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36—SATURDAY Vanguard, NOVEMBER 23, 2019 The dust is settling. The autopsy must begin. And we can start with Mbaise, Okene, Southern Ijaw or Obio Okpor. Long ago, during the Maurice Iwu days, I once went to my village to vote. On election morning, I went to the polling unit beside my family house. I met a bemused presiding officer and two other officials. Some people clustered around them. The story was simple. They had arrived with the election materials . Before they could settle down, two thugs with machetes jumped out of the bushes, slapped them and seized the ballot papers and the result sheets. And disappeared. I waited a while and exchanged banters with village folks. As we waited, some other thugs arrived on two motorcycles. They came with machetes. But they came late. The materials they came to steal had been stolen by another group. They left frustrated. We joked about the rivalry of the wolves. We wondered why the government bothered with the empty rituals of elections. The presiding officer joined us in throwing curses around. Later that night, I met the thugs that hijacked the election materials. They said they took the ballot papers to their house for thumb printing. They filled the result sheets too. They brought them back to the polling booth later in the evening. And they went with that presiding officer to the collation center where he tendered them as authentic results. They were commissioned by a politician. They settled everyone involved. They said that was ‘how it was done’ . I understood ‘how it was done’. That was the Obasanjo / Maurice Iwu era. That was the season of ballot box stuffing. When INEC made the use of card readers compulsory we jubilated. No one could hijack ballot papers and thumb print and stuff the boxes any longer. But our joy was short-lived. Vote buying crept in and became the dominant evil. Vote buying meant that voters rather than thugs would be paid. That was perhaps a lesser evil. But it appears that vote buying has even become a little outdated. Some old demons have returned. Ballot boxes are again being rampantly hijacked. But they are smashed rather than Mbaise, Okene, Nembe, Obio Okpor: The Electoral Abracadabras of 2019 stuffed. The idea is to damage the contest wherever you may be beaten silly. We saw it in Lagos around Ago Palace road. We have seen many clips of Kogi where armed youths stormed polling units and smashed ballot boxes and shredded ballot papers. But these demons alone cant account for the miracles that have become rampant. These are destructive demons. The miracles are perhaps works of more creative demons. These creative demons seem capable of turning mole hills to mountains on paper. The INEC, the police and the DSS must huddle together in a locked room and tease apart , and dig. Take Okene for instance . There was near total PVC pick up. 95% percent of those who collected personal voter’s cards (PVC) turned up to vote. One party got almost all the votes. Let’s put Okene in proper perspective. Before the Lagos governorship elections in march , about 5.4 million people collected PVCs. Only about one million people voted. So less than 20% of those with PVCs turned out to vote. In Enugu, by march, about 1.8 million people had collected their PVCs. During the Enugu governorship election only about 450,000 people turned out to vote. That means only about 25% of those who collected PVCs bothered to vote. These elections were equally hotly contested. So we have to study how Okene managed to conjure a 95% voter turn. We could learn something from that research which could be used to stimulate apathetic voters elsewhere. Obio Okpor was perhaps more colorful than Okene. But Obio Okpor has a reputation. So we can say that Obio Okpor is the theatre of electoral magic. In Imo, the largest local government in population is Mbaitoli. But in the last governorship elections, it was in Abhor Mbaise that magic happened. The three Mbaise local government areas have a combined total population of about 700,000. Imo has an estimated population of about 5 million. Imo has 27 local government areas. The three Mbaise local governments gave a certain candidate about same number votes that the other 24 local governments gave him. We know these things can happen, his kinsmen could have shown extra ordinary solidarity. Or they could have sworn to an oath to vote, and to vote only him. But INEC and security agencies must study these miracles and understand them. They could help deepen democratic participation. In Bayelsa, a few days ago some miracles happened too. Nembe and Southern Ijaw turned in some results that astounded everyone. These results may meet legal requirements for validity but they create credibility problems for the electoral process. In a state controlled by one party , another party scores 95% of the votes cast in a local govt area in a hotly contested governorship election. Not only are the votes mopped up so exclusively , the quantity of votes gathered fits no projections. Some creative demons have been fingered. These creative highway demons are thought to operate somewhere between the polling units and the collation centers. They step in and simply alter the result sheets or replace them with new ones, and step aside. That is a plausible explanation. That could be why even without committed efforts at vote buying, a 95% turn out amongst those with card readers can be achieved. We can allow the INEC , Police and DSS huddle together and do an autopsy. And find out how these things happen even though INEC has compulsory card reader accreditation in its guideline. Then there is this other demon. It may have operated the day Imo governorship election results were announced. It’s an irresponsible demon. I don’t know what else to call it. The returning officer of Imo governorship elections is a professor. Imo state has 27 local government areas. The constitution requires that the candidate with a majority of votes can only be announced a winner if he has 25% of votes cast in at least