Academically I am an Organisational Behaviour specialist, with emphasis on Change Management. However.
Customer Relations Management ( CRM)is an area that has been of great interest
to me for ages. It is an area where
I have trained and consulted for a long
while and where I can pontificate on without any prior notice. After all said and done, the core
issue in CRM or indeed general stakeholder management is the Biblical injunction in Matthew 5:37:
Let your yea be yea and let your nay be nay. In our modern day parlance, this implies say what you mean, mean what you say and
go ahead to do it. This in tune with the good old TQM maxim of DWYSYWD(
Do what you said you would do). All this
brings to the fore the dangers of
overpromising and underdelivering .
Customers will prefer a promise of 20% that yields 19-21% to one of 90% that delivers 30%, despite the
fact that 30% is far more than the 20%. When you over promise and under
deliver, when you do not say what you mean or vice versa, when you yea is not
your yea and vice versa, you have failed the maxim of dictum mean pactum(
my word is my bond). You have destroyed
the trust, which is central to customer,
stakeholder or interpersonal relations.
You have also created a crises of expectations because you have raised
their expectations and consequently, people expected more than you offered. For
customers, this leads to disgruntlement, disloyalty and defection
Since 1999,
each electoral cycle has become progressively worse than its preceding
one with visible signs and wonders and operations shock and
awe by politicians who have no
regards for the basics of democracy. Results were allotted and written in hotel rooms and
announced while people were still on the queues. Ballot box snatching and
destruction, bloodletting and mayhem became the order in what somebody has
termed agberocracy. People who
obviously scored scanty votes
were returned with overwhelming majority
leading the people to wonder: who voted for them?
Professional godfathers emerged to the extent that one fellow declared himself
the godfather of all godfathers, installing all the political
office holders in Anambra State. The electorate, the umpires, security agents
and at times, some candidates were
financially induced to look the other way or to get directly involved in
truncating the will of the people.
Consequently, INEC
decided to deploy technology to minimise deliberate undesirable human interference in the
system and that was how BVAS was ‘born’;
a software that promised and still
promises a seamless and sure process between accreditation, voting, result
collation and announcement, without manipulation. BVAS was a local-content programme developed by
Chidi Nwafor, an IT guru from Anambra State who was mysteriously
transferred from the IT department to Enugu as an Administrative Secretary.
Billions in hard currencies, including the Naira, were deployed to perfect and procure the software with the
supporting hardware. In the past two months, Naira has become a hard
currency. If in doubt, go to your village and see how people are dying of
hunger and want, not because they are poor but because their wealth was seized
through deliberate demonetisation in pursuit of a policy with opaque objectives by a government where the
operating philosophy is everybody for himself!
INEC assured us that BVAS
was a solution to all ‘electoral banditry’ and allied
shortcomings, that they had perfected it
and had the will to deploy it so as to shame
the political buccaneers who want to acquire and retain power without
regard to the laws of the land and the will of the people. With BVAS,
snatching of ballot boxes, deliberate mis-recording and manipulation of results, missing result-sheets, and filling fake
results would be of no use . By the time BAS was adopted in the off-cycle
elections, especially in Ekiti and Osun, even the doubting Thomases agreed that
BVAS was it. The belief and trust in
BVAS was so high that when a deliberately contrived overvoting occurred on Osun
State, people mused ‘How Can this
be under BVAS ? But that was a forewarning that it was futile to expect
the best of technology when the supporting human elements are defective, not
because of human limitations but because of
cash-induced compromises. Festus
Okoye who appeared to have been created for a time like this, sold the BVAS to
us as the ultimate and Nigerians so believed in BVAS that before long, it was
named the Game-Changer, even by die-hard wailers, OBIdients and
critics.
Sometimes in November 2022, some ‘unknown
seers’ raised alarm that INEC had perfected plans to abandon BVAS and its key component, the
direct and real-time upload of polling
unit results to the I-REV( INEC Result Viewing Portal).
Festus Okoye roared and assured
Nigerians that INEC could not score an own goal by undermining its own
innovation, the BVAS & IREV, designed to ensure the integrity of
election results, had come to stay. PMB also assured us unequivocally
that he would deliver a credible, peaceful and transparent election as a
parting gift to a disappointed nation.
