Eben Enasco Reporting.
Somewhere at Daura, Katsina State President Muhammad Buhari notched his intentions to become Nigeria’s President and was backed by some Countrymen who surmised he was the new messiah to rescue the Economy.
Buhari was largely supported by all and sundry particularly top retired and serving military and political echelons against the incumbent, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who was brandished a failure from a small town in Otuoke, Bayelsa State.
In February 2015, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo quit the ruling PDP party and endorsed Buhari to further advanced the call for president Goodluck Jonathan’s removal.
On 31 March, Jonathan called Buhari to concede and congratulate him on his election as president.
Buhari was sworn to an oath on May 29, 2015, in a ceremony attended by at least 23 heads of state and government.
The inauguration of Muhammadu Buhari as the 15th President of Nigeria, and 4th President in the fourth Nigerian Republic
After his swearing ceremony, President Buhari told Nigerians he was for everybody, but for nobody.
A statement that got tongues wagging and fierce belief for a new Nigeria.
Before long, his ideas waned and gossip about his administration’s enduring hardships began to smear citizens in the face.
Nigerians were told, his health conditions deteriorated without disclosing the type of illness
Regularly, he was flown abroad to seek medical treatments using the Nation’s common Patrimony and taxpayers’ incomes on several occasions.
For his first tenure in office as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he would hardly stay to address why he was massively voted for and that raised grave concerns.
Banditry took center stage in most Northern States, as Suspected Fulani herdsmen throng down south rapping and killing citizens yet no end to it.
Nevertheless, time ran out on February 15, 2023, when a fresh election was conducted and Buhari was nowhere to be seen near the economic development hoped for by the people
In less than two months when he would have completed his Presidential cycle, President Buhari and his players will pack up their loads and head home
.
The man seen as messiah will now be seen hidden away in some dusty, unused room, as the stopped countdown clock set running toward May 29,
BUHARI VIOLATED ELECTORAL LAW
The symbolic ticking toward the 2023 presidential election was a recurring reminder of the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years in Nigeria’s leadership corridor.
When he finally draws the curtains, there are few things Nigeria will remember about him, especially in the conduct of the 2023 elections.
First, On February 2022, President Muhammadu Buhari finally signed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill into law after seeking an amendment to the bill by asking the National Assembly to delete Clause 84(12) of the bill.
The practical application of section 84(12) of the Electoral Bill, 2022 will, if assented to, by operation of law, subject serving political office holders to inhibitions and restrictions referred to under sections 40 and 42 of the 1999 Constitution.
The President assented to the bill at past midday on Friday at a brief ceremony held at the Council Chamber of the Aso Villa in Abuja.
The President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, witnessed the signing of the bill.
Early February 2023, Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, demonstrated to Nigerians how the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, the machine works.
This was explained by INEC’s Deputy Director, ICT, Lawrence Bayode while featuring on Channels Television’s program on Wednesday.
Bayode demonstrated how election results will be uploaded using the BVAS machine.
He further revealed that INEC was currently configuring the BVAS machines ahead of the general elections.
This, however, lifted the morals of electorates to participate in the electoral process.
But on the day of the presidential elections, INEC failed to upload the presidential election citing a fault on the BVAS as the reason for not uploading the presidential election
President Buhari up to date has not issued a statement condemning this unfortunate act.
President Muhammadu Buhari violated the Electoral Act, after casting his vote at his polling unit in Daura, Katsina state when he openly displayed his ballot papers after voting.
His action negates the February last year signature he appended to the 2022 Electoral Act amendment Bill into Law.
Checks show that Section 129 (1) provides that “election-related or election-related symbols within the vicinity of a polling unit or collation Centre on the day of election is an electoral offense that attracts a fine of N100,000 or imprisonment for 6 months”.
The action displayed by Buhari has not been addressed by INEC chairman Professor Yakubu Mahmood who is the number one custodian of the electoral laws, yet looks away.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC budgeted a total sum of N355 billion for the polls in the 2023 fiscal year budget.
