Electoral Act Amendment Bill: The APC's Rigging Plans & Morbid Fear for Credible Elections Exposed

By Chidiebere Nwobodo

The fourth consecutive rejection of  reformative 2018 Electoral Act Amendment Bill by President Muhammadu Buhari on flimsy, selfish, parochial and unpatriotic excuses, has erased every doubt on whether the president and his party are ready for free and fair elections in few weeks time. This bill began its journey about eleven months ago when it was sent to the president for assent. It was turned down by the president who pointed out the controversial sequence of election as his main grouse for withholding his assent. National Assembly expunged the election sequence paragraph and corrected some other perceived errors, as pointed by the president, yet he rejected it again on "drafting issues".
The "drafting issues" were rectified by National Assembly—in synergy with INEC, CSOs and Minister for Justice, Malami; who represented the president. The "consensus draft bill" was sent to the president in September this year. After a long silence of waiting, President Buhari vindicated his strong critics like me who had reckoned, that he is not favorably disposed for transparent and credible electoral process come 2019—by vetoing what has been adjudged the best and error-proofed proposed electoral laws amendment in Nigeria's political history. This singular act of perfidy and electoral tragedy, has mirrored Buhari as a president who is desperately clutching to the levers of power—even when he has no business of being there anymore; owing to his gross incompetence and crass cluelessness.
 President Buhari's nightmares in this bill are two issues: compulsory use of card reader as the ONLY means of accreditation and electronic transmission of results from polling units! These are the two innovations that will make rigging practically impossible, if this bill becomes law. These are the APC's dreaded aspects of the bill. The jagged narrative of timing as being propagated using ECOWAS Protocol is neither here nor there. Is it not the same ECOWAS Buhari refused to obey its court orders on Dasuki and El-Zakyzaky? Insufferable hypocrites! A political party that torpedoed the people's mandate in Ekiti and Osun States via brazen rigging, cannot allow these anti-rigging law to see the light of the day. President Buhari and his anarchistic cum anachronistic handlers are frozen in the fear of impending defeat, having lost credibility, legitimacy and popularity in the eyes of Nigerians. They are only hedging their fate on their rigging machinery, to thwart and truncate electoral wishes of Nigerians in the coming polls, under the cover of incident forms which this bill outlawed.

I want to thank National Assembly leadership for their patience, in allowing President Buhari to get to the dead-end of his deceit and tomfoolery, because the lifespan of a propaganda is shorter than falsehood. Nigerians can discern that all these verbiages and pontifications from President Buhari on his readiness to guarantee credible elections, are nothing but  prejudiced rhetorics and smokescreen; meant to conceal his inordinate intention, to rig the coming elections, against the overwhelming quest of Nigerians to #GetNigeriaWorkingAgain.
Nigerians are aware that emergence of a political veteran; Waziri Atiku Abubakar as formidable presidential candidate of the PDP, together with his shrewd running mate—Peter Obi, has spooked the camp of the ruling party. The APC has been engulfed with palpable fear of defeat. Those morally bankrupt political marauders in the corridors of power, who are hell bent to ride roughshod the oligopolistic interest of the cabal, above overwhelming national interest, should be rest assured that one million battalions of soldiers cannot stop a cause whose time has come. Nigeria is not for the few. The task to #GetNigeriaWorkingAgain is a patriotic duty that must be done; not minding whose ox is gored.

 The mandate to rescue this country from sadistic tyrants in power—those who use power for the sole purpose of oppression, intimidation and infliction of pains on the masses, and their trumpeting savaged supporters—pervading cyberspace, has become a clarion call if Nigeria must survive beyond 2019. Men and women of goodwill and good conscience in the National Assembly as people's true representatives, should override the president's selfish, partisan and ill-advised veto, to bequeathe Nigerians credible electoral process that will stand the test of time and meet international standards. The most important dividend of democracy, is the non-negotiable; alienable right to choose our leaders, by ensuring that the votes count. 2019 election is not about Atiku Abubakar or Muhammadu Buhari but the growth and development of Nigeria. There is an on going intrigues and struggle for the soul of Nigeria between retrogressive despotic forces and progressive liberal democrats in the polity, which side of divide do you belong? How will posterity remember you? This is certainly not the time to sit on the fence. Let your voice be heard.