STILL ON SUSWAN'S CONTROVERSIAL VICTORY

Like all virtual surfers, I cannot thank the inventors of the internet enough. Reason: I had to read the opinion written by one Tarkighir Tor-Ifyer, and entitled, “Benue: Suswam’s victory raises more questions than answers.” Actually, I also have to thank one James Uloko, who wrote a rejoinder to the piece in Peoples Daily and Leadership sometimes back. Otherwise, I am not likely to have seen it, and might most probably have missed that wonderful recollection of events on that ill-fated day when anti-democratic forces conspired to arrest the march of history.

Although he accused the said Tor-Ifyer of suffering from “gross factual error and crass misrepresentation of facts,” I found Tor-Ifyer a rather engaging writer who took time to give a poignant and encyclopedic account of what transpired on the Black Wednesday Gov. Gabriel Suswam was declared winner of the governorship poll by the officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The reason being that as a Makurdi resident, I was in town when INEC finally announced Suswam as winner. Of course, I, like many others, recall that it was not actually an announcement per se, but a mere confirmation as Radio Benue had already announced Suswam’s “victory” as early as mid-afternoon of that day.

Nor do I agree that the Tor-Ifyer piece was itself not a study in informed commentary/analysis, but “nefarious propaganda” or “self-delusion” as Uloko would want the unsuspecting public to believe.

But then, Uloko advertised himself as the “Director of Media and Publicity, Benue State PDP Campaign Team,” so it makes sense that he should continue with PDP/Suswam’s disingenuous subscription to the Goebellian principle ie that if you repeat a lie for as many times as possible, then it becomes true.

But Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, to whom the likes of Uloko bow in piteous worship, did not fare long or well in his duplicitous trade; he did not only fall, most ingloriously, from the heights of usurped power, he committed suicide! One can only hope that the road the Ulokos and their masters have elected to take is not the road to political perdition or political suicide.

Ordinarily, in spite of my discomfort with certain aspects of Uloko’s rejoinder, I might have let sleeping dogs lie. But he took too many liberties with facts, and when he summoned enough courage to own up to the facts, it was only to stand them on the head or twist them so as to sustain the wobbly agenda of Benue PDP as well as its strange clan of democrats who have a pathological aversion for the democratic tenet of one-man, one vote. Strange! Strange!!

But before taking on some specifics or the big issues, I would need to handle one small matter Uloko raised. In Benue, like almost all human systems, children do not name themselves; rather they bear the names that parents deem it fit to give them. But strangely, Uloko started majoring in minors when he left the issues that were etched in bold relief and started interpreting the names of Tor-Ifyer as the “King of mischief.”

But since Uloko sounds like Idoma (it may even be an Igede name), it means a Tiv man explained the meaning of Tor-Ifyer to him. But curiously, the Tiv speaker or interpreter did not go the whole hog of interpreting other Tiv names to him. For if he did, he might have explained to Uloko that, in the same Tiv language: Torwua means “the king is a killer.” Or that Suswam means the double-edged blade of a wild grass that cuts with wanton abandon. Of course, coming back-to-back, this makes the names Torwua Suswam a dangerous combination! But this is actually something minor, in fact, a digression, so I return to the main issues.

Space constrains me, but let me touch on just or two issues in the Uloko rejoinder.

He denied that a graveyard silence did enveloped Benue, especially Makurdi, when INEC confirmed the Radio Benue scoop. But coming from the PDP, a party that Nigerians acknowledge as suffering from chronic truth deficiency, only few people may have believed him. But as one who was in Makurdi before, during and after the elections to ensure that the ACN carried the day, I can confirm that: yes, no celebrations followed Suswam’ victory. In fact, by 8 pm, the city had shut down. It was the following day that it dawned on PDP supporters that theirs was the only victory without a victory party; and it was only then that they hit the streets in an orchestrated form of nervous celebration. But even then, even then, they needed police protection!

So when Uloko writes of “a mammoth crowd from Agan Toll-gate to High-Level,” there is little doubt that he is referring to the fictional people from whom the PDP got their fictional votes to recapture Government House Makurdi (GHM) and other elective offices state-wide.

He also tried to hoodwink the public with his specious rhetoric, saying since the PDP won 20 seats in the 28-member House of Assembly, eight out of the 11 House of Representatives seats and two of the three Senatorial seats, it followed invariably that the voters also voted for Suswam. But of those victories, the Tribunals have already been constituted. So whether PDP “won” the seats or characteristically “captured” them, we will soon know. In any case, my name-sake Uloko needs informing that the Nigerian electorate voted with delightful discrimination in the April elections. A few examples suffice. In Lagos, the electorate voted for PDP in the presidential election, but voted for ACN in the guber poll. In PDP’s Imo, the people elected Goodluck Jonathan, but rejected Ikedi Ohakim. In Bauchi, Kano, Katsina, the people voted for Gen. Muhammadu Buhari but voted for credible PDP guber candidates. So Uloko’s argument holds no water at all as Suswam was roundly rejected by Benue people.

Then, taking cover under PDP’s culture of impunity, the PDP underling said if the “ACN have no figures to disprove the vote tallies announced by INEC, they should shut up and allow the people of Benue to have some peace.” Good talk except that threats to public peace are coming from the direction of his party, which is intent on capping voter-intimidation with voter-persecution. But as the great Zik was fond of saying, “history will vindicate the just while God will punish the wicked.”

Written by James Iornumbe, a self-employed graduate lives in Makurdi. He can be reached at: [email protected].