By Abdu Rafiu

As it is in the nature of elections, there is dancing and rejoicing; there is celebration. That is in the community of winners. In the circle of losers, there is gritting of teeth, squeezing of mouth; sorrow and disappointment stalk at the doorstep and there is recrimination: How are the mighty fallen! Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi said Atiku Abubakar got the ticket to fly the ADC flag through irregularities. Amaechi alleged that there was widespread voter disenfranchisement.

Mohammed Hayatu-Deen spoke in the same vein. He does not believe the election was fair. Amaechi’s supporters dismissed the primary exercise as a sham. He lost to Atiku who secured 52,000 votes by a wide margin. That was only in Imo State. Amaechi scored 7,659 votes whileHayatu Deen received 1,121. The ADC returning officers said the primary election was orderly, peaceful and transparent.

Such was the depth of their anguish and strength of the rejection of the presumptive outcome of the primaries that Hayatu-Deen and Amaechi boycotted the last lap of the exercise which was the announcement of results. Amaechi’s support groupdecided to boycott the announcement of the results.

At the time of their action, the group, Movement for Amaechi’s Presidency, it was the result in Imo State alone which had been announced and Atiku Abubakar won. The supporters saw the trends in the scores. The movement alleged that what they saw was not a direct primary election but a secret selection with the connivance of agents of the former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar. They spoke of the process being moved to secret locations without the knowledge of the agents of the other contestants, in violation of the Electoral Acts. Indeed, the movement claimed that primaries were not held in many wards across the state.

Amaechi said the process of the exercise was flawed; it did not meet the basic standards of transparency, credibility and fairness. And one begins to wander: What has changed among our political gladiators!

In his words: “Following reports of widespread voter disenfranchisement in most parts of the country during the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential primaries yesterday (Monday May 25), I unequivocally reject the concocted results being announced.

“There is no way that about eighty per cent of members of the party were not allowed to vote, and you expect me to accept such results. Then what makes us different from the others?”

Amaechi said the transgressions of vote buying, result manipulation and vote suppression for which the All Progressives Congress had been criticised were what featured in the ADC primaries as well.

According to him, ADC was founded to give Nigerians an alternative political platform to raise the voices of the downtrodden and rescue the country from “impunity and gross mismanagement.”

Hayatu-Deen said in his X handle that he was boycotting the result announcement because of reports of widespread rigging. He tweeted: “I will not be attending the announcement of the ADC Presidential Election results today. I am concerned by reports from across the country of widespread vote rigging, some of which I myself observed, and will, therefore, be taking advice on my next step.”

In Imo State, there were 305 wards. The results were collated at the ADC state secretariat in Owerri the state capital. The leader of the party’s national presidential primaries electoral panel for the state, Eko Atu, said the exercise was well coordinated, transparent and peaceful. He said the successful conduct of the polls reflected the party’s commitment to democratic principles and credible internal processes.

Contrary to the impression given by Amaechi’s support group, Eko Atu, hailed the election as orderly in all the wards throughout the state and was full of praise for the state party leadership led by Professor James Okoroma whom he said provided a conducive atmosphere that enabled the electoral panel to successfully discharge its responsibilities.

Atiku received decisive victories in Kano, Lagos, Sokoto and Kebbi. In Lagos, he scored 37, 779 votes while Amaechi garnered only 6,791 and Hayatu-Deen, 2,261. In Kebbi, Atiku had 65, 153 votes and Amaechi 5, 931 while Hayatu-Deen got 454 votes. In Kano, Atiku polled 155, 995 votes while Amaechi got 15, 914 votes and Mohammed Hayatu, 9, 994.

At the end of the day, the final collation of the results from across the 36 states and Abuja took place at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja and this saw Atiku Abubakar taking the trophy and brandishing the party ticket to fly its flag in January next year. The returning officer, Tunde Ogbeha, pronouncing Atiku Abubakar winner, said the former Vice-President polled 1,846,370 while Amaechi scored 504, 117 to come a distant second and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen 177,120 votes. The voting took place on Monday and collation began on Tuesday and ended the following day.

How Amaechi could have thought he was going to floor Atiku, in the primaries— a veteran, who has cultivated friendship everywhere among his party members,beats imagination. What magic was he going to use? Atiku has been in the running since 1992. Good of Amaechi, however, that the scale dropped from his eyes and he later changed his position. He said in a statement he issued in Abuja, and I quote him: “Kudos to the ADC for leading the way and being the only party to have held nationwide primaries for the presidential ticket. This is what true democracy looks like.”

