IT’S 10 DAYS TO THE GOVERNORSHIP ELECTIONS.
And you’re getting this dispatch late because I kept waiting for the final results to be announced, but our stone-age collating system made sure it took three days to do so. Hate the player and the game.

BUHARI CAME UP TOP, BUT…

After making Nigerians suffer through hours and hours of this, our incumbent president — Muhammadu ‘ToldyouIwasgoingtowin’ Buhari, has finally emerged victorious against the former VP —  Atiku Abubakar to win the 2019 presidential elections. The PDP isn’t having it though, Atiku too.

Now Atiku held his own, coming out victorious in states like Abuja (ouch Bubs!), Benue, Oyo, Anambra and his home state of Adamawa, but Buhari floored him with downright disrespectful numbers in other areas.

So disrespectful in fact, I decided to play a little game of…

This.Don’t.Add.Up.

Now first things first, the Chairman of INEC himself – Mahmood Yakubu,  has admitted discrepancies between the number of accredited voters and the total number of votes cast, a.ka, they don’t add up. He has played it down to the difference being less than 2% and insignificant, but for an election as dicey as this, not good enough.
Then we have Borno state. What doesn’t make sense isn’t the fact that 955 205 Borno citizens came out to vote, despite suffering through multiple bombings only the morning of the elections — they displayed the same tenacity in the 2015 elections, at the height of the Boko Haram attacks.
Nope. What’s odd is fact that 836 496, freshly attacked voters, picked the same guy that assured them the Boko Haram scourge had been defeated.
And then there was this mess. I tried to make sense of this — officials were trying to make it in time to watch Barcelona’s match? The guy voting thinks he has the cutest prints and was selfishly hoarding the ballot from everyone else??  See it here also. It just doesn’t add up.
 

Here Are Your Other Winners.

Congratulations Nigeria, here are some of the notable names that will be charged with the running of state affairs for the next four years:
Ibrahim Oloriegbe — the APC Senatorial candidate, now charged with representation of Kwara Central in the National Assembly. He defeats Senator Bukola Saraki, the erstwhile President of the Senate to assume this role.
Rochas Okorocha: the statue-happy Governor can now swap the ‘Excellency’ title for the next level ‘Honourable’ tag. He has been announced the winner of the Imo West Senatorial seat.
Shina Peller: someone is going to be adding another feather to his magical hat, because Mr. Peller has been declared winner of the Iseyin federal constituency seat.
Other winners include Remi Tinubu who continues business as usual with the Lagos Central Senatorial Seat. Stella Oduah of the ₦255m BMW fame that year, also won the Anambra North Senatorial seat. Likewise Orji Uzor Kalu — the winner of the Abia North Senate seat.
Patrick Obahiagbon, our favourite sesquipedalian (he taught me that word), has lost the Edo South Senatorial seat to Matthew Urhoghide, leaving only Dino Melaye, who won his senatorial seat  — with the very serious task of entertaining us, over at the National Assembly.

That said, here are all the things that led up to the February 23rd elections:

NIGERIA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

On February 23rd, registered Nigerian voters gathered at polling units nationwide to partake in the hot mess that was the 2019 general elections.

The events that transpired were so spectacularly bad, we would be remiss to not give notable mention to the key players responsible:

Thanks INEC.

…For proving 4 years and an added week will never be enough time, if you just plain suck at planning.

Despite 8 am being the advertised start time for voting, many polling units didn’t begin the exercise until much later. So much so, the voting period was extended to make up for tardiness and logistics issues. These logistics issues? Malfunctioning card readers INEC had 4 years to fine-tune, the late arrival of election materials and missing names on the voter lists.

Thanks for showing the world, African time is no respecter of occasions guys.

We Can’t Forget The Ballot Box Snatchers!
Even though a literal threat of death was in the offing for ballot box snatching, several Nigerians with an obvious cupio dissolvi went ahead to do so anyway. Delta State was hit hard, with 3 lives lost in addition to a number of ballot boxes being stolen. Edo State was also affected, with voting in at least 2 LGAs disrupted by ballot box snatching. Lagos State was a whole other ball game, with fiends seen here, taking a jolly post-snatch stroll, ballot boxes in hand. Bayelsa and Rivers State were also affected. About 128 people have been arrested so far for alleged electoral violence.

And Of course, The Unlooking Policemen!
Last week, word spread of the horrible neglect corps members were subjected to — with very little provisions made for their accommodation, following the postponed elections. This week, even worse news made the rounds.

While performing their grossly under-appreciated civic duty — corps members serving as ad-hoc staff in Bonny, Rivers State escaped grievous harm when their polling unit was attacked by at least 20 gun men.

A video surfaced of corp members scurrying in a farm, left to their devices; despite police being present. Most damning was this image of a corp member carrying his injured colleague, in full view of seemingly unconcerned police men. Disgraceful.

BUHARI AND THAT LICENSE TO KILL.

Every so often, Buhari lets it slip just how much he misses the good old military regimes. No time was more apparent than February 18th, when he let it be known (publicly!), that he had given the military orders to be downright ruthless to anyone who attempted to steal ballots or disrupt polling units. He further threatened that anyone who attempted to do so, just might be performing their last unlawful action.

Go off then Bubs! But can someone please inform him there is a legal process to dealing with ballot thieves that does not involve military executions? Also, being a ‘democratic’ president, he would do well to not give the military the license to unfurl anarchy on the state? Please and thanks.

12 Presidential Candidates Risk It All For The Bubs.

12 presidential candidates from parties no one knew was running anyway (what is a Yes Party? Nigeria Element Progressive Party? 😕 ), decided supporting Buhari’s run for presidency two days to the elections was a grand idea. Yay for everybody… moving on.

Televised Addresses For Us? You Shouldn’t Have!

No really Bubs, you shouldn’t have.
After 4 years of mostly avoiding presidential addresses, Bubu — remembering he has a major election to win, quickly shed his camera-shy skin and dealt us not one, but two largely unnecessary addresses in the short span of two weeks.
The first address, held on the February 14th, was mostly a circuitous brag on the achievements of his administration; and this unfortunate brain fart. The second address was to encourage Nigerians to come out to vote.

THE TERRORS OF THIS RACE.

Alhaji Yusuf Yahaya, the APC Chairman of Yandoton Daji, Zamfara State, tragically lost his life to unidentified gunmen on February 23rd, in what is suspected to be a political attack.

Another worrying development is the arrest of Buba Galadima, whose kidnap came only hours after it was strongly suggested by Festus Keyamo, following Galadima’s alleged announcement that the presidential election had been won by Atiku Abubakar.

But perhaps most disconcerting are the tens or perhaps hundreds of unknown Nigerian lives marred and maimed for the elections, whose identities have been conscripted to a mere figure, or jumbled up in the litany of ‘lives and property’ affected by the elections.

The end of my watch is drawing nigh!