Dodgy elections, democracy and divorce, By Dakuku Peterside

Nigerian elections and Nigerian marriages have a lot in common. Both should be sacrosanct. They are conducted with pomp and fanfare, and promises are made but kept in breach. Professions of loyalty and honesty are like a singsong. Like a marriage cements the relationship between two consenting adults supposedly in love, elections cement and clarify the relationship between the candidates and the electorate in defining power structures, agencies, and processes in a democracy.

An election is critical to measuring whether democracy is succeeding or headed for divorce and is part of the stress test for democracy. The presidential election of 25th February was a sign of bad marriage, but the governorship and state house of assembly elections show that if we do not care, we are heading for divorce from democracy. All the features of a marriage headed for divorce were displayed during the last elections.

The ramification of this dominant ideology is mindboggling. One can only imagine the chaos and mayhem that will descend on the state in subsequent elections if all political candidates resort to militancy and thuggery in the polls. It is dangerous to assume that candidates will consider violence and rigging as the only option for securing the people’s mandate in a future election.

The second sign is that money buys political influence. Money played a pivotal role in defining the last elections. There are accusations of vote buying, financial inducement of political actors, financing of violence and thuggery, and compromising securityagents and INEC officials. They sometimes acted in unison to truncate the people’s will.

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