A a Nigerian and a patriot of this wonderful Nation, I have found it appalling to watch Mr Obi’s press conference where he made spurious claims about the just concluded elections. As it has been asserted by democratic pundits that there is no perfect election anywhere in the world. If one considers Obi’s inroads into the Nigerian electoral space, it was dubbed as sentimental, Christ-like and ethnically appealing that he thrived. Given this circumstance, how did he expect himself to win a national spread vote, especially from the core North that is predominantly a Muslim population?
Perhaps, if one goes down memory lane, Donald Trump has till now refused to congratulate Joe Biden because he felt the election was rigged in Biden’s favour. This is a country they refer to as the ‘Bastion of Democracy’ and an opponent still feels that the election was rigged.
Going further, in the year 2016 when Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton slugged it out on November 8 Hilary Clinton alleged that the election results were hacked by Russian hackers backed by Vladmir Putin and that ultimately awarded more votes to Trump. That later became a congressional investigation that lasted for a while. In other words, allegations of election malpractices are not alien to Nigeria alone, it is an ongoing phenomenon in all democracies of the world except a few places.
Even in those places, there are still pockets of irregularities denting the integrity of such outcomes.
Therefore, I am bewildered by his spurious claims of electoral fraud in the elections that produced Bola Tinubu as the winner. Did he not imagine his loss from the beginning? It was obvious Tinubu was coasting home to victory while there were cracks within the PDP and he was not expected to garner enough votes from the core north.
Yusuf Afunku wrote via [email protected]
