Nigeria Content Online

I doubt if former
vice president, Atiku Abubakar, aspirant for the presidential ticket of
the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, had quite last week’s events in
Tunisia in mind when he quoted the warning that “those who make
peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable”. But the
Tunisian revolution arrived nevertheless, in neat counterpoint to the
decision by delegates at the PDP convention in Abuja on the 13th of
this month that (at least as far as their presidential ticket went)
their hope was that the result of the April elections would be no
change at the top.

Not, it must be
emphasized, because change was made impossible, simply – apparently –
that it was deemed undesirable. The two events; one a national
catharsis played out before an international audience, the other, a
personal tragedy of only (and instantly limited) national concern,
suggest – particularly considering the calm with which his defeat was
greeted – that the unfortunate reality for Atiku is that for ‘the
people’, real change is about something rather more significant than
the settling of the precedence between the flea and the louse.

As might be
expected, Tunisia galvanised the Middle East commentariat, while
copycat self-immolation events attempting to replicate the alleged
trigger of the Tunisian revolution, although they failed to achieve
traction, certainly highlighted the festering despair of so much of
Arab youth, trapped in systems which offer little or no avenue for
peaceful change.

It had long been
Israel’s boast that it was the only democracy in the Middle East, and
its Arab neighbours could point to little in riposte, particularly
given their lukewarm to non-existent support for the democracy in
Palestine which expressed itself in an electoral preference for Hamas,
and Arab governments’ collusive acquiescence the sanctions and
restrictions imposed by the United States of America and the European
Union that stifled the Hamas-led government that was democratically
elected in 2006.

With only post-war
Iraq left to tout democratic credentials, the monarchies and
quasi-monarchies (presidents-for-life-then-my-son) of the Arab world
might all seem vulnerable to the same kind of upheaval that saw
President Ben Ali chased out of Tunisia by his angry subjects.

Of course they are
not all the same. Some Arab governments are very much alert to the need
for reform and keeping alive the hope that change remains possible.
Indeed, the establishment of the Arab Democracy Foundation in Qatar
would appear to be direct recognition of the need to get out ahead of
the yearnings of the people.

Naturally,
oil-rich, low population states like Qatar may have more leeway and
more time for reform than resource-poor, high population countries like
Tunisia but apart from the head-in-the-sand panicked condemnation of
Tunisians by the Brotherly Leader in Tripoli, still convinced that
(after 40 years) he IS the revolution, the urgent question for Arab
leaders is no longer simply how to contain or suppress yearnings for
change, but how to give expression to them.

Here at home, we
have already decided how we will make change possible: democratic
elections. Meaning firstly, elections which reflect the choices
actually made by the people, and secondly, the aspiration that one day
our collective choices will be about ourselves and what we want from
our government, rather than selecting which flavour of crumb we might
graciously be allowed to gather under the table where our political
warlords are sharing the national cake.

Perhaps that is a
long term aspiration, particularly when the said warlords seem so
determined to prevent the realisation of even the basic requirement of
an accurate count. Witness, for example, how swiftly calls started
coming for the Independent National Electoral Commission to scrap
electronic registration of voters by direct data capture. Who does not
know that political fixers are already registering as many of their
supporters as many times as possible? They are confident that contrary
to INEC’s assurances, multiple registration of voters will not be
detected, and that multiple registrants will not only be able to vote
on Election Day, but that they will either be able to vote as any times
as they like, or to have several otherwise ineligible persons vote on
their behalf.

After all, they
reason, is not exclusion and prosecution of multiple registrants what
Maurice Iwu threatened last time in 2007? And in the end, was it not
the dummies (writer included) who believed him who ended up looking
like fools?

Having registered
with little problem, said writer continues to hope that attempts to
sabotage, crash or overwhelm the present DDC voter registration will
fail. Actually, rather than give in to pressure to abandon electronic
voter registration, what is needed from INEC (as well obviously, as
upping its game) and as soon as possible, while the exercise is still
taking place – is a few (or a lot of) well-publicised cases of detected
double registration and speedy retribution for offenders, starting with
the penalty of exclusion from the register of voters.

On the other hand,
if INEC is in fact unable to detect multiple registrations, we might as
well know now. Then we will understand that some people still think it
is smart to make peaceful change, through democratic elections,
impossible. We can decide how long we are going to allow those idiots
to be right about taking us for fools who have no alternative.