May 31, 2026
During the military government led by President Ibrahim Babangida, one citizen, Professor Jerry Gana stood out eloquently while canvassing the expedience of value re-orientation of every Nigerian. We all remember Gana’s sermon: If you are a cleaner, you clean well; if you are a teacher, you teach well etc urging everyone to be diligent in what he does. I wonder how Gana must have felt watching some recent party primaries which featured ‘monkey-counting’…. 1, 2, 30, 31, 604 etc. Through this special mode of counting which appeared to have been overlooked by officials, some aspirants got hundreds of thousands of votes in locations where the entire voters on a queue were less than 150,000.
Different groups of Nigerians in parts of the country were probably amused while some just described the trend as politics. But then, many of the scheduled party primaries have since ended with some of those elected as flagbearers announced. What has perhaps remained unclear is whether or not the ridiculous figures attained from the monkey-counting strategy have been officially ratified. There are many reasons why some people suspect that the figures may have been quietly adopted. First, there is not much time to repeat the exercises. Second, those in government may have since integrated the aggrieved into some official posts with a promise for more goodies hereafter.
