A LOSER WHO THINKS HE’S PRESIDENT-ELECT

By Akin Ojumu

Before 2023, there have been six prior presidential elections conducted in Nigeria since 1999. Those elections have all been characterized by intimidation of voters, violence, all manners of election irregularities and rigging. Snatching and stuffing of ballot boxes, wholesale fabrication and falsification of election results were routine.

As horribly tainted as those past elections were, none of them was as sordid and perverted as the just concluded presidential election. No one in their right mind would call the exercise that Nigerians have just gone through an election. What took place on Saturday, 25th of February was a sham of the highest order. The charade is an embarrassment to all patriotic Nigerians.

Saturday’s vote was marred by violence and rigging. Several polling centers across the country opened hours late. In some areas, voting did not occur until Tuesday, 3 days after. Violent attacks and voter intimidation were reported across the country. Voters were bludgeoned and bloodied by thugs aimed at disenfranchising voters.

The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in the election was touted by INEC as a game changer. This was supposed to be the defense against vote rigging and a check against electoral shenanigans. The BVAS was going to be used to verify voters, using facial recognition and biometric data. 

When all the votes are cast and counted, BVAS was the magic bullet that’s supposed to transmit results directly from the various polling units straight to INEC IReV portal in real-time for the public’s viewing. All this was promised by INEC to ensure transparency and boost credibility.

Not so surprisingly, INEC woefully failed to adhere to its own statements and guidelines, which derive from its laws. The promise that election results would be uploaded to IReV went unfulfilled. Days after polls closed, many results had not been uploaded. The entire collation of results was nothing more than a shambolic exercise in allocation of numbers in a way to arrive at a predetermined outcome. 

Three days after polls closed, only 81,569 result sheets of the 176,846 polling units nationwide had been uploaded to IReV. As at the time INEC declared their preferred and predetermined candidate winner, results from more than 28,000 polling units had not been uploaded.

That’s not even the worst.

Realizing that violence, intimidation, ballot box stuffing and snatching have all failed, INEC went to plan B. In what can only be described as grotesque idiocy, INEC officials embarked on manufacturing results. Being the incompetent fools they are, the falsifications were shoddy and the fabrications, sloppy. 

Below are just two instances of sloppiness verified by Africa Check Nigeria.

Polling unit results from Sokoto state were uploaded to IReV for a polling unit in Oyigbo Central ward in Rivers state. 

Results uploaded on the IReV portal for the polling unit in Kakuri Gwari Ward/RA in Kaduna South LGA were actually from one of the polling units in Dawaki Tofa LGA of Kano State. 

This pattern of result re-engineering was replicated in polling units in Lagos, Imo, and Rivers where results from some polling units in the North were uploaded instead. If you want to be a crook at least be good at it. Not so with crooks in Nigeria. Like everything else about them, they are mediocre and lousy.

Let’s even consider the purported result of the selection exercise. Since 1999, candidates that have won presidential elections have always garnered votes that exceeded the combined total of the other contestants, and the winners have also won more states than their competitors.

In 1999, Obasanjo earned 18.7 million votes and 28 states compared to Falae’s 11 million and 9 states. 

2003: Obasanjo won 24.5 million votes and 27 states while Buhari recorded 12.7 million and 10 states.

The 2007 election ended with Yar’Adua receiving 24.6 million votes and winning 29 states, while Buhari had 6.6 million votes and 8 states.

2011 concluded with Jonathan gleaning 22.5 million votes and 25 states compared to Buhari’s 12.2 million and 11 states.

In the 2015 presidential election, Buhari secured 15.4 million votes and 21 states. Jonathan garnered 12.9 million votes and 16 states.

2019: Buhari recorded 15.2 million votes and 19 states while Atiku received 11.3 million and 18 states.

In the fabricated result that INEC declared for the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu was allocated 8.8 million votes, Atiku 6.98 million votes, and Obi 6.1 million votes. Each of the three candidates won 12 states.

Despite the massive rigging and manipulation, Tinubu could only manage a paltry 8.8 million votes, which is far less than the combined total of 13.1 million votes recorded by Atiku and Obi. 

All the proof you need to show that Tinubu lost the election is to look at the places where he was beaten. He lost in Lagos, his nepotic kingdom. He lost in Osun State, his father's home state. Tinubu lost in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. He lost in Kaduna, the capital of Northern Nigeria. He lost in Kano, the largest city in the North. Tinubu lost in Katsina, Buhari’s home. He lost in Sokoto, the spiritual capital of Northern Nigeria.

Bala Blu is a loser and a usurper. He’ll never be accepted as a legitimate president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.