Though I haven’t yet collated all the information there is on the by-elections held by INEC last Saturday in Kogi, Bauchi and Kogi, it seems there was a lot of the usual PDP days’ rigging and vote-buying in these elections held under the APC we all generally voted for freely in 2015. This is quite sad.
But then what do you expect when the wine is old, even when the bottle is brand new?
APC has turned into a vehicle for elections mouthing Change platitudes. Its chief luck was/is General Muhammadu Buhari as flag, mascot and for the religious and worshipful, even a saint, and vote-grabbing deity of sorts.
Reports from observers suggest the senators of Bauchi, Katsina and the House of Reps of Kogi by-elections was a replica of the Ekiti elections. It was a contest of PDP types in PDP and the same types in its new incarnation in APC. The Katsina and Bauchi by-elections allegedly saw money changing hands for votes. There were no reports of serious thuggery unlike in Kogi where ballot box snatching and use of thugs was the order of the day.
Whether 2019 will be like that or not, what is not in doubt is that the innocence and saintliness of the APC that used to have the General Buhari aura as its stamp of cleanliness has finally been shattered by the many irregularities in Ekiti, in Bauchi, in Katsina and Kogi. In Ekiti, maybe it had to go the way it did because it was a contest of old foes — Fayose, the business-as-usual “stomach infrastructure” politician, and Fayemi the bookish intellectual who has learned that books don’t give you votes.
In Katsina and Bauchi, on the other hand, the governors are experienced PDP practitioners of politics who joined the Buhari bandwagon to get the votes in 2015. They expectedly wouldn’t allow any chance for the massed opposition they have accumulated since 2015 to shake the faith of their faithful supplicants in their ability to return “no matter what” in 2019.
The only hope for the opposition across the states is their ability to present a united front to tackle rigging, thuggery and vote-buying by generating more than a passing interest in the elections of 2019. The mass of the people have to be made more interested in the outcome of the elections in the same fashion the Buhari political train did before finally berthing in APC and winning the 2015 elections. A national consensus of the opposition is not quite likely; as such GMB still appears the surest bet in 2019 and beyond.
In politics as in most things these days you don’t discount any story you hear, especially with the concept of “manufacture of consent” the Western Media and Governments are masters at. They fly kites, mainly sponsored by the propaganda outfits of the intelligence services to see the do-ability of a course of action.
– Kabiru Muhammad Gwangwazo | Vanguard
