Adeola Aderounmu.   

The appeal court in Nigeria has confirmed Yar Adua as the president of Nigeria. In 2007, Nigeria conducted the worst and the most shameful election in human history. 

On 26th February 2008, the appeal court delivered a judgment that made nonsense of the opposition’s case as brought forward by Atiku and Buhari. A Super Tuesday was expected but Nigerians got a Useless Tuesday.  

The issues are complicated. On one hand, based on democratic principles and the enthronement of proper standard for governance, the judgment of the court was simply absolute nonsense. On this particular case, history will judge them as supporting the disenfranchisement of 140m Nigerians. It is not worthwhile repeating all the atrocities and illegalities that went along with the selection process of April 2007. They are too shameful and too scandalous to recall every now and then. 

In Nigeria, the law has a very short arm and cannot yet deliver all the oppressed and suppressed people. It is difficult to know where the hope of a common man in Nigeria lies. In general, hopelessness pervades and reign supreme.  

From another perspective, the opposition as represented by Buhari and Atiku does not appeal to a lot of Nigerians. Buhari was a former coup plotter who had violently and forcefully overthrown democratic governments in the past. He has no business to aspire to be a democratic president. He should be facing charges relating to treasonable felony. I wonder why he was not reprimanded in court on this useless Tuesday. Buhari has been faulted for his religious inclination and apparent non-tolerance of people of divergent beliefs. He must never be allowed to be a civilian president. He has contributed enough to the destruction in Nigeria as a coup plotter and military head.  

Atiku is a very corrupt man. As a civil servant he became very rich probably looting and stealing government funds. As the vice president who rigged elections in 1999 and 2003, he has no morality on the issue at stake. He stole so much that he dipped his hand into Petroleum development funds and got carried away with it. All the monies stolen by Atiku and Obasanjo were made public knowledge during the third term war of Obasanjo with the rest of the country. 

In a way, no matter how devilish the judgment of the court appears, we are still left with very bad people trying to take control of our lives. Let Buhari and Atiku go and sit down. They should return all the monies that they have stolen from Nigeria. Rather than going to the Supreme Court and wasting more money, they should give the money to charity or look for Nigerians who don’t have 2 dollars to spend in a day.  

Yar Adua must be smiling now. He has a right to be the president of Nigeria but it is good that he has acknowledged that the process (not election) that brought him to power were very fraudulent. His emergence points to the persistent power play among those who are hell bent on using Nigeria’s wealth to their selfish benefit. Maurice Iwu must also be laughing now, probably having a party to laugh at his perceived enemies.  

Nigeria claims to be the giant of Africa but all that is radiated from Nigeria are the attributes of a clown. Beyond this political impasse, ordinary Nigerians want to feel the benefits and dividends of democracy. They want water in their homes, food on their table and they long for the basic infrastructure that will add meaning to their lives. 

The schools are dilapidated and they have lost their glories from primary to secondary to the Universities. The worst roads in the world are in Nigeria! Fraudulent activities abound, corruption is a way of life and lawlessness is an ok concept. 

While we endure this illegitimate government, one hopes that those who are its beneficiaries will not get carried away by this undue victory at the court of law. We don’t expect much from them since they emerged from flawed processes but let them not make our lives more miserable than it is at this moment. 

The hope and the emancipation of Nigerians remain delusionary but we must keep the dreams alive. We’ll see where we go from here!