Victor C. Ariole urges the youth to ensure the elections are credible
Dilma Rousseff succeeded Lula da Silva as his protégée and as a continuity in Brazil; she was in power 2011 till she was impeached and removed on 31st August 2016. Lula da Silva tried unsuccessfully three times to be president until he succeeded in 2002. Dilma, a lady, was not greatly, neuronally, disposed to ward-off the attacks coming from Brazilian far right and other rentier class in whichever parties they belonged to, including even Lula’s own Labour Party. So, her impeachment was like that of Balarabe Musa in Kaduna State, unable to face what Ekundayo Simpson describes in his novel “The Act” as the Katsina Mafia. And in a political space in Nigeria, such Mafia exists, defending the interest of Nigeria’s rentier class, petrol subsidy racketeerers, and what recently the MD of NNPC sees as in-house petroleum product smugglers when he was admonishing his staff during their tête-à-tête gathering.
Population wise, Brazil and Nigeria are within 200 million plus, and they display good and bad leaders also. Mafia ones are also what Bolsonaro, the defeated ex-president of Brazil, represents in Brazil. We have them in Nigeria and one must not shy away in naming and shaming them if the Nigerian type of Lula must emerge. People whose only permanent interest is how to be in the mainstream for the looting of Nigerian resources; party affiliation remains a deceit. Current pronouncement of the highest court of the land giving such people the right to contest election in which they were found wanting at the primary election process says it all. The people of Imo are still grieving on how a candidate with the smallest recorded votes turned out to be their governor.
Those types of people are what the Braizlian youths stood their grounds against in the election that ushered in Lula as President with very weak margin that the fraudulent Bolsanarao group’s machination failed to rubbish.
According to some friends in Brazil spoken to, the electronic ballot boxes operating in their close-circuit locations, region per region, not connected to the internet, and ascertaining fraud free before linking it to the nations network, helped in avoiding significant hacking interference, voting was by making use of App and monitoring the e-ballot boxes they are uploaded to.
Surprisingly, the security sought for was by the Army in their technology savvy approach not by physical presence. The Army devised an Apps that monitored the electronic booths – e-Totulo app – which stored both voters’ ID and their local polling stations and another app which alerted on fraud in any booth or box, both electronic, so as to segment dangers or failures as against pulling down all the system.
Surprisingly, again, the judiciary acted in a proactive manner, being active in all the processes so as not to be deceived in their pronouncement of the winner at the end by relating with the processes’ managers towards guiding the TSE – Tribunal Superior Electoral (word for word translation) as the highest electoral court. No need for litigation.
The youths, the poor, the mulatos, the blacks held firm the north of Brazil with exception of two tiny locations they share borders with British Guyan and French Guyan, even when Surinam – Spanish – separates that two, the two Brazilian Guyans proved acolytes of Bolsanaro; possibly, greatly, entrenched in “uncle Tom” behaviour. The entire North-East and North-West of Brazil voted for Lula. Pernambuco is the region of birth of Lula and it is located in North-East. The center and the south of Brazil voted for Bolsanaro. South-East was neither here nor there – split votes. The surprise is Rio de Janaeiro with poor and black population voting in favour of Bolsanaro at 56:43. Another surprise that could serve as the median is the weak success of Lula in Amazonas, North West; indeed, this is where fraud could be suspected as Lula ought to win with great margin; the same for the capital where Lula lost at 41:59. In effect, south/central west had to be for Bolsanaro like North-East is to Lula.
The determinant of Lula’s success is the youths and, unknown to many outside Brazil, the blacks that turn to mulattos in a Brazil where changing complexion could be quite easy and quasi-organic. And Lula could shout in ecstasy that “Brazil is black” in lieu of “Brazil is for the poor” as he was able to lift over 20 million of such people out of poverty in his reign of eight years, 2002 to 2010.
This is what PMB in Nigeria could not do, as both military Head of State and civilian Head of State; so how and when will Nigerians herald their own Lula?
Both APC and PDP habour great number of what Simpson narrates in his novel as Katsina Mafia.
Kwankwaso is an ex-governor with credibility in Kano, the same as Obi for Anambra; however at the scale of Nigeria, and the seemingly weak neuronal disposition of Nigerians as ENDSARS and its failure to really end Katsina Mafia oppressive system shows that the two leaders mentioned could have problem making significant impact, breaking the stronghold of the Katsina Mafia in Nigeria. Ironically, PMB that could not be seen as part of the mafia seems to have succumbed to their caprices; aka “cabal in Aso Rock”.
So, like the youths in Brazil that supported the use of Apps in election and greatly followed it up to the success of Lula, so, could they also do that in Nigeria, at least, to stop the rigging process of the Mafia, especially the current Governors of the North-West.
Brazilian election had a median turnout of 82% and an average turnout of about 79%, quite impressive; and percentage of youth population in Brazil is about 70%; hence insignificant number of youths were left out. The elderly, indeed, complained about accessing the voting App. The same situation ought to apply to Nigeria in the use of the BVAS, that is making sure that undeserved people like children and imported “Bambaras” are not allowed to feature in the BVAS, and that truly registered voters are captured. Someone muted that the possibility of uploading names into the BVAS is not unlikely because it will be absurd to claim 93 million people registered to vote in Nigeria only to have less than 50% participating, due to either lack of voter cards, ghost registered voters, or lack of BVAS performance; and what could be disturbing is having North-West and North-East, two zones dominated by the said Mafia being the determinant factor with over 37% of registered voters, and the highest Almajiri population and the zone with the poorest Nigerians and having the most analphabetic population, with no “Lula” to save them. At 50.9% as winner of the election Lula received 60,346,000 and it is quite good. Nigeria must do better.
Ariole is a Professor of French and francophone Studies,
University of Lagos
