In the last three or so weeks, two major beneficiaries of the perfidy that Prof. Maurice Iwu visited on Nigeria and its people in the name of election have come out to recommend Iwu for national honours.

First to do this was the Governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu who commended the INEC boss for conducting the best election he probably ever contested. How could it be otherwise given the tenuous way in which Governor Aliyu emerged as candidate of his party. His declaration as elected Governor itself did not go unchallenged.

The chorus for the national honour was taken by no less than the twice lucky of the God beneficiary, who had moved from the position of deputy governor to governor and now Vice President without much of a campaign in an election that in a saner country he has a moral deficit to contest, having served through the years of Alamieyeseigha in which he cannot exonerate himself from whatever excesses that his former boss had done. Goodluck has praised Iwu as the wiz kid of election, which of course he no doubt could be, given that election, like any other tool, could be used for good or for bad. The number two citizen, to use a terminology that sits oddly with the concept of democracy (how can there be a graduated citizenship when the society purports that all citizens are equal?), must be so grateful for what Iwu had done for him that he forgets there are people who have been cheated of their mandate by this same election wiz kid.

Poor election observers and journalists' report documenting innumerable election malpractices and irregularities can be dismissed as the agents of opposition parties. International observers' accounts of a deeply flawed election may be read as the ratings of former colonial masters with a mindset that does not see ex-colonials rising above their station.

But Adams Oshiomhole, as Governor of Edo State, is a historical fact that cannot be erased by whatever means. His very presence in the Edo Government House now means that Iwu and co-travelers had foisted a fake election result on the people of the State. But for the tenacity of Adams and the integrity of the Judges who tried the cases, Edo people would still be ruled today by an impostor. Edo was not just an accident of error. INEC till the very last was arguing that what it declared was the correct result.

Before Adams, there was also Liyel Imoke, now comfortably reinstalled for the second time in the Government House in Calabar. The court of appeal told us that no election for the governorship was conducted in that state in April 2007 and yet INEC had a result with which Imoke was sworn in as the Governor of the State in the first instance.

These are some of the more obvious outright falsification of results by an INEC led by Maurice Iwu. There are many other similar cases too numerous to bring here. But beyond falsification of results, there were also tales of woeful incompetence. It was this incompetence that led to the re-run in Sokoto and Kogi States and in Plateau Central Senatorial Seat among many other places. In all these cases INEC failed to adhere to the minimum requirement for even printing the ballot paper. In many places ballot papers were not available and millions of people were disenfranchised.

The re-run in Adamawa State, among others, brings another dimension: the deliberate manipulation to ensure that unfovoured candidates were not given any chance. Many other candidates did not have the stamina or resources or tenacity of Ibrahim Bapetel of the Action Congress and gave up their cases without pursuing them to their logical conclusion. In this, our legal system with its burden of prove thrown on the shoulders of the complaint and the high cost of litigation have aided to cover up a lot more of INEC's falsification of results, manipulation of the election process and other incompetent acts in the last general election.

All these tell us the sort of elections that Iwu and his INEC have conducted. It was one election that the courts have shown to be what election observers and ordinary people had long said: it failed in every department of credibility. This is not even to quote Yar'adua, himself, the chief beneficiary of Iwu's perfidy, who has repeatedly said the elections were flawed or the many critical voices embedded in the split ruling of the Supreme Court on the presidential election.

We therefore do not begrudge the beneficiaries of Iwu's election when they recommend him for honours. In this era of relativity, honor is simply about those who give and to whom they give such honours. It is also ephemeral. Time was when Hitler gave honour to many a German citizen. Now few would ever touch these honours. Mobutu had also given honours to many of people. So did Idi Amin, the terror of Uganda. In our shores, there are people still shouting that Abacha was the best thing that happened to the country. Why not, because of course like Iwu's beneficiaries, they had lived fat on the Abacha reign. Even more recent are the tales of those who only yesterday said Obasanjo was the father of the nation, who today will not be able to say this in public.

Anyone can define his/her honour and award them to whom they want. It is just their own, and not of all other people. Men and women of both good and bad pedigree have their own honours and have their logic of arriving at those decisions. There is however the beauty of history in that in the final analysis, it will deconstruct such honors, sieving out the real and enduring from the fake and worthless.

Let all those who want give Iwu a thousand national honours do so. Let them name all the Government Houses in the country after him. We will not contest their notion of good election because they have their right to hold their own notion of justice and fairness even if theirs do not measure up to what is acceptable globally. After all, like what the post-modernists have said, in the days of relativism meaning becomes elusive to words that we ordinarily use. In the end therefore we leave all to history to hand down its verdict, and surely history cannot be induced with a thousand, or even millions Ghana-Must-Come.