By Louis Aminadokiari Koko
In stable democracies where there are no rigged elections, power is balanced between the leaders and the followers.
The leaders, especially the executive control state apparati like the police, military, secret service, etc. and in collaboration with the judiciary and the legislature to bring about peace and order in society and more importantly to make the economy work for all.
Citizens( followers in particular ) are put in check, law breakers are punished based on due process and the rule of law.
Followers are also empowered to vote in or out leaders in free and fair elections. This helps to create stability, public trust, civic responsibility and nationalism .
However, this is not the situation in many developing countries like Nigeria. Elections are flawed and followers are denied opportunity to decide who leads them in government. This breed alienation and contempt in the political space.
Leaders are less accountable to the people but more interested in consolidation of power, illegal conversion of public assets for personal use.
Impunity from the ruling class and terror from the followers creates more chaos and opportunistic environment where only money and power are the audible voices and those without them, gravitate to tribe and religion for survival.
Religious and ethnic sentiments are mere symptoms of state failure and dysfunctional society, where basic needs, physical and economic security of majority of Nigerians are under serious threat.
Any Nigerian that desire to build a Nigerian nation out of our ethnic and religious diversity should advocate for a free, fair and credible elections. Election is not war, and assuming it is, everything cannot be fair because even in the act of war, there are war crimes. Killings, thuggery, arson, and all forms of criminality should be avoided.
More importantly the outright robbing of voters their right to choose and determine who rules them should end in the forthcoming Presidential election and others. 2027 Presidential election should give us the President we voted for and not the person that rigged.
