Andy Ezeani
On Monday, May 29 2023, Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the All-Progressives Congress (APC), was sworn in as Nigeria’s president. That was sequel to the presidential election on Saturday, February 25,2023, which the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, as the returning officer of the presidential election, called in Tinubu’s favour.
The 2023 presidential election was not only hotly contested but also contentious. The election appeared rather urgent and of great concern to Nigerians, not just because every presidential election is a milestone of sorts, but essentially as a result of where the departing president left the country. To put it mildly, Buhari left Nigeria in the lurch. It is a fair assessment to say that he left the country far worse than he met it.
Nigerians saw the 2023 presidential election as an opportunity to make a statement on the direction they would want their country to chart under the next leadership. Did they make the statement? Yes.
The result declared by the election management body showed a total number of 93,469,008 registered voters for the 2023 elections. Of this number, 24,025,940 voters turned out at the presidential polls. Candidate Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC polled 8,794,726 ( won 12 states); candidate Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 6,984,520 votes (won 12 states); candidate Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) polled 6101, 533 votes (won 11 states plus FCT) and candidate Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) came a distant fourth by polling 1,496,687 (won one state).
Expectedly, the declared result was contested by the aggrieved candidates at the election petition tribunal. There were, for sure, disturbing evidence that the election deviated from the best standard in democratic elections. The Supreme Court, however, eventually affirmed the figures the election management body declared, paving the way for Tinubu to become president.
Over two years into the Tinubu presidency, with overwhelming attention now turned to the next election in 2027, the result of the 2023 presidential election has refused to be consigned to history. Steadily, in recent times, another version of the presidential election result is reasserting itself into public discourse.
It is a remarkably aberrant that halfway into a four-year presidency, the question of who truly won the last presidential election in 2023 is gaining topicality. Maybe it is for the records. It may also be as a reminder and a guide going forward? Or, perhaps, some people are battling with ghosts that refuse to let them be?
A number of prominent voices on the political terrain seem determined to let Nigerians and the world have what they present as the genuine result of the presidential election in 2023.
Unfortunately for these, the law only recognizes whatever result the INEC chairman calls. Interestingly, the authentic result that is now making the rounds in the media and elsewhere were not tendered at the presidential election petition tribunal. What, then, can anyone do with this belated document?
Three of the personalities at the forefront of updating Nigerians on the “real” result of the 2023 presidential contest are outstanding in their respective tendencies. First, there is Yusuf Datti- Baba Ahmed, the 56-year-old former legislator who was the vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party at the election in question. Datti can be fiery. He is at once indignant and resentful of a process and those who presided over what he sees as a crime.
Considering that Datti-Baba Ahmed should be the sitting vice president at the moment,if his version of the election result had been upheld, you can imagine the sense of injustice he feels. Think about it, someone who ought to be the vice president finding himself grossly shortchanged and cheated. Datti is hurt.
Then, there is Babachar Lawal, 70-year-old former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and a former APC chieftain. He agitates on principle. From the very moment Tinubu went for a Muslim-Muslim ticket, against the unwritten practice in formatting presidential tickets in the country, Lawal parted way with whatever came out from Tinubu’s alchemy.
The former Secretary to the Government of the Federation has insisted from the day after the presidential election result was released that Peter Obi, the LP candidate emphatically won the polls. He is only amplifying what he has been saying .
By far the most vociferous, characteristically, in pouring scorn on the result of the 2023 presidential election is Nasir el Rufai, former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, former governor of Kaduna State and a stalwart of APC until he went his separate way. El Rufai is a detailed mind. He argues his case with vigour.
He has been waving details of a version of the 2023 presidential election result he calls the authentic result, which showed that LP’s Peter Obi won the polls hands down. But el Rufai’s contention is problematic to deal with.
Although he stops short of entering a public mea culpa on his role in the monumental wrong, he charges the INEC chairman for, el Rufai leaves a wide gap in his charge with what he has not said in his part-confession
Unlike Babachar Lawal and Yusuf Datti Baba Ahmed, who were far from whatever APC contrived, el Rufai was right inside the coven. He was part of any wrong that was done. Even if he was of the Christian faith (and he is not) which sets unlimited stock on forgiveness of sins, no matter how heinous, it is extremely difficult to see how to exculpate el Rufai from the wrong he is now calling the world to note.
In the matter of subversion of the true result of the 2023 presidential election result, which he is levying against others, el Rufai is at best an accessory to crime, if not a major culprit.
The former Kaduna State governor’s campaign may succeed, to some extent, in delegitimizing Tinubu’s presidency, but after that, what? The deed has been done.
It will be interesting to find out from el Rufai what he now believes should be done. What punishment should be meted out to him and politicians of his ilk for wanton acts of despoilment of the Nigerian society? Is it enough for him to now inform the society of the subversion of the will of the people, which he was part and parcel of? He should go further and discuss atonement.
The reality is that Nigeria’s politics is in a peculiar mess. It is a gangster train, and el Rufai occupies a prominent seat therein. His epiphany is dubious. That is not to say that he does not have his facts.
