Guns and Bombs Defining Nigerian Elections

President Goodluck Jonathan

Jonathan: No one wished this will be the case, Guns and Bombs Defining Nigerian Elections, so get outside help now

Sir, as a Philosopher first and a politician second, it must cause some suffering in your mind as to how the first week of 2011 elections has become marked with hate and violence at this initial stage. It is not April yet?

No one will deny the possibility that the pockets of violence opened across the country could be a metaphor of what is to come, in a few months. Sir, this is the truth and of course it hurts to see how things could turn out moving forward. Sir the news is not good to your ears—a stabbing, a near lynching, home-based killing, a bomb here and there, and individuals openly parading the voting areas with guns, shooting at random, leaving the election and law enforcement workers to run for their lives.

Sir, this ominous atmosphere is certainly not what you wished as a philosopher, as a lecturer, and certainly not in your capacity as a President. Sir, for many observers including this writer, a Clinical psychologist of the human mind, the guess is that you are not a politician in the cut-throat Nigerian or “Niger” sense, but as fate, destiny or accident would have it, you in IT and so it is.

Sir, time is short. It is your obligation to do something now. Thank God for the security outfit around you and that is how it should be as the leader of society in political and social distress, at least for now.

The recent words from the nation’s election chief, Attahiru Jega must trouble your soul, your mind and possibly give you chills; it certainly could especially for a man like you with a face known for its ‘heavy’ look. Here are some of the terrifying Jega-ian words—ballot box snatching by way of violence occurred in some areas. Sir think of that market woman, that young man or elderly and aging male voting for the first time , only to be scared off by the sounds of gun shots, who will he report to?. Even if he or she goes into a police station where the station officer is sitting and writing with the aid of a lamp, a touch light or candle, what will come out of such report is at best nothing—this much you must admit is the reality.

Sir, certainly you have made it clear you want to rule the country in the next four years and like other presidential, gubernatorial and other political contestants would like to win in any way you can, but you are currently the Nation’s ruler, so that average voter needs you now more than ever!

Here is what you could do right away but you should do it differently, not with the country’s law enforcement workers as a number of them are psychically or materially unable to resist bribery, at least by your own admission.
To fully provide a sense of safety and security for the average voters in the next few months, outsource a certain quantity of the security body to foreigners, as it is proper under international law for you to protect the voting citizenry from a society fraught with violence from armed thugs, gun gang affiliates and corrupt armed officials.

A quick way to bring security to a supposed free state like Nigeria is bring in private security firms from the western world and many of these armed and highly professional and no nonsense agencies are owned by Diaporan Nigerians who also has cultural awareness of their native society. This will be the logical strategy and if you can get extra security forces from President Obama who also knows of the African reality and the deteriorating security atmosphere all the better.

Sir, this move is only to oppose and prevent a wider degree of victimization in the next few months, and thereafter end the contract. Sir, you are an Executive President and in cases like this where the county is almost facing constitutional crisis—political assassinations, beating or killing of election officers, and the destruction of election boxes as well as an all-out open terror on the average citizen then the use of your executive order superimposes every other authority. Good luck.

~ By John Egbeazien Oshodi, Ph.D , DABPS, FACFE, is a Forensic/Clinical
Psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Behavioral
Science, North Campus, Broward College, Coconut Creek, Florida.
joshodi@broward.edu


Related Links:

President Goodluck Jonathan

President Barack Obama

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)

Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega