The Convener of The Big Tent Coalition of political parties and civil society groups for the ObiDatti movement, Professor Pat Utomi has assured well-meaning Nigerians that “nothing will prevent a number of the critical actors in what has happened in Lagos and other parts of the country (on February 25 and March 18) from getting before an International Criminal Court.” According to the renowned Professor of Political Economy and social activist, “if I have life it will happen.”

In a statement on Big Tent’s position on the just concluded general elections, signed by Charles Odibo, Director of Media and Communications, Professor Utomi who addressed the national leadership of the Big Tent assured the movement that “there are people from our group who have spoken to appropriate people in governments outside Nigeria and who are waiting for the right moment to act.”

Utomi further urged Nigerians not to relent in the battle to take back Nigeria because “history is built on the blood of martyrs. The greatness of Nigeria which will rise will have as its foundation this gift that they were called upon without planning to give. But it’s also a place and time of challenge for us all and the way that we show the future that we seek to have.”

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Ahead of the 2023 general elections, many Nigerians had looked up to the conduct of the polls with hope of using their democratic rights to reset Nigeria for a better future. It was an opportunity to navigate the country from perpetual state capture, prebendal politics and elites’ conspiracy staked against the teeming population of the Nigerian people, to a country that works for all. The youths in particular, saw 2023 general election as a pathway to a new Nigeria where democracy becomes real with the aspiration of the people.

The stakes were really high and not without cogent reasons. The country remains at the precipice, our economy is in tatters with spiraling unemployment, a chaotic foreign exchange and weak Naira.

Worse still, the hitherto two major political parties had made it difficult for regular and well-meaning Nigerians to have a platform to contest elections and offer genuine service to the people. Party tickets were mostly reserved for money bags.

It was against this background that the emergence of Peter Gregory Obi on the platform of the Labour Party, backed by the Third Force coalition of political parties, civil society groups, and social movements, all under the Big Tent was warmly received and embraced by Nigerians desirous of positive change.

When this revolution started, barely nine months ago, many actually laughed it off as so implausible that only people who only take wild risks, who believe in the esoteric could have imagined anything like what has been accomplished.

According to Professor Utomi, “the Nigerian people were fed up, they were tired of being taken for granted by politicians who felt that all they needed to do is to annoy you enough not to care about voting and have enough cash to distribute to a few miscreants, and they can continue to run a government of politicians by politicians for politicians. But they completely under-estimated how fed up you and other Nigerians are with the current order.”

25TH FEBRUARY, 2023: THE DELIBERATE AND CRIMINAL RAPE OF DEMOCRACY & PEOPLE’S MANDATE

After waiting for the D-Day with perplexity, on Saturday, 25th February, 2023, a teeming population of Nigerian voters trooped to the 176,825 polling units across the 774 local governments and 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to express their democratic franchise, only to be served by a corrupt and rapacious electoral commission – INEC. First, there was deliberate delay in the arrival of INEC staff and elections materials. The voters waited patiently and painstakingly to cast their votes. Before this fateful day, it had become clear that Peter Obi and Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed were going to coast home to victory in the presidential election. Sensing this monumental change, INEC and its evil co-travellers and conspirators decided to “shut-down” the iREV portal where the presidential election results was to be transmitted and uploaded. Shockingly however, on the same February 25, the electronic transmission of the elections results for the Senatorial and House of Representatives elections were carried out smoothly.

By shutting down the IREV, the BVAS could not transmit or transfer the polling units’ results of the presidential election, thus creating a window for INEC and his conspiratory elements to subvert the will of the majority of Nigerians.

The forces of impunity always fight back, forces that did not think that the 25th of February’s reality of a new Nigeria was possible, was hard at work. And because the wrong that began with Mahmoud Yakubu’s effort at “collating”, the wrong that began with the “glitch” as they call it, that prevented the uploading direct to the IREV portal from BVAS, and history will tell us exactly where that wrong began because they have told so many different stories of server being down but those who know technology say that the Amazon Web Services (AWS) server on which the INEC server is hosted has 99.9% uptime. That notwithstanding, incredible wrong took place that day.

No fewer than 21 deaths were reported. Obstruction and organised violence limited the free expression of the will of the voters in the just concluded general elections, according to the European Union Election Observation Mission Nigeria 2023.

Chief Observer, Barry Andrews, Member of the European Parliament, who presented the second preliminary statement of the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) to Nigeria on the 18 March Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections stated that “Throughout the mission we saw that Nigerians have a great appetite for democracy and are keen to engage in various civic activities. However, in many parts of the country, their expectations were not met. Many were disappointed…in part a clear consequence of failures by political elites and, unfortunately, also by INEC.”

According to EU EOM, “INEC continued to lack transparency. Polling on election-day was disrupted by multiple incidents of thuggery and intimidation of voters, polling officials, observers, and journalists. Lagos, Kano, and other states in the southern and central part were most affected. Unfortunately, there were many casualties and fatalities. Vote-buying, also directly observed by EU EOM observers, further detracted from an appropriate conduct of the elections.”

JUDGEMENT DAY SURELY SHALL COME FOR PERPETRATORS OF VIOLENCE ON THE PEOPLE

“But because wrong, when people do it and no consequence comes to them, begets more wrong, we saw the tragedy of (two days ago) March 18. We saw lives being lost across the country in a way that is undeserved by the people of Nigeria,” according to Utomi who called for a minute of silence as “tribute to all our compatriots that gave their lives in this struggle to reclaim our country in this belief that a new Nigeria is possible.”

History is built on the blood of martyrs. The greatness of Nigeria which will rise will have as its foundation this gift that they were called upon without planning to give. But it’s also a place and time of challenge for us all and the way that we show the future that we seek to have. Some of this violence is ongoing.

Professor Utomi then assured that “we have communicated same to some appropriate international communities, seeing that our institutions are so weak and so un-protective of wrong and impunity. We want to assure you that nothing will prevent a number of the critical actors in what has happened in Lagos and other parts of our country from getting before an International Criminal Court. That will happen. I assure you that if I have life it will happen. There are people from our group who have spoken to appropriate people in governments outside Nigeria and who are waiting for the right moment to act and consequence must be there because the problem with our country is a problem of consequence management, and because we don’t ensure consequence we have an institutionalisation of impunity. We must not let that go on.”

While we are conversant with the facts and reality of Peter Obi’s victory at the presidential polls, and the deployment of brigandage to rig him out of the peoples mandate given to him by Nigerian voters, it is our candid resolve to support the constitutional and legal means in seeking redress and reclaiming our ultimate mandate. The process to seek legal means in the reclamation of our mandate is sacrosanct and compels the whole world to watch the Nigerian judiciary as she dispenses with justice in the most audacious and sincere sense.