The Nigeria 2023 Presidential Elections: A New Dawn

If you are Nigerian, have Nigerian roots, or care about Nigerians, the election results in the early hours of 1st March 2023, would not have left you unmoved. You may be angry. Disappointed. Or indeed, this may be the happiest day of your life. It all depends on what you expected of the result.

What you cannot be is surprised. Not in the face of the die cast in 2015 when the last vestiges of the military came back as if from the dead. Not in the face of public paralysis, mass exodus of the young, educated and entrepreneurs, in the past eight years. Not in the shifting sands of a manufactured financial crisis which saw the withdrawal of foreign currency from the public space to strangle entrepreneurship and education and certainly not in the creation of new naira notes ensuring that only a select few would have said new notes, in the last days of the regime. Not in the face of the calm pronouncements of an assured victory by those who have now won, clearly undeterred by the groundswell of change promised by the opposition in the early days of the campaigns – the die was already cast in 2015.

There is no need to dwell on the shocking and barefaced efforts to upturn the voice of the people. (For those who worry about the adverse effects of AI and technology, who worry about Chat GPT and how students may or may not cheat, it is not the technology that should be of worry – it is the people who manipulate technology who should be watched). The Nigerian elections demonstrate that new technology can work and does work – until the human operator decides to bypass that technology or, flagrantly abuses its use and manipulates it for personal interest.

No, anyone who has followed the history of governance in Nigeria cannot be shocked at the results. Do not be. There is a positive here, an opportunity that must not be missed. You see, when people talk about corruption in Nigeria as if corruption is a Nigerian and not found elsewhere (a lie), the presumption is that corruption in Nigeria denotes the absence of truth in Nigeria’s reality. It is not so much the absence of truth as the distortion of it; that people grow up to learn not about merit and reward but about opportunism and entitlement justified by access to power. The show of support for change in the 2023 Presidential elections, the bravery of many who spoke out against fraudulent manipulation of data, the efforts to collate evidence in real time, to buttress the cries of ‘foul!’ against oppression, suppression and injustice is a momentum that must not be allowed to die. This is the inflection point in Nigerian politics– the point where the real and necessary fight against the pervasive corruption of the mind in the Nigerian polity will be fought for by Nigerians. Change does not come at once, but it must be sustained if it is to take root. The Presidential election results tainted as they are signal that it will no more be business as usual going forward.????????

When the present regime departs, it will be farewell to the last of those who have sustained the bitterness of tribalism and the devastating Nigeria-Biafra civil war in 1967. It will be farewell to governance that has no respect for the rule of law and no regard for the individual. It will be farewell to unjust enrichment, to a system built on the idea that Nigeria is a land to be plundered from within and without. It will be a long-dreamt farewell from the living and the dead, as the world watches it descend into the dustbin of ignominious governance that has dogged Nigeria since its creation. May the militarisation of Nigeria and its impunity never return.

It will never return if the present opportunity is seized. There is a lot to be learnt from the 2023 Presidential elections, its conduct, its results. The open breaches of Nigeria’s security both via the BVAS technology used in the elections and the breaches of trust and accountability reposed in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the desperation of those who wanted power at all costs, the news of genetically modified beings – of adults in children’s bodies found voting in certain sections of Nigeria; the disheartening absence of women (when Nigerian women are leaders in their families and in public spaces) in the political make-up across all the parties; the near absence of female talking heads on the news and radio offering intelligent comments on the elections or even as part of the INEC machinery raising questions for gender equity (Is Nigeria a country of powerful men-only?); none of these ignominies come close to the resonant and resolute voice of the people whose votes shouted "WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK!".

There are those who may wish, even insist, that the other parties must seek redress at the courts. Even I toyed with that idea on the day of the elections. As I followed the shenanigans and rigmarole of election malpractices on news and social media, it was clear to me that if the allegations of compromise are traceable to the independent public authority tasked with the conduct of elections, INEC, it is not the river that is polluted, but the headwater. I do not subscribe to the charge that all courts are corrupt or that all judges are corruptible. However, where the crying child keeps pointing at something in the distance, it is fair to say that that the child sees danger there. No, hindsight and foresight tell us the answer is not with the courts. Not this time.

This time, the answer is with the people. The pain, anger and disappointment will ebb away as the country changes over to embracing and nurturing the clear call for change in the people, led by a new generation of youth who are part of a wider global call for political accountability and economic sustainability. There is never total darkness the science tells us. This is not the new Nigeria of previous republics. This is the new dawn of a Nigeria where Nigerians themselves have seen that there is light in the darkness that has held the country back and are pursuing that light. That light will surely shine now the People have developed the extra sense to perceive it and to run to it.

Well done to every Nigerian who voted, who prayed, who waited for their voice to count. The Giant of Africa is on the rise. With every next election, let change once more be the winner. IT IS COMING!

Thank you for reading. Please share!

With best wishes,

Elimma.