This writer resisted being drawn into a public political discussion recently, but can clearly state his minds on unbecoming events by some officials of a political party based on allegations that that would wake-up a dead soul. This writer woke up at exactly 2:58AMsinging an old tune by Ebenezer Obey that says, “Oja Oyingbo ko mo pe enikan o wa o” meaning, Oyingbo market doesn’t know if someone didn’t come and it took a long time to go back to sleep because of certain reality in applying the song to the current spate of events in Nigeria. From allegation of dollars everywhere being thrown away by a certain contestant of a party in the upcoming election to reckless security damnation by some citizens. Of course that song has become relevant to some political party, not just the ruling party because the suffering of the people, the austere environment, the dollar rising prices and the tagging of being corrupt mean absolutely nothing to some of these election contestants.
Allegation in respect of doling out dollars was that the contestant were providing incentives to the voters to compromise their voting power and of course, legally speaking both the offeror and the offeree of the incentive will be determined to have acted contrary to law of the land. This writer was never approached nor would he entertain such corrupt practice, but going by the actions of his colleagues in sports environment, it is very easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. Some of these people admitted openly to this bribery for vote agenda without any reservation and this is abnormal actions which must CHANGE.
Ideally, the penalty for these actions is jail time to both receiver and the payer and of course there may not be enough space in prisons to accommodate all of them, but as a deterrent to some of these people must serve jail terms or public flogging. At this juncture, it must be asked, where does the scarce dollars come from? Postulation exists that the monies were from federal purse or ill-gotten gains but is that source anything for a debate or rather the reasoning behind why such wasteful spending occurred without the political party base of such individuals calling such persons to order. The image this writer sees from such actions can be framed metaphorically, as an individual being accused of being a thief and during such accusation the individual was observed pickpocketing one of the accusers wallet while standing. This cannot be good for the spirit of democracy or the nation’s interest.
Another issue of concern is the potential explosive situation where certain militants from the south-south to the southwest who appeared to be brandishing dangerous weapons at some individuals while protesting against the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and outright calling for his sack. Unfortunately, there is no proof of a link to any political party as their sponsor, but they admittedly announced their support for the ruling party. This writer would have expected the ruling party leaders to renounce the actions of these groups, but the party has yet to do so and until then the voters’ insinuation and allegation that those groups were sponsored remained valid. The fear is the action of these groups when the election takes place or decision is announced for the March 28 election.
Certainly these events cannot be regarded as usual electioneering rather they are despicable criminal acts in motion and the key question is where the Attorney General is? Or why the security agencies failed to respond? Either way, no one can say with all honesty, they condoned the actions of the groups not because of right of protest, but brandishing of weapons without police authority, this writer imagines. Strange things, strange happenings, strange people and all these MUST CHANGE.
I rest for now.
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Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)
