Thirty years after the debacle that was the aftermath of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections, Nigeria appears to be on the brink once again. Only this time, the country seems poised on the precipice just under a week prior to another presidential election scheduled for Saturday, January 25th. Like June 12 before it, the same phalanx of bad actors, or their progeny, appears to be threatening the presidential elections of February 25th that all had expected to be substantially free and fair.
This time around, it appears the “annulment” is being primed for delivery even before a single vote is cast. Actions obviously targeted at undermining the integrity of the forthcoming elections are being touted as policies of State that need to be forced down the throats of the same citizenry that resist such nonsense whole-heartedly, as they should. Just as banks burn in the aftermath of a subversive currency-change policy, petrol supplies dwindle or are generally not available in significant pockets of a supposedly oil-producing country and inconsistencies in government policies become the norm, the message becomes clear by the day that subversion of the Constitution and the basic idea of an incumbent federal government maintaining a level playing field for all contestants in the election of February 25 are the ignominious goals of still-faceless elements within the same government.
Just as the bad actors of the June 12 debacle have been rightly consigned to the cesspit of Nigeria’s history, the same will inexorably be the fate of those who hide behind the gilded walls of Nigeria’s state apparatus to undermine the electoral desires of millions of Nigerians in the forthcoming presidential election, across tongues, tribes and creed.