As the 2023 general elections in Nigeria have come and are almost going, winners and losers have been fashioned by the INEC to suit its selfish agenda of furthering the retirement of the Nigerian state into a comity of failed nations of the world. I am not the one saying this, but the view of the general public and the external observers of the shambolic elections who have evidence to the fact that the 2023 general elections were characterized by obvious irregularities, and the barefaced insistence of the INEC to legitimize such in the face of the unanimous rejection of the outcome.
While the hue of irregularities resonated all the nooks and crannies of the country, in Ebonyi State, it was like a franchise heist. The National Assembly poll was better not conducted than what is being brandied as the outcome. From North to South, then to Central, the story has remained the same as the people’s will was stifled by the INEC in connivance with some corrupt security agents deployed for election duty to suit the caprices of the benefitting figures in power.
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In what looks like a Gestapo response, the INEC commandeered the other weeping parties into self-help alternatives. That was how INEC abruptly ended an era that was yet to begin. Now, everyone is left with the stuttering option of the judiciary which is more like a game of gambling considering what our judiciary has been like over the years now.
In Ebonyi South senatorial zone where a majority of the voters and observers said that the Labour Party’s senatorial candidate, Hon. Linus Okorie won, the outgoing governor-general of the state of Ebonyi, Engr David Umahi was said to have used his might to influence the returning officers to manufacture figures that could see him winning in an election he came a distant fourth. To the chagrin of all, Umahi was declared elected. The entire South was immediately thrown into mourning.
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While the rain of discontent still drizzles, Umahi has jumped into the ring of those qualified to contest the seat of Senate President in the APC’s Senate. Yes, APC has more members in the National Assembly until the courts are done with the election petitions brought before them. Not minding that he’s a first-timer which is the first point of his disqualification, Umahi has continued to rent the air with his yet inordinate ambition of clutching on to the national straw of power to spearhead his totalitarian grip of the politics of Ebonyi State and of his community – Uburu wherein he’s seen as a human terror for the past eleven years as Deputy Governor and Governor respectively.
His inglorious reign in Ebonyi State as Governor has been a course of study in the contemporary politics of the state. Nobody has ruled the state in the Gestapo-like manner he has done over the last seven years. If curses were anything to believe its effectiveness, the tonnes of curses heaped on him and his family would be enough to plunder his eternity.
High handedness, selfishness, brutality, nepotism, lawlessness, financial malfeasance, suppression, repression, and lots more characterize his administration and personal character most of which he hid from public knowledge until his ascendancy to power.
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It’s on the above premises that many argue that making him Senate President is like giving him more feathers to fly his enslavement of Ebonyians and bring down the incoming administration with his capricious wants and influence as the third citizen of Nigeria. If vox pop is to be organized in his Ebonyi South senatorial zone about his current ambition, only his family members and a few of his political cronies could vote in support of it. However, there’s high hope that the law courts will restore the mandate to the rightful owner so that trust of the people in our nascent democracy can be heightened in the interest of the country.
Nwoba Chika Nwoba wrote in from Amangwuru village, Ikwo LGA of Ebonyi State.