PROFESSOR INEC: THE ARCHITECT OF BROKEN BALLOTS- The Professor of Glitches -

Prof. INEC, you have left the stage,  

slipping away into retirement,  

not like a hero waving to a thankful crowd,  

but like a shadow sneaking behind the curtains at sunset.  

And yet, your footprints remain on the shore of our democracy,  

dark prints we will remember,  

and wounds we will never forget.  

You promised light but delivered darkness.  

You wore your many degrees like a shining crown,  

spoke fine words about integrity,  

filled the air with sermons about technology,  

about guarding the ballot from human hands,  

about transparency flowing like a clear river.  

But when the hour of truth arrived,  

you turned that crown into rust,  

you shut the gates to the river  

and let the water of hope turn muddy and foul.  

Ten long years,  

you sat in the palace of elections,  

feeding on billions meant to build trust.  

You painted the walls with the word innovation,  

drummed free and fair into our ears,  

and promised a ballot stronger than greed.  

But on that February night of 2023,  

when the people’s voices were supposed to be heard,  

your machines of light became corpses of silence,  

your technology caught a sudden fever,  

and glitches became the language of betrayal.  

You told us the truth broke down in transit,  

that votes could not find their way home  

because some phantom problem had stolen their wings.  

But we saw you, Professor,  

we saw your hand in the dimming of the lights,  

we saw your silence when the numbers bent like wet palm fronds,  

we saw your smile when the air grew sour with disbelief.  

And now you’re gone, 

washed clean by the hands that crowned you,  

bathed in praises from the same throne that danced  

while the people choked in the smoke of glitches.  

You return home a hero in the eyes of your paymasters,  

but to us, the people,  

you are the architect of broken ballots,  

the builder of a house where trust cannot live,  

the cobbler of shoes that cannot walk the road of democracy.  

You did not just fail us,  

you taught a dangerous lesson:  

that here, in our wounded land,  

a man can steal the people’s voice  

and still walk away with baskets of honour.  

You showed that here,  

power is not earned but arranged,  

and elections are not led by truth but by those  

who can bend the rules until they break.  

But know this, Professor of Glitches,  

2027 will not be like 2023,  

if the people lift their heads from the pillow of silence,  

if two hundred million hearts beat together like war drums,  

if the ocean of voices rises to flood the castle of deceit.  

The process that gives power  

matters more than the power itself,  

and one day, even the tallest walls of trickery will fall.  

We are wounded people now,  

our democracy limps with a bleeding leg,  

but when we stand,  

when we push back the chains of dishonesty,  

when we break the lock you helped to forge,

your kind will no longer hold the keys to our future.  

Until then, rest, Professor of Glitches.  

But your rest will be haunted.  

Your portrait will hang,  

not in the hall of honour,  

but in the museum of shame.  

And your name will be whispered like a storm in the marketplace,  

the name of the man who took the people’s trust,  

and dropped it in the dust without a blink.  

EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO - writes from Ayakoromo Town, Delta State