THE Economist said a “chaotically organized vote and messy count”gave Nigeria a new president.
The Financial Times said in an editorial comment that our presidential election was “deeply flawed”and the winner “a wealthy political fixer.”
The Guardian of U.K. described the winner as “an immensely wealthy veteran powerbroker trailed by corruption allegations which he denies.
The New York Times described him as “a divisive figure in Nigerian politics.”
Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s programme on intrastate conflict, wrote an opinion for *Canada’s influential Globe and Mail*; its headline: Bola Tinubu’s election is another triumph for Nigeria’s corrupt old guard.”
*The Times of London* was the most disrespectful. It used this very bad phrase: “a wealthy kleptocratic ‘godfather’ of politics”_ to describe the person who will replace our very clean Buhari on May 29, 2023. As bad as those characterizations are, they are not as damaging as the Financial Times’ revelation that it personally “witnessed armed men remove a presidential ballot box in Surulere, Lagos”_ on Election Day.
The CNN last Friday played back a part of Bola Tinubu’s acceptance speech where he described what he got as _“a serious mandate.”_ A CNN anchor then asked if it “was really a mandate” with less than 10 percent of the registered voters behind it. He must be wondering what kind of people are these? The CNN and that anchor were not the only ones bemused by our electoral culture, our elections and their outcomes.
One of *Germany’s* largest newspapers, *Sueddeutsche Zietung*, had unflattering words for the winner; it also queried the legitimacy of a mandate that was spurned by 90 per cent of the voting population.
Aljazeera ran a special report on how the election was disrupted in Lagos last Saturday. The headline is: ‘How violence robs Nigerians of their votes.’
*The Washington Post* quoted Matthew Page, associate fellow with Chatham House’s Africa Program, as accusing INEC of making both deliberate and unintentional mistakes: “They raised the hopes about the election and its transparency, and then they dashed them. When the opposition says the process was broken, it’s hard to argue with them.”
Foreign election observers from the *US International Republican Institute (IRI)* and the *National Democratic Institute (NDI)* summed up their opinion of the election as falling “well short of Nigerian citizens’ legitimate and reasonable expectations.”_
I have spent the past five days reading informed commentaries and listening to credible voices. I have not seen, read or heard a single positive review of the election in any credible media in any country of the world. I have been around long enough to conclude that Tinubu’s 2023 mandate is rivaled in content, texture and review probably only by Shehu Shagari’s Verdict ’83 mandate.
Other Newspaper Headlines from around the world
Austria:
A drug baron wins the presidential election in Africa’s biggest economy.
Poland:
Nigeria chooses a known drug lord as LEADER.
Canada:
“Depression, anxiety, uncertainty be-clouds Nigeria’s political space a drug-kingpin wins the election.”
This is stinking!
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