Years ago, Dan Agbesi wrote in a piece he titled “Zapping the Unwanted” that in the reasoning of the military, there are only two sets of people – friend and foe. In the same vein, he said,in the military psyche there are only two colours – black and white, hence there is no room for grey.

So, if you fall within the category of a friend, you will be treated as one. On the other hand, if you are a perceived foe, God help you!

It is almost the same thing with the average Nigerian psyche. Call it an infestation of military reasoning, as a result of long years of military rule. The truth remains that the Nigerian mentality creates more sycophants of its citizenry than a pig churns out piglets.

This is why many reasonable Nigerians would prefer to keep mute when things are going wrong in the polity, even when it is happening under their nose.Not because they cannot do anything about it. It is rather more because things have gone so much at sixes and sevens that the ideal has widely been thrown into the dustbin, and reality has taken its stead.

This explains why the average Nigerian nearly always takes sides in vital issues, especially when it has to do with his well-being. How he portrays his position, though, to a large extent, will depend on the level of sycophancy he deems fit, or is exposed to, and hence willing to be influenced by.

Often times, when the Nigerian choses to see grey, or keep mute, it is for reasons not far from avoiding being fingered as a foe, or avoid playing silly buggers. Either way, the nation is worse off.And for whose benefit? A relatively selfish few amongst the over 170 million Nigerians.

It is in this wise that many a reasonable Nigerian have kept mute over what deserves to be called the Miders touch of Professor Attahiru Jega, the first chief electoral umpire under whom an incumbent President lost an election in Nigeria.

Jega may have had his faults, influenced by his own idiosyncrasies, but the fact remains that the level of transparency he sort to instil in the country’s electoral system is, to say the least, very unique. And it is one that can be built upon to provide Nigeria with a reliable system of choosing her leaders.

For obvious reasons, many people cannot come out openly to say that in the history of conduct of elections in Nigeria, no chief umpire had brought in as many innovations that are genuinely aimed at free and fair election as Jega.

This doesnot mean he was infallible. On the contrary, who can be without mistakes in a country in which only a few are reasonable enough to keep mute when they know that doing otherwise can only fetch them the wrath of the powers that be?

Jega may not be without blame. For instance, all that talk about blaming the postponement of the election from the initial February date to March for security reasons speaks volumes when one considers events that followed the test-running of the card readers in twelve states across the country. But this, as they say, is now history.

The point is that the innovativeness of Jega in coming up with such measures as the card reader alone, and the manner in which he reshuffled key electoral officers, giving election manipulators tough time to prognosticate his moves, as well as the vehemence with which he executed it, hardly leaves any unbiased mind in doubt as to the genuineness of the exercise in enhancing a free and fair election.

Here, of course, credit must also be given to the kind of person erstwhile President Goodluck Jonathan was. Rightly or wrongly, depending on which side of the divide you are – black, white, or grey – Jega knows, in his heart of hearts, that it’s only a President Goodluck Jonathan that would have taken what other past leaders would easily have regarded as his excesses.

In other climes, given Jega’s creativity, many would easily call for him to continue to steer the wheel of the electoral body until he finally institutes a reliable system of picking leaders, even if it will be with some modifications.

After all, there is one man who is typically known as the “Father of the (American) Constitution”.That man is James Madison.  He was the principal drafter of the Virginia Plan, which was the first major proposal at a constitutional convention which had other members. The final product of the convention had a great deal of influence on the finished document, which became the bedrock of the American constitution today.

Under the circumstance, Nigeria could not have had it better than what Jega has placed before us. It is a system that is fast tending towards e-voting, one which no one single person, or group of persons can have clear-cut control over.

The fact that campaigns were taken more seriously in the 2015 general elections only goes to buttress the scientific nature of the system. And every advancement-conscious person knows that there is hardly anything unscientific that has a place in modern development.

The least we can do for Nigeria is to develop from what Jega has offered. And, what better way to do it than to encourage him to totally download what he has to offer as an electoral egg-head?

What should stop Nigeria from getting the best from such an egg head as Jega?

Soibi Max-Alalibo