early avoidable hitches – and for which reason voting would have to be done in some polling units today – demonstrated to the whole world that Nigerians were never really the problem in the democratic voyage. Rather, it was proved beyond reasonable doubt, that Nigerians want democracy; that Nigerians want peace; that Nigerians love a process that would lead them to an outcome devoid of rancor.
Avoidable hitches because Sunday Vanguard had consistently admonished Professor Attahiru Jega, the National Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that there is a world of difference between the desire to accomplish and do good, and the capacity to deliver.
Had Jega agreed to borrow a leaf from Sunday Vanguard again, the way he humbled himself regarding the failed attempt to foist a lopsided 30,000 Polling Unit allocation on Nigeria, the embarrassment caused the nation and himself yesterday may have been avoided. Jega had been advised to tread softly on his dogged insistence that the SCR was the only answer to Nigeria’s electoral woes. Yes, the SCRs came with value addition to the process.
Voters from an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Maiduguri queue to get registered for Nigeria's presidential elections in Maiduguri on March 28, 2015. Polling stations opened in Nigeria today, the electoral commission said, as voters went to the polls to elect a new president in what is being seen as the closest campaign in the country's history. AFP PHOTO
Voters from an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Maiduguri queue to get registered for Nigeria’s presidential elections in Maiduguri on March 28, 2015. Polling stations opened in Nigeria today, the electoral commission said, as voters went to the polls to elect a new president in what is being seen as the closest campaign in the country’s history. AFP PHOTO
But the questions to ask are:
Why would a professor put all his eggs in the basket of the SCRs?
What consideration can Jega claim to have been his driving force to insist that elections should hold on February 14, 2015, knowing that INEC was not ready, especially in the face of the challenges suffered yesterday?
What other form of embarrassment could Jega have expected than to have the President and Commander-in-Chief, along with his wife, be rejected by SCRs?
Had the massive failure of the SCRs been prevalent in the North as it was in the South, what sort of crisis would Nigeria have been plunged into?
Put differently, had President Jonathan not exhibited a statesmanly conduct in the face of his rejection by the SCR, would the country not have witnessed a spate of violence?
Fellow Nigerians, when Jega was being advised to expand the frontiers of acceptable conduct for yesterday’s elections, he carried on as though any suggestion that did not fit into his world view was either antagonistic or outrightly unpatriotic – without prejudice to the wrong-headed arguments put forward by leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; or the folly associated with the belief in and assurance that the SCRs would work without challenges as championed by leaders of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Today, Nigerians know better.
Mercifully, Jega himself belatedly ordered that in areas where the SCRs did not work, the officers on duty should revert to manual accreditation.
It should also be noted that in some parts of the North, the issue of underaged voting could not be tackled by the SCRs (see pix).
On the whole, inspite of the challenges, Nigerians deserve to be congratulated for being peaceful because had what happened yesterday happened, some four or eight years ago, there would have been widespread violence.
Therefore, after all said and done, the doomsday prognosticators may have lost in the first bout because Nigeria is still one and kicking. Nigerians eagerly await the next round of thunder which may come when the results are announced.