ABUJA — ALL hope may not be lost to restore the “stolen mandates” of top politicians in Nigeria’s Feb 23 presidential and national assembly elections. This is because a new technology has been invented to replay scenes of voting.
This new technology is the Voters Assistant Replayer (VAR). It is capable of capturing scenes of voting across the country and thereafter replaying those scenes to confirm whether or not an election was free and fair. By it, real winners of elections are known without stress.
VAR took its cue from the Video Assistant Referee recently introduced into the game of football. Like the latter, the Voters Assistant Replayer is targeted at curbing fraud and ensuring fairness in a process.
Unveiling the new invention Saturday in Abuja, Engr Butiku Akpabio, the Chief Researcher of War Against Rigging Limited, a multinational technology company headquartered in California, USA, said a lot has been put into research, and his company is really happy that their investment is seeing the light of the day.
“We are happy to announce this breakthrough after years of research. It’s been a research of nearly 10 years, and it means a lot to us to unveil it here in Nigeria.
“We weren’t thinking of anywhere else except Nigeria because of the country’s history of tribunal after elections. Being the year of election in the country, we know it is simply the best thing to do to solve the nation’s looming tribunal cases.
“What this new invention would do is that it would save time, cost and resources. Most of all, it would strengthen democracy in the country because only winners would emerge. There would no longer be cases of stolen mandates.”
Mr Butiku added that the his company hopes that once the efficiency of the technology is confirmed, it would be passed into law.
“We are aware that some top politicians in the country are already bracing up for election tribunals. We would like to tell them that they need not to. Our satellites have captured all the scenes of voting, counting, collation and announcement of results across the 36 states and the FCT. All we need do is to replay what happened in the areas of concern and everything would be settled.
“We are therefore calling on all aggrieved candidates in last week’s elections — especially the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party in the presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Akwa Ibom, Senator Godswill Akpabio — to embrace this technology instead of election tribunal.
“In fact, we are seeking partnership with INEC. We assure them that our new discovery would make the coming gubernatorial elections more transparent, free and fair.”
After the announcement of presidential election results, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari was declared winner. However, his neck-to-neck rival, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP has vehemently rejected the announcement saying he would “regain his stolen mandate” in court.
A host of senatorial candidates too have declared their plans to seek legal redress after the results announced didn’t favour them.
Nigeria’s presidential election results since 2003 have always been taken to the tribunal, and President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has a track record of this. 2015 was the only year when there was no tribunal for a presidential aspirant that lost an election.
Caveat: This is a work of satire. Names or anything that has semblance with them, persons, wise or otherwise, offices, high or low, authorities, constituted or unconstituted, are as a result mixture of the author’s imagination and inspiration from Above, and any semblance of actual persons, far or near, organizations or body is the handiwork of Mr Coincidence. You have been told. Don’t say we haven’t!
