"MY FIRST DIRECT ENCOUNTER WITH ELECTION RIGGING IN NIGERIA IN 1983"

My first paid job in Nigeria as a teenager after graduating from high school was to work as a polling clerk in the Nigeria's 1983 elections that was coordinated by the then electoral body, the FEDECO. I saw for the first time in my life as a young high school leaver how massive electoral frauds were carried out in favor of the then NPN federal government through the bribing of those electoral officials by the heavily corrupt NPN politicians. The personal intimidation and threats of the FEDECO polls workers who refused to fall in line by the Nigerian Police men that were officially assigned to maintain law and order during voting were visible everywhere. The NPN polling agents that represented those politicians that were running for those elective offices worked hand-in-hand with the police to do their dirty job. That election did not reflect the majority will of the Nigerian voters. Actual voting did not take place in Nigeria in 1983. I knew then as a teenager that Nigeria was practicing a sham electoral process and a pseudo-democracy. That experience was my first direct encounter with those corrupt politicians and with the election rigging in Nigeria. The ordinary Nigerians knew at that time that something drastic was about to happen in Nigeria except the corrupt politicians and their cronies who thought that all ws well with them. We woke up four months later on December 31, 1983 to the military martial music on the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Lagos announcing the overthrow of the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. There were celebrations and jubilations all over Nigeria. That coup was welcome by Nigerians. There were no single reported or recorded demonstration against this military takeover in Nigeria in 1983. ‪#‎EntryFromMyPersonalDiaryOnNigerianElection‬