Politicians so believed these
dual assurances to the extent that those who bought and warehoused
PVCs started offloading them at the forests, riversides and soakaway pits ,
especially in River, Anambra and Lagos states. Yahaya Bello, believing that BVAS would
make rigging impossible, resorted to
crude method of destroying the roads in opposition strongholds to deny
access to INEC personnel and materials. People believed that their votes would
be counted and that they would count and they trooped out in millions, with
indescribable enthusiasm to the polling units on 25/2/23. Chukwumerije
Jnr was at his polling unit for
24 hours to queue for accreditation and
voting, counting and uploading believing that he was
performing a vital civic responsibility. There were similar stories of
commitment, self-denial and faith in the process across the land. And then, it
happened.
The accreditation aspect
of BVAS worked well; some results were captured but that was where we met an
apparently contrived dead-end. None of the 176846 PU results was electronically
transmitted online or uploaded real-time to the IREV. We thus resorted to the
stressful, emotionally draining
collation-center model, where the
political-actor, Dino Melaye re-enacted
what Segun Adeniyi described as the
Orubebeism of yore. Key political parties staged a
work-out and addressed threat-filled press conference. As it was in 1999, we
kept vigil for4 days and nights until, INEC, like a thief in the night,
announced the results around 4am on the 5th day! And by then, there were lots of signs and wonders, which
the twins of BVAS and IREV were expected
to abolish. Wike, the GOC of River State, who ‘has a discernible carriage
of a thug with the noble responsibility
of a high political office’ ( Dr Nwaezeigwe) went around polling units inducing and
coercing INEC operatives to mutilate results, some of which yielded laughable outcomes due to the associated
haste and tension. Joseph Umuya, an LG
chairman in Kogi State was caught on camera
destroying ballot papers belong to
candidates with contrary spirits while he was surrounded by police officers.
Signs and wonders: Ballot destruction,
multiple thumbprinting and suspicious
results
Police in Imo
threatened to withdraw the security
attached to Prof Esimone of NAU because he did not play ball while Professor
Ibrahim Yakassai of BUK issued a
statement stating that he announced the result of Tudunwada/Dogunwa HOR election under duress as ‘they’ threatened to
burn down the whole place if the doctored results were not announced within an
hour. LP alleged that one of its agents signed the result sheet, AGP( at gun
point). Some results were burnt or buried in the bush. Good old ballot
destruction, box snatching, voter intimidation and wanton destruction and
falsification of results became common place.
In the usual places, there was an abundance of underaged voters and
voting, which we were assured had been cleaned out or would be disenabled at
the polling center. Some results mysteriously migrated to other places as
results for Sokoto found themselves in Rivers; some results of the presidential
election were dated 20/2/23 while some results bore LP on top but APC below
while Fashola was shown previewing what
looked like election results 5 days before the election. Dino Melaye reported
that LP scored 70,000 in Wike’s LGA while INEC awarded it 3829 while PDP
situation room reported that LP garnered 983069 votes in Lagos, double of what
it was ‘allotted’ by INEC. A female
NYSC member was caught indulging in
massive thumbprinting while another female Professor was caught concocting election results in one obscure
corner of the voting facility
It was sad; a disappointment of gargantuan
proportions that the acclaimed game-changers could not change the game, or changed it negatively. The game-changers also chose whether, where
and when to change the game positively, negatively or leave it unaltered
because the NASS results fared relatively well. INEC supported by PMB overpromised
and under delivered with the consequential crises of expectations. They did not
do what they said they would do and their yea was not their yea. Washinton Post
stated that they raised the hopes about the elections and its
transparency and then dashed them
The Southern and Middlebelt Leaders Forum regrated that The
conduct of INEC on… compliance to electoral act on electronic transmission of
results has unfortunately created very serious mistrust between the electorates
and INEC and the Chatham House reported that Presidential election was not conducted in line with INEC guideline; failed
to adhere to its guidelines, especially the one bordering on real-time
uploading of results Chatham House.
The NLC condemned the vile activities of individuals associated
with some parties and in utter collusion with INEC officials and security
agencies to subvert the will of the people.
INEC had blamed technical glitches but one of my
friends who is knowledgeable in these things
informed that the Amason Web services
GUARANTEES 99.9% uptime, that the
server would have been shutdown deliberately and that AWS can provide details
of who shut it down and when. There were
also stories flying about in the ubiquitous Socia Media that the INEC system was jammed by one fellow who
hitherto worked with Lagos State Government.
