Attempts by opposition politicians to delegitimise the 2023 presidential election are wasteful, says Khalid Ahmed
Since the results of the 2023 presidential election were announced in the early hours of 27 February, opposition politicians have vociferously attacked the Independent National Electoral Commission and its Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, claiming that the electoral agency falsified the outcome.
Leading the charge, ironically, is Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third behind Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, the eventual winner. Eighteen candidates vied in the most-testy electoral fight in the nation’s electoral history.
The electoral body had declared Tinubu the winner of the tightly contested poll with 8,794,726 votes, besting Atiku who came second with 6,984,520, and Obi with 6,101,533 votes. The fourth of the pack, Rabiu Kwankwaso, got a miserly 1,496,687 votes.
Apart from Tinubu’s 1,810,206 margin of win, the lowest in the nation’s electoral history, he won outright in 12 States and scored 25% of the votes cast in 30 States of the federation, the largest spread ever since 1999. Atiku and Obi also won outright in 12 states and Abuja each but none was able to fulfill the second constitutional threshold of spread, scoring 21 and 17 states respectively. But all got their wins across regions.
Despite these positive trends that enhanced the credibility of the poll, the PDP and the LP members and their supporters have sought to delegitimise the outcome, citing the failure of INEC to upload result sheets instantly to its Results Viewing Portal (IReV). It is difficult to understand how the failure to implement only one of several rules vitiates the process. Meanwhile, the loudest of the two has been Obi who has been all over the place within and outside Nigeria with the wild claim that he won the election.
Obi’s claim is largely misconceived. He came a distant third, trailing behind Tinubu with a whopping 2,693,193 votes, and seven states short of the required spread. His complaint about the falsification of results only in places that he lost is clearly inconsistent as the same process was deployed nationwide. Indeed, whereas the percentage margin of win in all other regions was close and evenly spread, his Southeast stronghold returned staggering figures that suggest the possibility of a hanky-panky.
For instance, INEC conducted the same election where Obi won in all the Southeast states with the other two contestants scoring below 25%. That is accepted to be free and fair. For him, the results in Lagos, Nasarawa, Plateau, Cross River, Edo, and Delta States where he won outright were free and fair but his losses in the 25 others, particularly in the Northwest and Northeast where his party had little or no presence, were rigged. This simply does not make sense.
How could his claim make sense when the same process was used to return all the federal and state legislative seats that the LP won across the country? Why are those returns acceptable to him? Obi needs to understand that INEC was just the referee in this game and had no choice but to declare the winner. The master planner, the master strategist won and INEC had no choice but to declare him the winner.
The point has to be made that while there is nothing wrong with being ambitious, there is everything wrong with being frivolous with an aspiration. Obi jumped into the presidential race how many months ago, and hoped to defeat candidates who had been in the field actively for more than 20 years. When he was told of the need for a structural and strategic approach to his aspiration, his response was scorn. Now, he has learned a simple lesson in a bitter way, and he is finding it difficult to face the reality of the futility of his blissful political ignorance.
For Tinubu and Atiku, the race did not begin last year, and certainly not on social media. It started way back in the early 90s during the abortive Third Republic. They had been building strategic alliances since then. And so, Tinubu’s recent political manoeuvres are just the culmination of years of toil in the field. His deals with disparate persons and groups across party lines, including Godswill Akpabio, Ben Ayade, Dave Umahi, Seyi Makinde, and Nyesom Wike are clear indications of his mastery of the game.
Could it even have been equitable for Obi to win? Tinubu and Atiku went to hell and back to be able to feature in the contest. Atiku went through a bitter primary election within the PDP to emerge. Tinubu outmanoeuvred the powers and principalities in the APC to clinch the ticket. How did Obi become a candidate? When and where did the LP hold its presidential primary? And, who were his opponents?
Let Obi learn the game. The INEC as a referee could not have helped anyone who was unprepared to win.
Could the referees have turned Ronaldo’s goal for Benzima while they were playing together? Benzema had to wait for his time. He didn’t have to blame the referees that Rinaldo’s goals were not awarded to him to win Balon Dor. He waited and kept working hard and eventually won the Balon Dor after Ronaldo’s departure. Should Carlos Alcares have accused the umpires 3 to 4 years ago when he found it difficult to beat Djokovic/Nadal? He kept working hard and today he’s world No.1. His time has eventually come.
When the master of the game is still playing actively, he will be difficult to displace. Obi may be a good player but he played against the master of the game. There’s no way INEC, the referee, would have swapped the results in his favour.
Maybe, Obi should keep trying and he may win in the future. As for this election, he contested against a better player.
The same election where many sitting governors lost their senatorial bids to unknown opponents is not seen to be free and fair. How else will it be credible? Is it only when Obi wins in all 36 states? Haba!
Let’s save INEC the stress!
Ahmed is a public affairs analyst.
