APRIL POLL NOT APRIL FOOL

                                           

The remote and immediate causes for the postponement of the election which was earlier scheduled to commence on the 2^nd of April  was given by the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the person of Professor Attairu Jega.Nigerians are still skeptical about the reasons given. They believe that the fundamental reason for the postponement is yet to be stated.

The election did start as scheduled on the 9^th of April as promised by the Independent National Electoral commission’s Chairman. Nigerians are grateful to the Chairman and the entire staffs of this commission for a good job done on Saturday. We believe that the subsequent elections will be better than the feat that was performed on Saturday by the commission.

However we still experienced a considerable level of skirmishes all over Nigeria. Prior to the day of the election and on the election day proper, a bomb was detonated at the INEC headquarters in suleja Niger state killing about thirteen people with the national youth service corps members experiencing the highest number of casualties. On the day of the election, there was another bomb blast somewhere in Bornu state. We also heard that about five people were killed in Ile Ife in Osun state on the day of the election.

Whatever the aims and objectives of the people behind this dastardly act intends to achieve eventually failed to materialized. If their intention was to scare the electorate away from the voting centers, this they failed to achieve because people troop out en masse to perform their civic rights. In the end Nigerians are happy that their votes did counts this time around unlike what we have been experiencing in the last twelve years.

Saturdays election was the exact manner in which Nigerians voted in 1993.Then it was termed Open Ballot system. This system allows the winner to be identified well before the votes are counted. On Saturday we experienced what is called Secrete Ballot system. There is no much difference in the two system except for the secrete ballot only allow for the winner to be declared after the votes have been counted.

I will like to make a recommendation that the secrete ballot system need to be modified a little. Instead for the electorate to be waiting after been accredited, electorate should be allowed to vote immediately they finished accreditation.

Results’ coming out has shown a deviation from the voting pattern as been experienced in the past. The results show that the electorate voted for parties using the achievement of the serving member of the political parties as a yardstick and for individuals based on their pedigree. This time around the electorate used their voting power to elect leaders who they think will be answerable to them. This also presupposes that the elected members of the House of Representatives and senate members will be ready to be accountable in their dealings with the electorate in their constituencies by making sure that they deliver the dividend of democracy to them. The honorable members are quite aware now what is likely to be their faith if they fail to perform.

Interestingly both the upper and the lower house of the legislative chamber will be full of honorable men and women who will be ready to defend the mandate of their people who elected them into office legitimately.

From all indication, it has become crystal clear that a democratic setting that has failed to renew itself inevitably calls for a change. This wind of change is already blowing through the land. I am not surprised as to the outcome of the voting patterns. Those of you that have been following me through my write ups will agree with me on most of the issues I have raise which has eventually culminated in the outcome of the results we are getting from the poll.

Saturday election have come and gone.However, some people still engages in printing of ballot papers and snatching of ballot boxes. Arrests have been made and investigations are still continuing in order to put the culprit to books. It is clear now that miscreants, political thugs, and politicians who believe that they can win election through rigging, violence and subterfuge will not have it easy this time around.

So please Nigerians come out again this Saturday and let us exercise our civic rights by electing our own President legitimately and shame the antidemocratic forces who think they can scare us.

Thank you.

Quadri Kazeem                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

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