When I heard about the possibility of a woman governor in Nigeria, I was excited. It excited me the most when I saw that there is a possibility that the first woman governor will hail from the northern region of Nigeria; a region where religion and culture prohibit women from public appearances, going into public office, joining politics and even going to schools.
I can vouch for the fact that every feminist in and out of Nigeria and every advocate of women’s inclusion in governance definitely supported this move and we all rooted for her.
I really wanted her to win so as to break the longstanding barrier and become the first female Governor in Nigeria, especially from the North because it would have made a big and bold statement and inspired a lot of girl children out there.
But, if a female governor must be elected, it must be done through the lawful, legal and constitutional process; what we saw play out in Adamawa state which a lot of folks cheered on out of the desperation for there to be an elected female governor should never be allowed to repeat itself again or thrive in our democracy and the perpetrators of those embarrassing electoral crimes should be made to dance to the tune of the law.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner of Adamawa state who has no legal power to declare any candidate elected or returned took the law into his hands and declared Aisha Binani elected even though results are yet to be fully collated. This is an electoral crime.
She (Aisha Binani) with the knowledge of the surrounding events that got her purportedly elected went ahead and gave her acceptance speech as the governor-elect of Adamawa state, this act makes her an accomplice to the crime committed by the Resident Electoral Commissioner; she is in the same category guilty just as the REC that illegally declared her elected. They are both electoral criminals.
She was also accused of bribing the REC with a huge sum of money which gave the REC the impetus in order to work for what he has been paid for, stepped in and usurped the power of the returning officer to declare her the governor-elect even when results are yet to be totally collated. Well, the bribing rumors are merely accusations which are yet to be established in a court of law but I can say that there’s the possibility of truthfulness in it and this is not the precedent we want to set for our upcoming female politicians.
Her running to court afterwards praying to the court to hold that INEC has no power to nullify her declaration as the governor-elect is quite amusing. You were declared governor-elect by a busybody who has no power to declare a contestant elected or returned, not just that, results were still being collated with millions of votes yet to be counted when you were declared and you are still boldly asking the court to put a seal on and endorse the illegality. You cannot use the court to enforce illegality. Lawyers often say that he who comes to equity must come with both hands clean.
While we hope that Nigeria will one day have an elected female governor and even female president but she must be elected following due process and not snatch power through anyhowness or illegality.