two thirds of local governments areas. The Imo returning officer who is a professor announced a winner. The candidate whom he announced as winner has 25% of votes cast in only about 12 states instead of 18. INEC accepted that announcement and asked aggrieved persons to go to court. I haven’t been able to understand how the professor worked out his own math (2/3 x 27) . He has left millions of school children baffled. It possible that some plantain mathematics is used in Banana republics to solve simple election questions. I believe these miracles have to be studied and understood. They could be the key to the unlocking of our great potentials. Iread with shock the story of a woman who requested her husband to allow her sleep with his friend to get pregnant since the husband had low sperm count. You want your husband to give you permission to sleep with his friend. What a request? As I was still thinking about it, I saw a comment on Facebook that “before the advent of the whiteman, this was a standard solution in Igboland for impotence in men. The Igbo culture tolerated it because fatherhood belongs to the man who… paid the bride price and not the sperm donor.”If I may ask, if truly such a culture existed, did it also detail the woman, as this woman did, to specify the man to impregnate her? On a number of occasions since this column started, I have thought of writing on childlessness, but I always jettisoned the idea. I always feel that, since I am not in their shoes, I might not be able to capture the pain and frustration of childless couples. My closest experience to childlessness was when a close female friend (a very baaad girl) of mine, during our single days, asked me if I had ever impregnated a girl. When I answered in the negative, she told me it is possible I had low sperm count. The thought haunted me and only stopped when my wife got pregnant with our first baby. In the last twenty five years, as people of my generation started getting married, I had close friends in childless marriages. Happily at least 90 per cent of them went on to have children after waiting sometimes for 16 years. One of them adopted, while one is still childless. Children are a handful. At every stage of their lives you have to deal with issues. Between when they are born and when they start talking, you must figure out what they want at any time. Very few things frustrate a parent as a child crying and you are unable to figure out what the issue is. You do everything possible, yet the child is still crying. Or is it babies who stay and keep parents awake all night, then by 6am they start sleeping? Meanwhile, parents have to go to work. How can you be effective in the office Handshake beyond the elbow when you had a sleepless night? By the time they are toddlers, they are going all over the place and you have to keep an eye on them always before they come to harm. There are issues at every developmental stage of children. Parents scarcely breathe until children become adults. Thereafter, parents still keep an eye on them. Parenthood is a lot of “hassle.” Notwithstanding, children bring enormous joy and fulfillment; they keep On a number of occasions since this column started, I have thought of writing on childlessness, but I always jettisoned the idea. I always feel that, since I am not in their shoes, I might not be able to capture the pain and frustration of childless couples the house warm; they make life feel so complete. There is scarcely an African couple who does not want children. Childlessness is still seen as an aberration in this part of the world. The pressure and taunts are enormous. So the desire of every couple to have children is understandable. Once in a while, I have tried to empathise with childless people to see if I will be pushed to do some of the funny things some of them have done. I know for certain, that even if I had low sperm count, as my friend suggested, I would NEVER encourage my wife to sleep with someone else to get pregnant. As an Urhobo man, it is repulsive; as a Christian, there is no place for it. How do I parade the children as mine when I know they are not mine? How do I sleep well? This woman talked about sleeping with her husband’s friend as if it is that straightforward. Unless she was already sleeping with the guy, who told her that the guy will flow with her plans? Even if the guy sleeps with her and she gets pregnant, then nine months later, she is delivered of a baby, he will notice the coincidence unless he is dumb. Then he will begin to watch out as the baby grows. If he has strong genes, the baby will look like him or have one of his features (complexion, lips, nose, ears, shape of head, etc.). Then it is not only he that will know, family members and circle of friends will also notice the resemblance. Over time, a paternity case will arise and you know where the pendulum will swing. There are many people unknowingly answering surnames different from their biological fathers’. Over time in history, some hidden secrets have been revealed. Some were very messy. It is not the kind of mess you want to be entangled in. This lady was too hasty. They have only been married for a few years. There are couples who waited for 25 years or more before having children. If her husband’s problem is actually low sperm count, there are modern solutions and some of them are very natural. All you need is patience. Over time, the sperm count increases and the man is able to make a woman get pregnant. Unfortunately, patience is not one of her strongest points. Apparently, the husband is rich and she is worried about the riches. She is worried that, without children, her place in the family is shaky. Relatives of her husband might undermine her and inherit their wealth if anything happens to her husband. This obscene attachment to material things is what has led her into this mess. She said she “needed a child to consolidate on my marriage.” The marriage she wanted to “consolidate” is what is now slipping through her hands. How can a normal woman in this age ask for permission from