The truth is that we cannot have genuine democracy without electoral integrity and there can be no good governance, transparency and equity without genuine democracy. When people get into office fraudulently through riggings and all kinds of subversion of the will of the people they obviously cannot be expected to truly serve the people. They cannot reasonable be expected to address the wide spread poverty, unemployment and corruption in our country, Nigeria. Such persons can only be accountably to those who rigged them into power. The need for electoral integrity in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized.

All Nigerians without exception should be part of the struggle for effective electoral reforms in Nigeria including the deepening of internal democracy in the political parties and credible election, as it is central to the capacity of the country to jumpstart the economy and give hope to all of us not just to a few of us.

Electoral fraud and corruption in Nigeria is a seemingly formidable industry. It is an industry whose services to the nation include mass falsification of voting registers, mysterious stuffing of ballot boxes, use of some misguided youths as “hired political thugs” by wealthy candidates, to threaten, harass and intimidate voters as well as flagrant use of INEC and security officers to impose the will of a few godfathers on the rest of us.

Electoral fraud therefore is aimed at subverting the will of the people by denying them their voice in deciding who governs them. It is worse than military coup because it is not only imposes the will of the political godfathers on the rest of Nigeria but also is laden with deceit.

We must resist any attempt by anybody including INEC, self serving politicians, misguided youths and the security agencies to howsoever manipulate or rig the electons as well as discourage the popular believe that political office here in Nigeria is more of an access to massive oil wealth; a gateway to power and patronage, than service to the people. We must mobilize the market women, churches and mosques, communities, age grades, traders, civil servants, company workers, and indeed all Nigerians without exception to join the campaign and fight to ensure that our votes count.

We must ensure that the Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reform Panel Report is passed into law, we must ensure that only persons of integrity and demonstrable patriotic stand hold offices in INEC, we must enlighten and educate all Nigerians to join this project of ensuring that our voters counts, we must vote and protect our votes. We must also ensure that INEC do their job and that they do not deliberately refuse to do their job.

Each of us must rise up to the challenge and support the campaign for electoral reform. We must moblise all our friends, kinsmen, church members, colleagues, associates, neighbours, age grades and communities to resist the temptation to be used by anybody to rig howsoever the 2011 elections. I can proudly say that no person can successfully rig any election in Nieria and in Rivers State without the tacit and/or explicit support of Nigerians. We support them if we do nothing about the evil of electoral fraud which is the father of all evil. We support them when we do not challenge what they are doing or when we lie down resigned to fate.

As aptly captured in Ola Rotimi’s ‘The God are not to Blame’, to lie down resigned to fate is madness and Nigerians must stop this madness of aparthy, fear and refusal to fight for the good and progress of Nigeria. The truth is that evel, including electoral fraud, which is the father of all evil, benefits those who perpetrate it and therefore cannot be wished away in this world. It multiplies when people like us simply do nothing, and that is why as far as I am concerned, doing nothing in the presence or midst of evil is greater evil. This is because it simply feeds evil and encourages it to ‘prosper’.

If we must have a better society then we must resist evil, especially electoral fraud by deliberate and organised actions. We should therefore be more actively involved in the Nigerian project. I do not want to pretend that it is a tea party, but the truth is that it is the key to the good future we all expect and dream of and we cannot afford to fail.

Making our votes count is therefore the single most important reform that we urgently need in Nigeria, if we must make progress as a people and regain our place in the comity of nations. Without electoral reforms including deepening of internal democracy in the political parties and credible elections, we have No future in Nigeria!

 Onuegbu is the chairman, Rivers State Council of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC).

Hyginus Onuegbu