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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