It began with an anxiety driven ride along the cluttered asphaltic passages that led to the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium in the clean sweeping glitter of the Portharcourt vistas in that early morn of Saturday October 6th when the sun had already risen in full effulgence.
We drove along with thousands of cloudy expectations, weighing the widening monstrosities of the unknown, conflicted in the natural apprehensions of what to expect at the convention venue because the organizers did not factor the delegates’ transportation into their planning schedule.
Everyone was on his own. There were three of us in the rented flaming red sedan: two former permanent secretaries and myself; all deepened in that narrow focus about the historic event we were about to participate in.
We had driven in smooth, uncluttered pace, confronted with dash of colors of delegates here and there along the road, graceful and elegant in the green, red and white defining profile of their party.
However, amid all the various strains of glowing colors and animated painted postures was the gripping magical herding of the trooping Kwankwasiyya horde whose presence gave a trembling sigh and an arresting awe wherever they were perceived.
Gradually, the scattered throng on the road grew and swell as the car receded in speed, increasingly swallowed by a vehicular gridlock and a thickening mass of men and women in riotous, feverish animation. It was as if the totality of man and machine in Portharcourt had all conspired to move in the same cluttered, impassable direction at the same time.
Eventually, the vehicle halted amid the swollen humanity. Every space was choked and blocked with trooping feet, slowed and halted in the massive horde that plunged towards the barred iron gates of the stadium.
It was a constant pushing and pulling everywhere, with all manner of scoundrels, varying from pick pockets, vagrants and brazen crooks exploiting the confusion to ply their trade. Phones , wrist watches, money, neck chains and various ornaments quickly disappeared, long before the owners realized that they were gone.
Naturally, only delegates, officials, observers and accredited journalists were supposed to enter the accreditation fields which was just the the adjoining expanses to the stadium itself.
But this much we didn’t know until later.
This hurdle being conquered, we went to the South West corner on the right flank of the accreditation fields wherein we rested on the concrete bleacher seats on the first upper row of the covered platform.
It was now 10am. We sat restlessly as the officials were calling one state after the other, thoroughly insistent on matching identification cards with names on the list before them.
There was no bypassing these resolute and sternly resolved men without certified , individual vetting before your left thumb can be inked and delegate’s tag held by a green sling can be issued.
Again, this procedure being concluded, we walked about 150 meters towards a narrow red gate on the eastern end which opens up into a concrete corridor where another security caldron was flung about as watchful law enforcement men and women barricaded the narrow spatial ground with snarling dogs, as they checked the delegate’s tag with detailed scrutiny before we waded our way to the stadium itself.
It was already festooned with the glowing green, white and red colors of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The states were seated in strict alphabetical order. Lagos State delegates were reposed in the far left corner of the covered platform just before Kwara State.
We were the first to be seated in what turned out to be a 30 hour grueling participatory vigil in the famed stadium.
We sat on sturdy flip-back plastic chairs welded to the concrete floor. It was a crushing waiting game as the electoral committee of which I was also a member as well as a delegate insisted on the detailed adherence on ensuring fairness and observable openness in the cumbersome procedure.
At about 1am on Sunday, after the accreditation outside the stadium was completed, yet another re-accreditation was ordered to cross check the number of delegates seated with the official list of names. This was to ensure that there couldn’t be over -loading of delegates and that no one could use proxy to vote.
From one state to the other , the procedures crawled cruelty through the night and the early morn as frail delegates collapsed and fainted and strong men and women wilted, restlessly shifting, walking across the tartan track to stretch their limbs, regaling each other with endless tales of partisan maneuvers as candidates themselves engaged in last minutes walk through, greeting delegates with fanfare and subtle desperation.
Amid all these were musical mediations which lightened the boredom, lifting up exhaustion from the weighed down delegates.
After the national anthem was recited and prayer was given in tempered religiosity, the crucial activities began in earnest at about 2am when all the 12 presidential aspirants were summoned to address the delegates for 3-5 minutes each .
This was done in alphabetical order. Atiku who was the first to speak was solemn, clear headed, straight to the point, stripped of ornamentation. Saraki was the most eloquent, animated in youthful audacity and grace.
The voting process did not begin until around 3am with the innovative procedure of calling two states at once: one from the left flank and the other from the right .
Lagos and Bayelsa states were called at the same time around 4am.
As you queue to vote, delegates were counted all over again to ensure that no one had been sneaked in.
It was indeed the best ever electoral contest ever conducted in this nation in terms of openness of the process, the purity of the exercise and the firm thoroughness of the adherence to the finest principles of electoral guidance. Nothing was hidden. The SSS had their cameras flung about, probing everywhere like The Big Brother. And there was a ubiquitous drone which hovered eternally in perpetual sentry.
It was in the end a triumph of the people’s will, a legitimacy of the popular purpose. It was a signification of a brightening augury for a nation in need of salvaging thoroughness.
