Thursday, February 28, 2008

A Pyrrhic Victory for Nigeria

Pyrrhic
from Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who defeated Roman armies at Asculum, 280 B.C.E., but at such cost to his own troops that he was unable to follow up and attack Rome itself, and is said to have remarked, "one more such victory and we are lost."



Forget all the legal technicalities or 'jagba jantis' as my peeps will say, spewed by the Presidential tribunal judges to justify their decision, we all know no 'real' elections took place last year. I suppose the dilemma facing the judges is the implication of annulling 'elections that never happened'.
Anyone who loves Naija will shudder at the thought of INEC (currently headed by a delusional Maurice Iwu) organising another major election. One doubts if they could successfully organise an 'owambe' party.

T.I.N (This is Naija)
Considering the number of election results cancelled, you would think Maurice Iwu and other top officials of INEC would have done us all a favour and resigned, but ahem.. this is naija now, where the concept of responsibility is as alien as regular power supply from PHCN.
So I'm not surprised that INEC, according to news reports, is now "basking in the euphoria of Tuesday's dismissal of the two major petitions against the last April presidential elections".

According to INEC's chief spokesman, Mr. Phillip Umeadi
"INEC has consistently held that the outcome of the 2007 presidential election reflected the intent of Nigerian voters. The firm and consistent assertion by the commission on the outcome of the election derived from an advantaged insight as well as an impartial and unsentimental analysis of the election,"
{snip}
"By the ruling of the Court of Appeal in the Presidential Election Petitions, more so the unanimous verdict of the eminent judges, INEC has been vindicated in the outcome of the 2007 presidential election."

http://allafrica.com/stories/200802280006.html

Excuse me while I go outside and throw up (I'm bullshit intolerant)

but i digress
I found it extremely difficult to support the tribunal's verdict because of its implications, in order to keep the peace, we've all acquiesced to an illegal act, the same thing will probably happen in 2011 and beyond.
There's a funny igbo proverb i heard recently which translates as; "since the hunters have learnt to shoot without missing, the birds have learnt to fly without perching."
We were lucky this time because the main combatants are from the same part of the country. The next time this sort of thing happens, the aggrieved party may choose to by pass the courts and settle the matter Kenya style.


Meanwhile
Some have suggested that this victory will be the much needed tonic Yardy needs to become 'Super' Yardy as opposed to 'Alhaji Go Slow', 'Yawn'Adua', Learner Driver, Yar 'Asleep etc
Somehow i doubt it...



6 comments:

Uzo said...

This president of ours - i dont know what direction he is going, what his focus is on...

And then the verdict...I guess its a guess of which demon do you choose...We know these elections were rigged...So we annul it, then get the Chief Justice of the Federation to stand in while another election is held with what candidates?

I can really only hope for the best for Nigeria...

ababoypart2 said...

Super Yardy - we will be long dead before that happens. As per the verdict. I would rather hold my fire. My thoughts cant be printed on a respectful blog like yours.

ijebuman said...

@Ababoy
'Respectful blog'?? rofl methinks you mistake my blog for Akin's blog - http://akin.blog-city.com/

Chxta said...

In Naija the aggrieved parties can no longer choose to go style Kenyatta. If anything, that is the most important benefit of this rotational bullshit (and you have to learn to tolerate some level of that stuff) that we are practicing...

As for the verdict, I am in support of it for the reasons I have been saying for a long time now, one of which is the fact that we should have gotten all the tribunal stuff out of the way before the people were sworn in. Even Dubya who was (s)elected by the US Supreme Court had the courtesy to do it before the swearing in date...

ijebuman said...

@chxta
It seems you forget that the so called "rotational bullshit" is just a gentleman's agreement amongst the political class, it is not enshrined in the constitution. So there's no guarantee it will continue if circumstances change, or can you honestly guarantee that the north will willingly allow power to rotate to the east come 2015?

You say the 'aggrieved parties can no longer choose to go style Kenyatta' but you forget there was also a similar gentleman's agreement between Kibaki and Odinga, however one party did not keep to its end of the deal.
We shouldn't get too cocky and assume things will always turn out well when one party is ‘outrigged’ at the polls and then 'outsmarted' in the courts.
We were just lucky this time because the political class chose not to shoot itself in the foot and provide an opportunity for the military to return.

Chxta said...

I guess then, that we can only pray...