By Farooq Kperogi
The title of my last column in the Nigerian Tribune on Saturday is, “Buhari, ‘remote control’ is worse than ballot snatching.” “Remote control,” remember, is Buhari’s euphemism for changing results after the vote, which he confessed to have done in the Osun State governorship election.
Well, he has done precisely that again in this presidential election. In the actual votes declared at polling units nationwide, which have been captured by instantaneous cloud-computing technology, Atiku won the election by at least 4 million votes in spite of unprecedented voter suppression and violence against PDP voters, but Buhari’s henchmen bribed and intimidated INEC officials into fudging the figures in parts of the northwest, the northeast, the southeast and the south-south, to give him a fraudulent lead.
This is in addition to massively brazen ballot snatching, ballot burning and outright, barbarous disenfranchisement in PDP strongholds in places like Lagos where, in spite of everything, Buhari only managed to squeak out a narrow “win.” In line with his directive to security forces, should he and his henchmen lose their lives for the unprecedented electoral heist they’ve perpetrated? Even Maurice Iwu would be alarmed by what happened in this shameless sham that is dignified as an election.
I pointed out many times in the past that Buhari had said he’d rather hand over to the military than concede to the PDP (because all signs pointed to his defeat in a free and fair contest even before the election took place). Being the insatiable monster of power that he is, he countenanced any and all tactics his henchmen were prepared to execute to retain him in power.
That was why he refused to sign the Electoral Bill, which would have frustrated the rigging his minions perpetrated in this election. He also knew, as I pointed out in a previous column, that his blatant rigging would invite a robust judicial challenge, and its overturning would be a slam dunk in an independent, unpredictable Supreme Court. That was why he exploited CJN Onnogen’s asset declaration infraction, which most government officials, including Buhari, are guilty of to illegally remove him and replace him with a pliant, acquiescent alternative.
I and many other independent voices have done our bit. I hope the opposition political parties, not just the PDP, unite in not just protesting the outcome of this fraudulent “election” but also in letting the world know that Buhari has murdered the last vestige of democracy that existed in Nigeria. Nigeria is now officially a fascist state. The next four years won’t be pretty, Nigerians. You have been warned.