Was APC’s victory on March 28 God ordained?

“Not to be a little superstitious is to lack the generosity of the mind”

—De Qunicey

Ahead of the March 28, 2015 elections into the office of the President, Senate and House of Representatives, there were a lot of predictions made by prophets, metaphysicians, and other spiritualists about who would win what. Of particular importance were the forecast made on who would win the presidential election between President Goodluck Jonathan and his main challenger, Muhammadu Buhari. Many of the prophecies gave victory to the incumbent President while only a few gave it to Buhari. One may be tempted to ask, what has God to do with elections?

However, Nigeria being a highly religious society, many people seek ‘the face of the Lord’ or gods in order to know the outcome of their ventures or endeavours. It was therefore not totally surprising that President Goodluck Jonathan became a “political evangelist” in the run-up to the March 28 elections as he visited and worshipped in many churches seeking prayer support for his re-election ambition as well as votes of the church members. Though the President might have done his political evangelism openly, there are many of his fellow politicians who did theirs “Nicodemously”, I mean secretly. It is an open secret that politicians spend a lot of resources consulting prophets, “alfas”, fortune-tellers, star-gazers and marabouts in order to enhance their victories at elections.

In the March 28 polls, a number of “spiritual things” are presumed to have influenced the victory of Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the APC. When on February 16, former President Olusegun Obasanjo asked that the chairman of the PDP in his ward, Surajudeen Oladunjoye, should tear his membership card, some theologians likened the act to tearing down the PDP government in Nigeria. They compared the act to what transpired between King Saul and Prophet Samuel in the Bible in 1 Samuel 15 verses 27 and 28 in which the prophet made a pronouncement that, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbour, who is better than you…” when King Saul mistakenly tore the cloth of the prophet.

On March 28, something significant also happened. The Independent National Electoral Commission had deployed four Smart Card Readers to the polling unit where President Jonathan would vote in his Otuoke hometown in Bayelsa State. Ironically, when the number one citizen and his wife arrived for accreditation, the SCR failed to authenticate him and his wife. For more than 10 minutes the electoral workers did everything they could but the machines did not authenticate the first couple. It was a moment of national embarrassment for the first citizen and INEC as all the drama took place in the full glare of international and national media. Eventually, manual accreditation had to be done for the President and his wife. Curiously, at the same polling unit, the President’s aged mother, Eunice, was promptly and duly verified and authenticated by the same card reader that rejected his son and wife. In Daura, Katsina State where the President’s main challenger voted, both Buhari and his wife, Aisha, had a seamless accreditation with the smart card reader. Did that say something about divine endorsement?

When the results of the election were computed, the APC won by 15,424,921 votes while the PDP’s total vote tally stood at 12, 853,162. Some thinkers went to work and did arithmetic on the results. They added each of the figures in the results together and it amounted to 28 for each of the parties. Was that a coincidence? How come we had the election on March 28 and both parties had results that are 28 when added? The philosophers were not done. They subtracted the total figures for the APC from that of the PDP and it came to 2,571,759 votes. Now, if you add these figures together it comes to 36 which is the total number of states we have in Nigeria. Was that a coincidence too or the hand of God in the election?

If you’re not yet convinced of some celestial involvement in the March 28 polls, how come Buhari became the fourth Nigerian president in his fourth attempt in this Fourth Republic in the fourth month of this year? Ladies and gentlemen, take it or leave it, there is a divine involvement in what happened on March 28. It is unprecedented for an incumbent President to be defeated in an election in Nigeria. More so, for a benevolent President who wields a lot of influence and was on a spending spree, whose political party controls both the executive and the legislative arms as well as majority of the states, it takes more than chanting the change slogan and flowery campaign promises to boot out such a political party at both the executive and legislative arms in one fell swoop.

I must hasten to say that seeking spiritual guidance or metaphysical support about an important assignment is a global phenomenon though the practice may not be as widespread as it is in Nigeria nay Africa. It will be recalled that Europeans engaged the service of Octopus Paul to make prediction on the team that would win in World Cup matches in 2010. According to Wikipedia, “Paul the Octopus (26 January 2008 – 26 October 2010) was a common octopus who supposedly predicted the results of association football matches. He made several accurate predictions in the 2010 World Cup which brought him worldwide attention as an animal oracle. During divinations, Paul’s keepers would present him with two boxes containing food. Each box was identical except for the fact that they were decorated with the different team flags of the competitors of an upcoming football match. Whichever box Paul ate from first would be considered his prediction for which team would win the match. His keepers at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, mainly tasked him with predicting the outcomes of matches in which the German national football team was playing. Paul correctly chose the winning team in several of Germany’s six Euro 2008 matches, and all seven of their matches in the 2010 World Cup-including Germany’s third place play-off win over Uruguay on July 10. Following these predictions, his success rate rose to 85 per cent, with an overall record of 11 out of 13 correct predictions. Aside from his predictions involving Germany, Paul also foretold Spain’s win against The Netherlands in the 2010 World Cup final by eating a mussel from the box with the Spanish flag on it.”

Now that power has changed hands at the national level and could change hands in many states after the April 11 governorship and state house of assembly elections, the time has come to remind our newly elected representatives of their campaign promises and make concerted demands of them for the implementation of their manifestoes. Eternal vigilance, it is said, is the price of liberty.

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