Daily Independent (Lagos)
Michael John
10 November 2008
Prof Maurice Iwu is not a happy man - not that his happiness has ever been of any use to the rest of us. He had tried with the patience of a vulture, and the tenacity of a pit-bull to convince us the last election in Nigeria was the best selection (sorry I mean, "election") ever conducted in the chequered history of mankind. Jumping like a cat on hot bricks from one illogic to the other, the Professor maintained that the elections which were serially annulled by the Judiciary was the next best thing to happen to Nigeria since the invention of ewedu soup and abgu.
And last week when he was beginning to believe this lie, the American presidential election was done and this led to some inner turmoil. The tiny spark of light in him (the part folks call "conscience") began to prick him that the load of dark lies he was trying to foist on his soul might extinguish the tiny, wavering flicker completely and leave him in utter darkness. This inner wrangling is known in communication language as "dissonance." Professor Iwu had sought to repeat the lie so many times that he would begin to believe it.
The American Election interfered with this self- justification exercise. But the Professor is not someone to give up that easily, and let his conscience win a fair fight over him. "America should come and learn lessons from how we conduct elections in Nigeria," he told reporters last week. I agree that Prof. Iwu has a lot of lessons to teach Americans on how to conduct elections. Imagine that the old war veteran John McCain did not think it necessary to reach out to some former pals in the military and hire thugs to beat the crap out of the skinny bloody civilian called "Obama." He did not even have the common sense to rig the exercise in spite of the fact that voting was spread over days. And as if this was not bad enough for the election, it appeared that the Association of Nigerian Godfathers (ANG) had not exported the gospel of godfatherism to America.
"They should learn to keep a voter's register and they should learn to hold elections in one day," the enraged Prof. Iwu stated in media reports last week.
Prof Iwu has the entire thing figured out already. One of these days he would take a trip to America and teach them how to conduct elections. First, you keep the voter's register in one place so that you can tamper with it and rig the exercise. But these Americans are a queer bunch, they only know how to shoot, they do not know how to rig. If good old Maurice had his way, he would have taught them how to carry the election materials and run. And come to think of it, they have excellent sprinters and have dominated the short races lately.
"They should learn to hold presidential election in one day - not scatter it over several days as they do in early voting," Prof. Iwu ranted in the media report.
Prof. Iwu is right again. When some elections were overturned and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had to do it again, it was a tough proposition for the professor. All eyes were focused on each election and this minimized rigging opportunities and options. When you scatter the elections, you make it difficult to rig as the searchlights would move from one voting spot to the other. This does not sit well on the professor's mind and he is afraid that Nigeria might adopt this practice and checkmate the time-honoured practice of rigging.
There is still hope that Prof. Iwu would reconcile his psychological conflicts and settle his psychic accounts over the American Elections coming at the wrong time to expose the inadequacies of his own. Pointing at perceived flaws in the American Elections was a first step in INEC direction - other steps would follow.
Prof. Iwu sat transfixed to his seat as John McCain delivered his speech conceding defeat. There, the old soldier stood and thanked the American people for giving him a fair hearing and for picking Obama as their next president. Over in his bedroom, Gen Mohammedu Buhari must have screamed, "What a disgrace to the military! You fight on and on and on! When the election is over, that is when you begin your fight!"
Prof. Iwu had expected the man to accuse the electoral body of rigging and to promise his followers that the fight continues in the courts and tribunals. But there he stood and said he had called Barrack Obama and congratulated him on his victory and accepted him as his president and would work with him.
The staff of the electoral system in America must be poorer than church mice. First you do an election and you do not rig or tamper with it. Then you foreclose the chance of doing another one and getting government subvention for it. What in the world is going on in that country? No wonder the countries of Iraq and Iran call it the great Satan.
Then there was Obama winning all election. And I am willing to bet Prof. Iwu's first degree (don't mind the rumour-mongers, he has one) that he won the election without sorting the appropriate staff. How unfair!
Well I agree with Prof Iwu, we have a lot to teach these Americans. We should teach them how to use thugs, militants and the creation of mayhem. It is regrettable that George Bush was holed up in the White House instead of inviting Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to come and lecture him on how he could win the election for the Republican Party - Nigerian style. Bush did not have enough common sense to campaign with McCain and tell America that "this election is a do-or-die affair."
Simply because the economy was not doing well, he stayed out of the public eye. Obasanjo had a good laugh about that. The Nigerian economy has always been in a tailspin, but that never stopped Obasanjo from buying new jets, going everywhere and telling Nigerians, "I dey kampe!"
Well, may be we should not dwell too much on this because if Obama were a Nigerian, he would have lost to a consensus candidate at the party nomination exercise. But thank God for an Obama, which could only happen in America.
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