Saturday 28th March 2015 remains a great day in the history of Nigeria. Nigerians on that day trooped out in mass to elect a new leadership for the country. Members of the incoming national assembly were also elected same day.
March 28 presidential election will ever remain historic because that was the very first time that an incumbent elected president was voted out of office in an election that was described as widely free and fair by both local and international observers as well as the international community. Another interesting part of this election is that the incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan who was a candidate in the contest conceded defeat and congratulated his main rival Muhammadu Buhari even before the final result was announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
INEC announced Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a winner in the presidential election. Buhari won majority of the votes cast and also won minimum of 25% of votes from over 24 states of the federation and Abuja as required by the law. However, the retired General failed woefully in the five states of the southeast geopolitical zone of the country comprising of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States. His rival incumbent president Jonathan won massively in the geopolitical zone and his party The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secured overwhelming victory in all the national assembly seats of the region.
Prior to the elections, majority of the Igbos supported the candidacy of president Jonathan despite the fact that his current administration has not done anything significant in the area and his 2011 electoral promises to the Igbos remain unattended to. In 2011, president Jonathan promised to construct 2nd Niger Bridge, revitalize Nkalagu Cement factory, Contruct Onitsha inland waterways as well as rehabilitate the federal roads in the region. It is sad however that in 2015 non of those promises was fulfilled.
Also, the Igbos throughout the present administration failed to accept the fact that the government has been widely seen as a failure which forced other geopolitical zones to call for change. The ethnic and religious orientations of many Igbos denied them the ability to predict the failure of their 'adopted' candidate at the poll. Unlike the north and southwest geopolitical zones that understood on time that the masses are not ready to reelect a failed government and therefore supported the APC massively, the Igbos allowed sentiments to swallow their wisdom.
The Igbos supported the president with no reasonable fact. Many maintained that the Ijaw man is their brother and a Christian and this led to religion and ethnicity based campaign for the president in the region as the region is mostly occupied by Christians. Many church and religious leaders in the region deceived their members into believing that the President's main rival Muhammadu Buhari and his party the APC are religious extremists and that they will islamise the country if voted into power. Some of them also deceived their members into believing that the APC is a party of insurgents. Some even shamelessly made it as prayer points in their Sunday services that a moslem will never rule the country and many false prophesies trended as some proclaimed to their members that they were directed by God to announce the victory of Jonathan in the election. These misled the ignorant and innocent members to support the president as they believed that those greedy church leaders are God's representatives without knowing that those greedy men championing unnecessary political campaigns in the church have been influenced by politicians and were acting the scripts written by those greedy politicians. What a shame and betrayal of the church!
The shocking part of the whole support of the southeast to the candidacy of President Jonathan is that over 50% of them refused to vote as the released results suggested that up to 50% of registered voters in the region were not accredited unlike in 2011 when the southeast gave the president up to seven million magic votes. The fact remains that the majority of South Easterners seldom vote and the introduction of card reader by INEC in the 2015 voting accreditation though not widely used in the region, revealed the apathy culture of the geopolitical zone. The less than 3 million votes from the five states of the region are not enough to secure victory for their 'adopted' candidate in the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
The woeful impact of the Nigeria's 2015 presidential and national assembly elections on the southeast is that it has denied the zone the opportunity of securing either the office of the Senate President or the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives. It is important to note that since the president-elect is from the north and the vice president-elect is from the southwest, the southeast would have secured either the office of the Senate president or that of the Speaker of the House of Representatives if the region avoided politics of ethnicity and religion and voted for the APC candidates in the election. Even the incumbent Senator Chris Ngige that would have emerged the president of the incoming Senate was not reelected as he was defeated by Hon. Uche Ekwunife of the PDP. Also no candidate from the region was reelected under APC for any House of Representatives seat in the Election which would have afforded the region the opportunity of gaining the office of House of Representatives Speaker. The only option for the region is for the incumbent reelected senator Andy Uba representing Anambra South senatorial district to decamp to the APC in order to be able to contest the Senate president position since election results show that the APC will be in the majority in both chambers of the incoming National Assembly. However, it is doubtful if the APC will be comfortable with such option. If Senator Andy Uba failed to decamp to the APC or if APC members in the senate refused to elect him as their president if he decamps, then the south east will like the southwest in the current administration, be in a political desert as non of the key four positions of government (President, Vice President, Senate President and House of Representatives Speaker) will be theirs.
Moreover, The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) now have every reason to regret joining it's Imo state faction to merge with the All Progressives Congress (APC) which if it was achieved, the south east will never have any cause to worry. Recall that APGA refused aligning with it's Imo state faction to merge during the formation of the APC with the hope that the PDP will protect the party's interest in future elections but with the results of the March 28 National Assembly Elections, the party is now in a state of Coma as it failed to secure a single seat in both the Senate and House of Representatives Elections in the region. All it's candidates lost to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The results of the just concluded presidential and national assembly elections have thought Ndi Igbo to avoid politics of ethnicity and religion and to always take Nigeria first before any other interests. The Igbos have also learnt that their voting population is too small to champion selfish interests. They have learnt that they cannot contribute their quota to the nation without the support of other tribes and geopolitical zones.
Ndi Igbo should therefore join hands together with the incoming administration and never allow themselves to be deceived again by greedy politicians and Judases in the Lord's Vineyards who parade themselves as Church and religious leaders.
Long Live Ndi Igbo!
Long Live The Federal Republic of Nigeria!
The writer Chukwuemerie Uduchukwu is can be contacted with @emerieuduchukwu on Twitter.
Thought provoking.
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