What Comment?
By UbongAbasi Ise
I
was following @FotMob tweets, and then I stopped at hilarious video of Kepa Arrizabalaga,
a Chelsea FC’s goal tender who stubbornly refused to be substituted during his
club Carabao Cup final clash at Wembley with Manchester City despite all
implorations and screams by coaching crew, match officials, players and the
spectators. My pretty fun was cut short when my phone laying on the floor two
feet away from my chair needed my attention as Alhaji Tekno’s song, Rara, came shrilling. One gentleman had called
to know my own comment on the Presidential and National Assembly elections held
on Saturday 23rd February 2019 in my dear state, Akwa Ibom. I didn’t
interrogate his motive for placing such demand on my table anyway, but I had to
fire back, what comment?
What comment could I make when our
electoral system is ailed and rotten? Would my opinion really make any meaning
in the elections where the Total Number of Registered Voters in Essien Udim
stands at 105,555 and at the end INEC says it could only accredited 14,467
voters while the same commission was able to accredited 24, 840 voters in Onna
that has Total Registered Voters of 69,312?
Are we to attribute this discrepancy to unexplainable voting apathy in Essien Udim?
Or was there incidence of war before the polls at Essien Udim whereby voting
population was badly decimated and less than 14% of them survived and managed
to come out to vote? Even in the war-torn Ukanafun, out of the Total Registered
Voters of 64,577, the Total Voters accredited to vote was 44,080, according to
INEC in Akwa Ibom. But in Essien Udim, 14,467 out of 105,555 were recognized by
Dr. Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner. Well, I have no comment
for this, please.
What do I have to say when the
wants of money and more money are all that eclipsed our voters’ thinking
faculty and influence their balloting decision? What comment when the craze for
raw cash is all that masticates individuals’ pride? What could I say when
candidates or principals lose the commitment of the most trustworthy at a fling
of wads of Naira? Can I provide a meaningful response when electorates swore to
give out their votes not for free? In the face of ideologically bankruptcy of
the political parties, roguery of the election management body, and the
electorates’ ravenous cravings for naira, elections in my state are the roots
of all manner of evils under the sun that offend the prim and the decent if
only we still have them around. Of course, I don’t have to comment.
Indeed, the political office-seekers have stained the
people’s lips with oil, how could the masses now complain of hunger? Their
palms are soiled with sauce too, how will they deny that they have no share of
the common patrimony? Where will they have the moral fibre to complain that
workers’ entitlements are not paid? Would they say that they don’t have roads?
Will the youths complain of no jobs, and will students languish of no
bursaries? Will our people now complain that little is being done by our
incumbent state government despite Akwa Ibom being the second highest beneficiary
from the Federation account not even to mention N51 billion Paris Club refund,
N17 billion Budget Support Facility, over N78 billion federal projects refund,
and several other monies? If the officials of the present administration are
using peoples’ money to buy votes from them, do vote-sellers still have to
worry about accountability, transparency, fairness and all other precepts of
democracy? When the intoxication emanating from vote-selling money would be
over, won’t the sellers repeat the old sorrowful song? Time will tell.
It appears that our government has systemized pauperism of
the majority for the sake of winning their votes anytime elections season comes
calling. The new code? hoard the state funds; provide employment sparingly; toy
around capital and human developmental projects; starve them of funds for over
three years, then buy their votes with their money on the election day. Period.
Is there any need to comment when hordes of youths with no
honourable jobs, no skills, no vision and no direction are being equipped with
arms by the political elites just to intimidate, maim and kill their very own,
and then snatch ballot boxes and other electoral sensitive materials? Anyway, I
don’t have anything to say in a society whose youths are developing Stockholm
syndrome and chose to protect the parochial interests of their oppressors that
denied them virtually all opportunities of meaningful living.
Besides brazen rigging, the two-pronged approach of
vote-buying and thuggery has become the mainspring of electioneering today.
What will I comment on this terrible trend? Where will this drift end all of us
in the future when monetization and militarization of politics becomes
established order? Is democracy degenerating to some system that is a vice in
itself? I don’t have to comment, please, I don’t have to.
Yes I am UbongAbasi Ise. For comment, send
SMS to 08189914609 | ubongabasiise@gmail.com
©The Sensor Newspaper
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