her husband to sleep with his friend? Let me ask the womenfolk; even as patrilineal as Nigeria is, how would you feel if your husband asked you for permission to sleep with that your beautiful, sensuous and well-endowed friend? You can see humans have problems. Here is a wife of a rich man, who probably has all her material needs catered for, doing dumb things as a result of childlessness. But I can also assure you that there is a woman out there with children, whose husband is not well off, doing or looking forward to doing dumb things to get money. Sometimes, we need to ask ourselves what we really need. Even though her husband refused, adoption would have been more honourable, but our society also stigmatises the act. Does the extended family accept adopted children as their grandchildren, cousins, nephews and nieces? Our society places too much burden on people and force them to do stupid and dumb things. But it is still up to the individual to do the right thing. Meanwhile, I just hope that her husband would reconsider, forgive her and take her back.
C M Y K My phone ‘died’ on me for nearly two weeks last month. It was an unnerving experience. Unnerving because I didn’t realise how dependent I am - we all are – on that little flat gadget we can’t seem to let out of our sight for a second. It is, for many, more faithful than a dog, more intimate than a lover and more efficient than a secretary. Unfortunately, it could also be more addictive than cocaine. It is the ultimate alter ego. Embedded in those tiny chips is the entire life of their users including secrets they would not want even their best friends to know. Phones come in various shapes and sizes. But whatever the shape or sophistication, the aim is the same; to take over the life of their owners. And we willingly let them. To the extent that all you need is a day with someone’s phone and you would be able to profile the person accurately enough to live in that person’s world comfortably. The second reason it was unnerving is because it happened when I desperately needed to be reached. The first sign of trouble occurred so innocuously that I didn’t realise the gravity of it. My brother had called to say he couldn’t reach me on my regular number. I use a phone with dual sim for convenience but hardly use the other number. I looked at the phone. The known number showed no network. I shrugged thinking it was a temporary thing and continued watching my Saturday sports programme. Thirty minutes later, my wife said she was on her way. She had a function her friend had called to pick her for. An hour later, I was dressed for my own outing. I went downstairs. The car was there but the driver was, as usual, nowhere to be found. Impatient and slightly imperious, I reached for my phone. The two numbers had no network. I booted; no response. I switched off and on; no response. I had to humbly beg a security man to use his phone. The driver came scampering from nearby. He had naturally assumed I would call him. I got into the car Fact actor ory y setting wondering how we used to get around without a phone. I also realised I could neither reach nor be reached by anyone. And that made me uncomfortable. I switched off the phone for about ten minutes hoping it would reset itself. It didn’t. Just then, the driver’s phone started ringing. He ignored it as he had been told to do when driving. But the persistence of the caller made both of us uncomfortable. He glanced at the phone. ‘It’s madam’ he said. I took the phone from him. My wife had been involved in a serious accident near the stadium in Surulere. An out-ofcontrolvehicle had leapt over the kerb and railings from a side road and landed on the roof of their moving car smashing the glass and compressing the car.The driver of the offending car tried to run away on realising the gravity of his action and the possibility of casualties. He was quickly apprehended by onlookers. The disoriented driver was, wait for it, a policeman. My wife had tiny cuts on her body but there were no fatalities from either car. They were on their way to the police station at Alaka, Surulere. I looked at my phone again. The two numbers still showed no service. I felt impotent. If there was ever a time I needed to make calls, to reach out, it was then. What a time for a phone to die. Monday found us first at the police station for statements and later at the doctor’s for a check- up.Not to our SATURDAY Vanguard, , NOVEMBER 23, 2019—37 surprise, the traffic officers wanted us to pay for towing the vehicle. Nobody didany ‘on the spot marking’ of the cars. Nobody attended to the victims except sympathetic bystanders who brought water, ice blocks and analgesics. The car was a write-off but it didn’t matter. Somebody could have needed urgent medical attention but it didn’t matter. No first aid was administered. None was thought of. That is how unfeeling and unprofessional our law enforcement officers are. Not to our surprise, the police were up to their usual games. We should be happy nobody died, they said. We should be happy the car was comprehensively insured, they said. We would have to pay a certain amount to get a police report and a VIO report.We were the victims, but we were to pay for towing. We were to pay for reports. We were to pay our medical bills. That is our Lagos. That is our Nigeria. Meanwhile, the drunken police officer who happens to be a MOPOL officer was not impressed on to pay for anything. In fact, he might get away free from the look of it. The police seem obviously unwilling to prosecute or even discipline him. This is unfortunate because he is an unstable officer – his wife confessed to spells of incoherence - and it could happen again. Next time it could be fatal. Next time the victim could be a top politician’s wife. Or a top policeman’s wife. Or even the DPO himself. Put together, the phone must have The first sign of trouble occurred so innocuously that I didn’t realise the gravity of it come to life for maybe four hours in those three days. I took it to where I bought it from because it was