In one of his tracks titled, Get Up, Stand Up, the late legendary reggae maestro, Bob Marley once crooned that “You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
That line, historically, attributed to one of the United States of America’s (USA) greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, means that while misinformation, half-truths, outright falsehood, lies or deception may work temporarily, the truth will eventually come to light and catch up with the deceiver or deceivers, no matter how long it takes.
That brings us to the issue at hand, and that is the just concluded primary election of Nigeria’s ruling party- the All Progressives Congress (APC). Results being paraded from the presidential primary election put the numbers at close to 11 million votes for incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-figures that dwarfed the 8.7 million popular votes that brought him to power in the still highly controversial 2023 presidential elections.
Which is why Nigerians are contesting the numbers, arguing that if the President could secure as huge as 11 million votes at the primaries, the presidency may just have prepared the fertile grounds for manipulation and rigging that would pave the way for Tinubu’s seamless return to office for another term of four years come 2027.
Sadly, as we continue to beam searchlight on the anomaly, the opposition political parties, as they say in sports, have been ‘wombling and fumbling’ to the extent that all the figures from the primary elections of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), African Democratic Congress (ADC), Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Young Peoples Party (YPP), among others, put together, do not add up to 11 million.
Prior to now, the ruling party had coerced most governors, senators, House of Representatives members of the PDP and other political parties, most of whom were promised automatic tickets to join its fold. As things stand, the scales have fallen from the eyes of those who lost their tickets to return to their various positions, and they are now crying foul, jumping parties again, saying the APC deceived them.
That is the bane of Nigeria’s democracy. The country lacks a crop of politicians who stay by their party ideology come rain or shine as it obtains in climes such as the United States of America, India and even Ghana. That is why once the interest of a typical Nigerian politician is threatened, the next thing is to defect to another party- some of them have defected over countless times-traversing all the major political parties at every election cycle in the name of strategizing, alignments and realignments.
In our quest for a better country with robust opportunities for everyone, we x-ray the developments in our Cover Story titled: “Mockery Trails APC’s 11 Million Voodoo Votes … As Insecurity, Power Failure, Others Taint Tinubu’s Scorecard”.
We also serve you a mélange of other stories including former Vice Atiku Abubakar’s desperation in running for the presidency for a record seventh time, bandits infiltration into the South west region in spite of the existence of the Amotekun Corps, developments and deployment of excellent men and officers to sensitive commands of the Nigeria Customs Service and several other compelling copies in Business and Economy, Crime, Entertainment, Arts and Culture, as well as sports.
It’s a full package. Carpe Diem, grab a copy and enjoy!
