AsoRock has said it’s unconstitutional for IPOB to order it’s members to Boycott elections in Nigeria.
See reply by Russell Bluejack below
WHETHER YOU ARE FOR OR AGAINST THE PROPOSED ANAMBRA ELECTION BOYCOTT, I WANT YOU TO TAKE YOUR TIME AND READ THIS GREAT ARTICLE by Russell Bluejack
THE ANAMBRA ELECTION BOYCOTT: STRENGTH, WEAKNESS, AND CONCERNS
As a prelude to this downbeat essay, I wish to state that I am an unrepentant advocate of election boycott as a passive protest against, a tacit rejection of, a vicious State like Nigeria.
It is my stance that wherever and whenever a State resorts to intimidation, use of military force, and outright extermination of non-violent agitators, a sublime means of agitating for the extrication of the victims from the thralldom suppression and oppression, two strangleholds of the State, should be adopted.
The May 30 sit-at-home exercise was a litmus test for something much more effective. No illogicality is committed if I say the May 30 sit-at-home is the forerunner of the proposed Anambra State Guber Election boycott. However, seeing that this project has generated a cacophony of discordant reactions from the Biafra rank and file, I am impelled to do this postmortem. I crave your rapt attention as I take off.
STRENGTH OF THE IMMINENT BOYCOTT
The ripples that has greeted this proposal is understandable, considering the fact that the election is few months away – November, 2017. To many a thinker it is urgent and dicey, hence the need for caution.
Interestingly, the bulk of these perturbed lot comprises the unlettered vis-a-vis the trajectory of revolutions that are forced by the operators of a violent regime to toe the path of civil disobedience. Of course, when occupying the streets becomes dangerous to the lives of civilised protesters in a clime that unjustly proscribes civil protests, voluntary withholding of mandate becomes an effective option.
I will go ahead and do a three-pronged excursus on the strength of the proposed boycott viz. political, constitutional, and legal.
Politically speaking, the proposed boycott will divulge the person to whom the fealty of Anambraians belong. This, I make bold to say, is the fear of both Abuja and Anambra seasoned politicians.
A successful boycott has the potentiality of retiring totus simul (once and for all) all the ineffective self-styled and self-acclaimed political bigwigs that dot the political atmosphere in the most vibrant eastern state in Nigeria. The bewilderment that came as aftermath of a very successful sit-at-home exercise, one that has cloaked Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in glory, is yet to go.
The political gladiators, at home and in Abuja, are still nonplussed about the ne’er total response to the call. The response to Kanu’s call has simmered down as disrespect for political offices in Nigeria. The deprave politicians in Anambra and Nigeria doubt whether they can take another one that is billed to be more devastating. The boycott will make a huge mess of the national and state political configuration as follows:
* the tenure of the incumbent governor gets extended indefinitely, making his government illegitimate;
* the winner will emerge only if the 2/3rd compliance of eligible voters in the register is met;
* even where a winner unjustly emerges from the poor turnout, the government becomes a de facto, illegitimate government; and
* the oppressive Federal Government of Nigeria will be forced to militarize the state before the full glare of international communities, an act that will end up making Nigeria a political bete noire in the comity of nations.
A successful election boycott poses austere danger to politics in Nigeria, will boost the confidence of secessionists and facilitate referendum for Biafra Republic.
Constitutionally speaking, a successful election boycott will expose the chink in the armour of the
