Before You Judge the Nigeria 2019 Elections

On February 23rd and March 16th, 2019, National and State elections were held in almost every nook and cranny of Nigeria to elect representatives that will serve for another four years.

As harmless as that sounds, it wasn't what we expected that marred the elections and why it was considered as one of the worst elections in the history of this country.

It was the continuous effort of the incumbent elected officers to continue holding on to power even to the detriment of people's right and subjection of people's will.

In the North was the alleged dollar embezzler Governor Ganduje of Kano State, in the West is the threat of Bola Ahmed Tinubu an APC chieftain and member of the leading party in the country. The last camel that broke the straw back was the subjection of the peoples will in Imo State, the South East of Nigeria, where an incumbent Governor had to be declared the winner of his Senate seat by the electoral officer under duress.

To a foreigner outside Nigeria, it would be easy to point fingers at the electoral body for not carrying out their functions or not having credible officers, but as we have come to see, there is more than meet the eye.

The threats, killings, torture, and kidnapping were some of the tools used by the two political parties to carry out their will.

Ganduje had to hire thugs to disrupt the first election held in the state and continuously did it in the rerun election to stifle the people's will and their right to vote.

Rocha's Okorocha's struggled to instill his brother-in-law as the next head of government in Imo state didn't go as planned. His ambition to infiltrate the red chamber as a senator took a nose dive as the electoral body annulled his election because the results were read under duress.

Perhaps the only victor in the threat and intimidation game during this election was Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His threat to non-indigenes of Lagos about how accommodating Lagos has been to them and why all that might change if they don't vote for the ruling party worked.

Majority of non-indigenes were disenfranchised. APC won Lagos state.

Also after the election, we found a lot of people heading to the tribunal to seek justice for their supposed stolen mandate. Senator Adeleke of the PDP is the first to be declared a governor at the tribunal despite losing the Osun state election.

In conclusion, despite the significant violence and threats in places like Rivers, Lagos where there were several killings, much of it would have been averted if politicians had allowed the will of the people to prevail.