A Summary......

The much anticipated presidential elections in Nigeria finally held yesterday and due to some discrepancies it continues today. I was seeing as everything unfolded via Twitter yesterday and it was really interesting getting live feeds from various states across the country at about the same times. True to form, there were many hiccups and small pockets of violence as a result of the elections but overall, I think things were kept under control for the most parts.

The first set of hiccups occurred when the card readers (new and supposedly pre-tested) malfunctioned in quite a lot of pulling units. This was really embarrassing and ridiculous because INEC has had the past four years to get such minor glitches right. Even more irritating was the fact that some of the glitches shouldn't ever have occurred if only the INEC officials had been enlightened  and quick-thinking enough to know to remove the protective film on the faces of the card readers. You would think this was far too basic t have posed such a problem, but hey this is Nigeria; a place where anyhowness prevails.

And then there was the horrific violence and loss of lives in Rivers state and in a couple of parts in the North. I honestly could never understand why we would feel the need to take another life just t prove a point on behalf of a politician. There's no justification for the murders of those people and I hope the perpetrators get caught and are made to pay. 

I read a bit of anger online this morning from some Nigerians who felt the way CNN focused on reporting the violence as having "marked the elections" was a bit patronizing. Well, the thing is this, from an American's perspective, an election in a democracy shouldn't be so difficult in 2015, talk less of degenerating into cold-blooded murders over preference of candidates while from a Nigerian's perspective, it could have been much worse but it wasn't and it is clear that the people's voices are being heard at last. Bear in mind that we have been through a whole lot to get to this point and we are still going through plenty so focusing on positives rather than negatives seems more appealing. And as sad as the loss of lives in this election has been (I was mentally and physically drained by the reports and pictures yesterday), it pales in comparison to the number of people that have died needlessly during past elections and even more so during the tenure of the incumbent. 

Afterwards, it was seeing and hearing about the several Nigerians who couldn't vote initially because there were no ballots papers and so on. It was however really heartwarming to see a general resilient spirit flush through Nigerians and they remained in their polling units through the day till very late in the night to vote and oversee their votes counted. In some areas, torch lights and generators were used to ensure the counting of the votes were fair and accurate. In some areas, the voting was postponed till today and from what I've gathered online so far, theyve already commenced. 

All in all, fingers, toes and even eyes are crossed as the nation awaits the official declaration of the results of the election by INEC. I sincerely hope we get things right this time around.