still under warranty. I was told it would have to be sent to the owners of the brand for repairs. But it had to revert to factory setting. This meant returning it to its original state. It meant transferring all the stuff in the phone’s memory to a computer in theirshop. I thought of all the sensitive, saucy and raunchy stuff on the phone not to talk of personal information which could now be available to the operator should he decide to be curious. Suppose he decided to sell stuff to a ‘yahoo boy’? I felt vulnerable and slightly naked. It also meant that my life had temporarily gone back to factory setting as well - what it used to be before phones entered it. I went back to my first love, the written word. The first three of the promised seven days were sheer bliss as I had time to read things I had filed away. But then it meant no messages to check first thing in the morning, last thing at night and a few hours in between. I started to feel cut off from my world as I had grown to know it - the world I felt was too flirty and shallow. By the end of the week I was craving for my phone like a man needing a fix and was willing to buy another phone if it wasn’t going to be ready. I thought I could do without those phone Apps because of the distractions of the social media even if that wasat the expense of a convenient access to information. But those ten days proved me wrong. The murder of Nigeria’s electoral conscience did not start when Mrs. Salome Abuh was locked inside her home and burnt alive because of her opposition to a second term for Governor Yahaya Bello. It also did not start with those policemen who flew the helicopters that threw teargas canisters to disperse voters who believed that they were supposed to come out to vote. Or with the policemen who surrendered their authority to “fake policemen” who reigned terror on the citizenry in Kogi and Bayelsa last Saturday. It certainly did not start with those ‘civil society businessmen’ who till last Tuesday were hanging around Government House, Lokoja to be mobilized to address the media in support of a free and fair election. The murder of conscience started well before. It started with the electoral umpire who told Nigerians that it was going to conduct a free and fair election but in the end conducted the worst election in the history of the country. It is telling that the umpire of the war that took place a week ago has yet to invent a phrase to exculpate itself from blame for what is unquestionably the worst election in the history of Nigeria. Until 2019, the 2007 General Election conducted by Prof. Maurice Iwu was generally regarded as the reference point for election irregularities. However, no more! With what happened last week, Prof. Iwu’s record may well have been sanitized with the consequence that the blueprint for electoral success in Nigeria may have been See No Evil, Hear No Evil INEC wholly redefined. It is now being said that those who are interested in politics will no longer have to campaign. What need is there for you to campaign when it is not likely to help you. Strategists are now saying that the easier path to victory is for candidates to stock arms, compromise election officers, and buy up the security agencies. Pronto, INEC will return you as the winner. Those who protest can go to court! Indeed, the refrain from election managers has been to assert that INEC was not responsible for the security meltdown in the two states. Indeed, it has been a pity watching one of Nigeria’s finest souls, Mr. Festus Okoye who distinguished himself as a genuine civil rights advocate right from Kaduna acting as a spokesman for the electoral chaos that happened in Kogi and Bayelsa last weekend. Remarkably, Mr. Okoye’s vacant position in the civil rights community is now being taken over by the charlatans who hang around Government Houses negotiating against the truth. What a sweet thing it would have been if Mr. Okoye had taken the consistency of truth to INEC in a way that Mr. Mike Igini has been globally acknowledged to have done. Remarkably, the developments in the two states where election took place happened as President Goodluck Jonathan celebrated his 62nd birthday. Dr. Jonathan was celebrated this week as the man who affirmed that his political aspiration was not worth the blood of a single Nigerian. How remarkable it would have been if the echo of such had continued at the highest levels of government. However, the question remains as to whether the outcome of the election would have been different if the two states were not turned into war zones? In Kogi for example, Governor Bello had everything going for him after the fiasco of the PDP governorship primaries. The same violence that the PDP campaign complained was used against it in the main election was apparent in the PDP governorship primaries. Even the mannerism of the PDP candidate was something that oozed Strategists are now saying that the easier path to victory is for candidates to stock arms, compromise election officers, and buy up the security agencies arrogance that brought some to ask whether it was not better holding on to Bello with all the baggage than allowing another untested person. Similarly, in Bayelsa State, the defeat of the PDP candidate in the hands of David Lyon who many did not hear make a campaign pitch was against the background of the personal political permutations of the outgoing governor, Seriake Dickson. Could Lyon have won without the violence that shadowed the contest last Saturday? The answer remains in the realm of uncertainty given the cold shoulder the majority of the Bayelsan elites gave to Dickson’s political foibles. The answers remain hazy. But what is not hazy is that in Bayelsa and Kogi scores were killed on election eve, during the election and pitiably for Mrs. Abuh even after the election. In a saner society, the blood of Mrs. Abuh should have triggered a revulsion across political boundaries to birth a new system. But not with folks whose consciences have been deadened!
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