Meanwhile INEC had suspended the Sokoto REC, Dr Nura Alli and replaced some
other officials as it prepared or the
State elections. The DSS allegedly arrested Chijioke Uzochukwu, the
Abia-State REC, for absconding from duties. On the other hand, the disappointed
electorates have reacted in diverse ways. Some have vowed never to vote again because contrary to
assurances, their votes were not counted and did not count. Others decided to
vote massively in protest against the answer-to-question
‘shenaniganists’. Another set
decided to deploy security dogs to save themselves at the polls but the police which could not
ban Oluomo et al from the polling centers have
risen to the occasion by banning dogs from the Polling
Units.
Dogs to the rescue PVCs discovered at Olodi Apapa, Lagos
My concern here is how
the acclaimed game-changers failed to change the game and for now , I
have no comments on the elections in general. I am however gladdened by the assurance given by Lasisi
Olagunju that whatever the case, it
would not be the worst in history. He premiered this assurance on 1927 Liberian
election in which the incumbent Charles DB King garnered 234000 votes out of 15000 registered voters
while his opponents scored 9000! He also recalled that the candidate
awarded the crown by INEC got less than 10% of registered voters and 4%
of Nigerians.
Meanwhile, ECOWAS has concluded arrangements
to honour PMB in recognition of his achievements in the defence and
promotion of democracy in the Ecowas subregion; he has done more than any other
to support democratic governments in WA and waging battles against the
emergence of non-democratic regimes.
The APC has described the national elections as ‘The most
transparent and peaceful’ stating that
the ‘electronic transmission of results is not compulsory and told Obi &
Atiku, Lets meet at Court. Of course, INEC has asked those not satisfied
with its pronouncements to go to court. Well, an East African proverb said-long before this period that whenever a thief encourages you to go to
court, then know that his elder brother
is the judge and that the only person who rejoices after a successful
robbery operation is the robber. Soldiers from the 9th Brigade recovered 1691 PVCs and some ballot
papers at Olodi Apapa axis of Lagos two days before the rescheduled
gubernatorial elections. A Court has
just sanctioned the use of temporary PVCs for the elections though INEC said
that this order was against the electoral act. Advance copies of the
gubernatorial election results were allegedly discovered somewhere in
Sokoto, a week to its scheduled date.
In
my last intervention, I drew your
attention to the presence of some emergency Igbo folks in Lagos. Now, here is
the big one among them, The governor of Lagos state. I assume that as the first citizen of the state, his title
must be the onye-Igbo1 of Lagos. But I wonder what value this
will add now that nd’Igbo are subjected to xenophobic demonisation, attacks and
intimidation under his watch, a demonisation that extends to a son of the soil, just
because he is our nwaadiana! But the mother of the dancing senator is also
our Nwadiana! And Fani Kayode has just joined Igbophobic crowd, forgetting that he has 5 small
soldiers, or IPOBians from his Igbo wife! Dr Adelakun has also just reminded
‘them’ that you cannot threaten people to either vote for you( or they
get harmed) and then turn around to complain that they are ungrateful because
they voted for your opponents (whom they expect would protect them from your
harassment. And then I just chanced on these insignificant developments:
One Anthony Chinasa-Abiola is SERIOUSLY and freely campaigning to represent the
good people of Umuahia Central at the
Abia House of Assembly. Secondly, one Alhaju Addul Ezechinudu Olahan has just
been installed as the 3rd Oba of Awka, a town where migrated to at the age of two, 68 years ago.
Oba of Awka…….. Anthony
Chinasa-Abiola FFK and our umu-nwadianas
By the way, I have just learnt a trick from INEC and APC: I have transfigured
and converted N200 note to N2m,
gave it to my creditor and asked him to go to court just as some mischievous fellows have also
told Orji Uzor Kalu who lost his phone
in the certificate of return presentation ceremony to Go to Court.
Please remember that are people are still
suffering from the government induced
cash crunch. The buyers do not have cash and the sellers have no bank account
for transfers and so… no business
Please, whatever the case, go out and vote on 18/3/23. This will surely come to pass!
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There's hope
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