{"id":8513,"date":"2022-05-29T07:57:39","date_gmt":"2022-05-29T07:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=8513"},"modified":"2022-05-29T07:57:39","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T07:57:39","slug":"2023-presidential-election-should-be-cancelled-its-already-predetermined-by-farooq-kperogi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=8513","title":{"rendered":"2023 Presidential Election Should Be Cancelled; It\u2019s Already Predetermined By Farooq Kperogi"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the help of Aminu Tambuwal, Atiku Abubakar has defeated Nysom Wike to win the PDP presidential primaries. I\u2019ve seen people exultingly proclaiming that Atiku will give APC a bloody nose in 2023. That\u2019s misplaced optimism. <\/span><\/p>\n

Your votes won\u2019t count\u2014like they didn\u2019t in 2019\u2014because INEC is anything but independent. It\u2019s a dutiful, groveling poodle of APC and Buhari and has no capacity or willingness to provide a level playing field for all contestants.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s no point wasting billions to hold a presidential election whose outcome is already predetermined. INEC\u2019s last-minute extension of the electoral timetable in response to Buhari\u2019s instruction is all the evidence you need to know that that the 2023 election has already been decided.\u00a0 <\/span>I hope I’m wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

But recall that on May 5, INEC told political parties that pleaded with it to tweak its timetable that its \u201cdeadline is firm and fixed.\u201d It repeated this on May 10 when IPAC again requested it to extend its deadline.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Buhari traveled out of the country, called Mahmood Yakubu, and told him to bend his \u201cfirm and fixed\u201d deadline. Yakubu then invited the same IPAC guys whose request he\u2019d spurned and told them the \u201cfirm and fixed\u201d deadline was now suddenly infirm and unfixed. <\/span><\/p>\n

If Buhari can unilaterally call the INEC chairman and direct him to loosen a \u201cfirm and fixed\u201d deadline in order to give an unfair advantage to the APC, he\u2019ll certainly tell INEC chairman whom to declare as “president” in 2023 irrespective of the actual outcome of the presidential election.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was precisely what happened in the 2019 election, which Buhari lost by close to 2 million in spite of APC\u2019s massive, in-your-face rigging in Borno, Yobe, Lagos, and Kano. As I write this, INEC has still not provided a comprehensive breakdown of the votes cast in the election like Jega\u2019s INEC did in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

They can\u2019t because Yakubu just arbitrarily plucked figures from the air and assigned them to presidential candidates. That\u2019s what might happen again in 2023, and the signs are already apparent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s use some of the billions that will be wasted on a pointless, predetermined coronation exercise fraudulently called a \u201cpresidential election\u201d to settle ASUU\u2019s demands. That way, we won\u2019t lose twice.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, seriously, what\u2019s the point of \u201cdemocracy\u201d if something as basic as change of government through elections can\u2019t be guaranteed, if the body charged with the responsibility to conduct elections can\u2019t even perform a pretense of neutrality?<\/span><\/p>\n

My illusions have been shattered because I\u2019d thought that Yakubu had learned lessons from the electoral fraud he enabled in 2019, especially in light of the fact that this is his final term in office, which gives him the latitude to not be beholden to anyone– and the freedom to not have anxieties about losing his job. <\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, I doubt there are many people who will miss this “democracy” when it is gone and replaced with something else.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the help of Aminu Tambuwal, Atiku Abubakar has defeated Nysom Wike to win the PDP presidential primaries. I\u2019ve seen people exultingly proclaiming that Atiku will give APC a bloody nose in 2023. That\u2019s misplaced optimism. Your votes won\u2019t count\u2014like they didn\u2019t in 2019\u2014because INEC is anything but independent. It\u2019s a dutiful, groveling poodle of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4052,4750,113],"class_list":["post-8513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-2023-presidential-election","tag-farooq-kperogi","tag-inec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8515,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8513\/revisions\/8515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}