Recall that the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu had in December 2021 told the National Assembly that it would require N305 billion as projected expenditure for the 2023 elections.
Yakubu had disclosed this when he appeared before Senator Barau Jibrin, APC, Kano North led Senate Committee on Appropriations.
Yet voting materials were hardly enough and no serious advocacy was carried out. Again President Buhari looks away foiling contestations across the Country.
That singular action of President Buhari precipitated the violence, across the country, as the 2023 elections’ oppressive characteristics such as thuggery and lawlessness deepened the already suspected fraudulent electoral process.
There was a rambunctious gun shooting across the country.
Lagos, Rivers, and Edo States featured prominently in areas where thuggery effectively defied the electoral process.
Governors, Security Agents, and their co-travelers at INEC were manipulated through violence to falsify genuine results to favor their interests.
These three key actors aided by the unexpected silence of President Buhari brought courageous Citizens to their kneeling position still hoping that no “matter the matter” votes must count.
A renowned thug, MC Oluomo, was heard threatening on video recorded and posted that anyone who doesn’t vote for the ruling party in Lagos will be made to face molestation.
Reacting to the allegations when asked on a National Tv broadcast, the police force public relations officer, CP Olumuyiwa Adejobi told Nigerians it was a joke.
In Rivers State, the case was not any different.
The Peter Obi Support Network POSN, says governorship and houses of assembly elections in Rivers and Lagos states should be canceled over alleged irregularities.
The POSN has also called for the cancellation of the state house of assembly elections in Imo state, noting; “there is no governorship election in Imo state.
The states recorded incidents of violence during the voting exercise on Saturday.
In a statement on Sunday, Great Jonathan, POSN’s director of communications, said the elections in the aforementioned states violated the provisions of the electoral act.
Away from Lagos, Rivers, and Imo States, Thirty–three–year–old Idahosa Festus, was one of the three persons shot dead during the Presidential and National Assembly elections in Edo State, last Saturday, by some armed political thugs who invaded ward 9, in Ogheghe community, in Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area of Edo State.
The graduate of Mythological Engineering from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, left his base in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to vote in his hometown.
A stray bullet was said to have hit the now deceased Idahosa who hailed from Egbokor Community in Orhionmwon Local Government Area of Edo State and two other persons.
Festus and a mother of two, Elizabeth Owie died on the spot, while one other victim reportedly died on the way to the hospital.
Another man who was shot in the head is still battling for survival at an undisclosed hospital in Benin City, Edo State capital.
In Eresonyen Primary School in Uhuogua Community, Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State, some Unknown Gunmen invaded the voting center and carted away election materials.
The gunmen suspected to be political thugs invaded on Saturday with a no numbered black Audi Car between 10 and 11: am when voting had commenced and carted away some of the thumb-printed booklets
Voters who saw the danger made attempts to scamper for their safety when they were stampeded resulting in varying degrees of injuries sustained.
One of the caregivers of the IDPs, Pastor Evelyn Omigie who gave accounts of the incident, said the Eresonyen Primary School is part of Iguoshodi wards, Units 11 and 17 where voters from the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, and other inhabitants of Uhuogua community cast their votes.
According to Pastor Omigie, the Gunmen numbering about four, shot into the sky to scare unsuspected voters, disrupting the peaceful conduct of the local elections in the Uhuogua community.
This was corroborated by community leaders at uhuogua who decried the spate of invasion by the hoodlums.
Going forward, if Nigeria must avoid the 2023 travesty, there is a need to continue to advocate citizens’ participation in the appointment of the Next INEC Chairman.
Allowing an incumbent President of a ruling party and his cronies to appoint the Electoral Umpires, will mean Nigeria will sink further into corruption practices.
Nigerians must rise to stimulate all actions to get the participatory engagement of appointing a new INEC Chief or remain punished and take full responsibility for it.