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Our democracy must mean something; it must be substantive. Above all, it must be expressed through free, fair and transparent elections that respect the will of the people.Someone asked me what I would do if I lost my election petition appeal at the Supreme Court. In response, I said that as long as Nigeria wins, the struggle would have been worth the while.
I always chose freedom over servitude, whatever the personal discomforts my choice entails. When I joined politics, the critical challenge was easing the military out of power so that civilian democratic governance could be restored in Nigeria. It later became a very defining struggle, and, as one of the leaders of that struggle, I was targeted for elimination.
I offered that evidence procured with the assistance of the American court to our Supreme Court to help it to do justice in this case. I give this background to underscore that what we are currently dealing with is bigger than one or two presidential elections and is certainly bigger than Atiku Abubakar. It is not about me; it is about our country, Nigeria.
The alarm raised by Justice Muhammad and recently, former INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, offer Nigerians an explanation into why the electoral and judicial system have become the lost hope of the common man. Yet, that same INEC undermined the use of that technology during the elections and collation process and declared as winner someone who clearly did not win the presidential election. They then went further to take sides in the courts in a dogfight to defend their illegality.
I believe that we still have a small window to prevent these from happening. I still believe that we can rescue this country from the strange imposters that have seized it illegally and are holding it by the jugular. Let me caution that the leaders of those African countries that have completely collapsed into chaos never came together one day and agreed to collapse their countries.
One such headline recommendation was the concept of rotational presidency anchored on the principle of a six-year single term among the six geopolitical blocks. Even the notional idea of delineating the country along geo-political blocks was a creation of the 1995 conference. Another thematic recommendation at the conference was that the Federal Capital Territory should be given the democratic opportunity to elect for itself a mayor who shall emerge from popular franchise.
First, we must make electronic voting and collation of results mandatory. This is the 21st century and countries less advanced than Nigeria are doing so already. It is only bold initiatives that transform societies. Examples include France, Finland, Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal, Poland, Turkey and Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Mozambique, Madagascar and even Liberia where a run-off is expected to hold in the coming days.
The burden of proving that a document submitted to INEC is forged should not be on the opposing candidates in the election. It is never the responsibility of an applicant for a job to prove that the person who eventually got the job did so with forged documents.
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