It is exhilarating
when you find out that an idea that comes to you in secret, plays
around in your thought for a long time; an idea you have not shared
with anyone else, suddenly becomes the topic for discussion in public
gatherings that you find yourself in.
That was actually
the case recently when we were standing in small groups, waiting for
our turn to register for the voter’s card, in Abuja. One woman actually
set the ball rolling. She said she was not going to vote anyway; that
all the political parties were the same. If not for the fact that
anything could happen in this our country, she would not have bothered
coming out with her daughter to register. According to her, one mad man
in government could wake up one day and decide that if you do not have
the voter’s card, you will not be paid your salary and her daughter, a
university student could be stopped from either registering for her
courses in school or driven out of examination hall by wicked lecturers
for not having her voter’s card.
So it did not come
as a surprise when I heard a radio advert saying for people to watch a
particular entertainment event, they needed to show their voter’s cards
by the gate. Anyway, our discussion centred on “all the political
parties are the same”. As this discussion unfolds, I saw the
opportunity to drop a phrase that has been roaming about in my brain,
“it is a case of the rig, rigger, riggest”.
“Rig, rigger,
riggest,” I heard the third guy in our midst echoing. He went on, “I
like that, it sounds sweet, but what exactly do you mean?’ So, I
continued: “You see, all over the nation everybody that is not in PDP
claim that PDP rigged election in their area and that was why they won.
But I believe that if it was ACN or APGA or ANPP or CPC that is in
power, they would do the same thing. It is not that these other parties
did not try to rig, it is just that PDP rigging machinery is stronger
and more potent because they have more money. The smaller parties do
the same in states they control and if tomorrow the ACN, for instance,
finds itself at the saddle, its leaders will also corner state
resources and use it to their own advantage.
Nobody’s hand is
clean. They all rig, but PDP is presently ‘the riggest’. The party in
control of several states is ‘the rigger’ and the ones that have one or
two states or just members in the national or state assemblies are ‘the
rig.’
Few good people
The man who liked
the phrase said: “my brother, you are very correct. Do you know that in
one of the previous elections, I was at a voter registration centre
like this in the south west and the queue was too long. So, I decided
to cool off in my car, reclined the chair and lay flat.
I parked close to
one of the windows of the primary school classroom. Two men were
discussing by the window and obviously, they were not members of PDP.
They did not suspect that I was in the car or maybe they felt I was
sleeping. One of them told the other that he should not worry, that
they have already bribed some men as well as planted their people
inside INEC’s office and that no matter how many people voted for PDP,
it is the figure that their people will release at the end of the day
that would matter. Well, as it turned out, PDP made sure voting did not
take place in those areas and went ahead to declare the results from
Abuja. That is why I say I like this your sentence. It was really a
case of rig, rigger, riggest.” I have always believed that every
die-hard politician is a criminal. But lately, I have gotten close to
quite a few good politicians who can hold their own any day. It is true
that the core group of people who live politics and dream politics are
people who would do anything to circumvent any law that does not favour
them as far as politics is concerned.
They are also the ones founding, running, funding and controlling
most, if not all, the political parties on ground. Until the door is
thrown open for independent candidates, I fear it will continue to be a
case of the rig, rigger and the riggest.