The cry of irregularities, party marginalisation, disenfranchisement is on the rooftops nearly everywhere the All Progressives Congress also held its primaries. The complaints surfaced in the NDC as well. A great many, especially those in legislative houses who have found the possibility of their returning to their seats doubtful, indeed blighted, after losing in the primaries, are running from pillar to post, from party to party in search of platforms that can raise their hope of getting back to the legislative houses so that it is the larger society that would eventually determine their fate on judgment days in January.

On Wednesday, The Cable online newspaper published a report of three members of the House of Representatives defecting from APC to Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC). According to the digital newspaper, notices of their defection were read by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas during plenary on Wednesday. The defectors are Rabiu Bala who represents Jama’are/Itas-Gadau federal constituency of Bauch. He left APC for PRP. Abubakar Zango (Yola North/ Yola South/Gire federal constituency, Adamawa) and Abdullahi El-Rasheed (Dukku/Nafada federal constituency, Gombe) quit the ruling party for the ADC.

The defection bug has bitten several members of the House of Reps since the beginning of the year and only on Tuesday, eight of them defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Allied Peoples Movement (APM). Three lawmakers similarly moved from the APC to the PDP and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC). All of this was triggered mostly by primary election results. In NDC itself there are complaints in the Lagos chapter of manipulation of primary polls results in favour of the city fathers’ anointed candidates. Some members of the state executive committee alleged that the conduct of the primaries in the state fell short of expectations, arguing that the party guidelines were ignored to pave way for manipulation. The whole exercise was marred by irregularities, according to them, also by lack of transparency and decisions that sidelined the interest of party members.

The disputation over the primaries is more widespread in the All Progressives Congress, being the biggest of the parties. The crisis is predictably fuelling fears among party members of grave repercussions for the party, come 2027 when the general elections will be held. Major figures in the party, for instance, are defecting exporting the assets they represent to the opposition parties, particularly the rejigged NDC and the latest bride in town! No fewer than 26 legislators in the Lower Chamber are not returning to the House. They lost their tickets.

The aggrieved complain of imposition of candidates, and consensus candidacy, which they see as the tools in shutting them out of competition to realise their political dreams.

Fourteen were disqualified during screening. Former deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege is one of the aggrieved. He lost the APC ticket to fly the party flag in the primaries at Delta Central Senatorial District. He too has run to NDC saying, “I will not remain a sitting duck in a party where I cannot advance the interests of Delta Central, Delta State and Nigeria.” The erstwhile Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami, who is gunning for the governorship of Gombe State is another aggrieved candidate. To realise the ambition, after losing the bid in APC train, Pantami has defected to PDP with his “Pantamiyya” vanguard. In Benue, in Kano, Ekiti, Plateau, Kwara, Edo Cross Rivers, Lagos and Rivers, the stories are the same swelling disaffections and widening cracks in the party.

What is even shocking are complaints of frustration to access the appeal mechanism the party itself set up even going by the leadership recognition that politics is competition and conflicts are inherent in competition. APC National Chairman, Nentawe Yilwatda had said: “Politics is competitive, and when thousands of aspirants are contending for limited positions, disagreements are inevitable.”

A governorship candidate in Benue, Dr. Jeffrey Kuraun who has, to no avail, found any response from the appeal committee said: “The inability of aspirants to access the appeal committee undermines credibility of the entire dispute resolution process and raises fundamental questions about whether the process was deliberately designed to frustrate legitimate complaints…A political party cannot claim commitment to democracy while aggrieved members access to the very mechanisms created to resolve disputes fairly.”

Are we to believe that the foregoing should be seen as signs of things to come? Should they be regarded as mere dress-rehearsals of the grand finale come 2027? I hope not.

Little wonder Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said: “Human nature, if it changes at all, changes not much faster than the geological face of the earth.” At every electoral cycle what we have demonstrated so far is our penchant, our proclivity to cut corners. It is fraud, manipulation and imposition.

That is different from some party members in which the Party has special interest because of their debating and legislative values and certain party interest they bear dearly. The National Secretary of APC, Ajibola Basiru, trying to console the aggrieved, did drop hints that the party would look into cases of such reserved representation.

Of course, the aggrieved would call it imposition. Such should be met with cogent explanations seeking understanding and the humongous sums they paid on expression of interest and to obtain forms should be refunded to them.

All said, however, we have a long way to go as a people. Our standards are too low. It is all more about power, influence and money, and least about character and selfless service.

How is it done in the Western world that they do not go through our kind of acrimony. It calls for reflection. INEC must know that it has herculean tasks in its hands.

The greatest reflection we must all do is in answering the compelling question: What is the purpose of human existence on earth? It is an urgent individual invitation to contemplation in these times of darkness gradually engulfing the world.We must seek knowledge, higher knowledge!