Time is no longer slipping. It is hemorrhaging.
For years, the Igala people of Kogi State have approached the ballot box with discipline, restraint, and a fading faith in the democratic promise. They have voted, mobilized, and waited; only to watch their collective will diluted, distorted, or outright erased. In Kogi politics, elections have become theatrical rituals, where outcomes are not earned through votes but imposed through orchestration. What should be choice has hardened into selection.
This is not a provincial complaint. It is an indictment.
The steady collapse of confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission in Kogi is symptomatic of a deeper national rot. When citizens believe results are manufactured before a single ballot is cast, democracy ceases to function; it merely performs. Participation becomes obedience. Hope becomes naivety. And institutions, once designed to protect the people’s will, mutate into instruments of its suppression.
As 2027 barrels closer, denial is no longer an option. Nigeria is racing toward a democratic cliff, not with the chaos of a sudden rupture, but with the quiet complicity of normalized injustice. The Igala experience exposes a dangerous truth: when electoral theft goes unchallenged, it graduates into policy; when manipulation is tolerated, it becomes tradition.
Fragmentation among the people has been costly. Disunity has served as oxygen for a system that thrives on apathy and fear. Silence has not preserved peace; it has fortified impunity. Every stolen vote has been a rehearsal for the next theft, every compromised process a lesson in how little resistance remains.
The demand now is stark and uncompromising. Credible vote counting is non-negotiable. Transparency is not a concession. Justice is not a slogan. These are the irreducible foundations of any republic that claims legitimacy. Anything less is fraud wearing the mask of governance.
The Igala must rise with ferocity of purpose; not in rage, but in resolve. To organize relentlessly. To monitor obsessively. To challenge aggressively. Democracy is not sustained by patience alone; it survives on pressure. Rights unasserted are rights surrendered.
This moment transcends ethnicity. If Kogi’s votes can be routinely violated without consequence, then no vote in Nigeria is sacred. The erosion may begin at the margins, but it always consumes the center.
History is merciless to societies that mistake endurance for strength. Nations do not collapse only through war; they rot through repeated betrayals that go unanswered. The clock is no longer ticking, it is screaming.
2027 is not a distant milestone. It is an approaching verdict.
And when that verdict arrives, it will be unforgiving to those who saw the decay, understood the danger, and chose silence over resistance.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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