By Chidi Onyechuku Uwabuofu (SDP Chairmanship Candidate)
OBIARUKU/Nigeria: We have been receiving reports as well as results from our agents across the polling units in our Ukwuani LGA. As for the reports, the elections has been marred by malpractice in various forms such as handing money to electorates as they queued to vote in order to corrupt their consciousness, destruction of ballot boxes at polling units with strong presence of opposition, submitting large amounts of already thumb printed ballot papers from nowhere with the cooperation of DSIEC officials and security agents, intimidation and molestation of our agents in presence of security agents etc. These are some of the reasons why some of our confidants advised us not to run for the elections so we are not surprised because these are the regular underhand tactics employed in winning elections in our country, Nigeria. On the other hand, the votes casted in our favour is an indication of the faith which the people have placed in us and our ideas aimed to sanitize politics in Ukwuani.
No doubt, we have significantly impacted on the political consciousness of Ukwuani people, we have shown them that indeed there are better ways of playing politics — without handing out money or other forms of material inducements, without rigging or violence but with a thorough, holistic and fact based sensitization campaign, with a true heart of love for the people and with a clear vision of where Ukwuani as a nation needs to be. This outing we believe will challenge our teeming youths, even the poor to lend their voices, their time and their resources to uplift our local government, it is our hope that more of our youths will begin to rise up from their slumber and find their relevance within the political space.
I therefore wish (regardless of the outcome of the elections), to thank and to congratulate all those who supported us in one way or the other and all those who made it a point of duty to come out and vote regardless of the harsh weather conditions. I congratulate you because we have won. We have won because we voted for what we believe in not because we were paid to vote like others. We have won because we didn’t earn our votes through electoral malpractices. We have won because we have successfully given Ukwuani people an alternative way of doing politics. We have won because we did not engage in any form of violence to disrupt the elections. We have won because we didn’t feature our supporters and party members as DSIEC officials. We have won because even the oppositions have confessed that if it were to be in the developed world that we would have won with a wide margin. This is how we won.
We have to embrace politics without money in Ukwuani, so that leaders will emerge and not rulers, servants to the people and not bosses
When we play a no money politics, elected leaders will work and not refill the emptied and borrowed pockets. They will not be under pressure to pay back all they have spent. Only then can we conquer hunger and bring the needed development in Ukwuani.
