U.S.-based Nigerian, political analyst, Chief Franklin Ekechukwu has said that elections within the African countries have been marred by corruption, violence, impunity and unnecessary loss of lives.
He described the situation as abysmal, saying that ‘’everyone, including the blinds, can see the impunity, and arrogance in which those in power conduct the election.’’
Ekechukwu noted that the last Nigerian Presidential election was poorly conducted and that laid the foundation for other countries to follow suit.
‘’Nigeria laid the foundation for the coup in Africa by conducting a below-standard election, to put it in the proper perspective, the Nigerian election can be described as a form of coup, except in the Nigerian case those that implemented the coup were not wearing uniforms.
‘’If you can recall, the coups in Mali and Burkina Faso happened immediately after the Nigerian 2019 general election, these African countries’ military knew that Nigeria could not have the moral authority to dictate to them to revert to democratic rule when the person pronounced elected in Nigeria was not the choice of the masses.’’
‘’After the Nigerian 2023 presidential election, the subsequent elections in Africa have been reflective of the Nigerian election.
‘’Sierra Leone and Gabon mirrored Nigeria’s election to the letter, even to the point in which the election result was called at the early morning hour of 4 a.m.
‘’The election umpires were compromised that they have the audacity to order the opposition to go court, exactly like Nigeria, unfortunately for Gabon, it led to a coup.’’
The analyst explained that if the Umpires were unbiased in organising the elections, no coup would spring out from every part of Africa that conducted elections.
‘’It is for the fact that these supposedly unbiased umpires were compromised that the elections were conducted abysmally, with the audacity to order the oppositions to go to court, knowing that the party in power will influence the courts.
‘’It is the comprised umpires and the inability of the courts to uphold justice and take corrective measures to correct the anomalies caused by the umpires that are killing democracy in Nigeria, and Africa as a whole.’’
On the Nigerian Judiciary, Ekechukwu said that using the past election judgments would be unfair since the electoral law of 2022 was not passed until now.
‘’Since the new electoral law was passed, the Judgements have been following the law and the constitution, so because of that, I can say that it will be a great disappointment if they do otherwise.’’
