The Presidential and National Assembly polls superintended and organized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Saturday, February 25, 2013 have come and gone.
However, a symbolic and historical statement was made on that day as the presidential election specifically produced a winner in the former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The former Nigerian Senator won with 8.7 million votes while his closest opponent, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party got 6.9 million while Dr Peter Obi of Labour Party recorded 6.1million votes.
The emergence of Tinubu also turned out to be magical and thrilling because there were apparent moves to throw spanners into the works of those organizing the electoral processes – at least this was the general opinion of stakeholders.
This opinion was perhaps precipitated by scarcity of both petrol and naira notes – and these challenges were regarded to be artificial and the handiwork of some anti-democracy elements within the system in Abuja, the seat of power.
However, history has already been recorded and Nigerians must, at this point be saluted for being steadfast and ensuring that the elections were held under relatively peaceful atmosphere.
The people of the country must also be congratulated because a new dawn in here and there are indications that all comatose sectors of the nation’s economy are showing signs of jumping back to life.
It is also instructive to admonish Nigerians not to rest on their oars so that the March 18, 2022 gubernatorial election and states’ Houses of Assembly election are held peacefully too.
Nigerians should troop out to elect governors and legislators they want to govern their states as well as their legislators.
Media men, security agents and other stakeholders as well as the electoral umpire, INEC should cooperate and see to it that a bigger success is recorded next Saturday.
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
