I FEEL TRULY SORRY FOR ATTAHIRU JEGA- PIUS ADESANMI

Prof. Attahiru Jega

I feel truly sorry for Professor Attahiru Jega. I met him once in Ibadan in the 1990s and have read many of his brilliant academic essays. He is a great Professor of political science. Migration from the epistemic habitat of political theory to the no nonsense bolekaja world of the Nigerian street riven by ethnic, religious, and geopolitical discontents and unhealable suspicion is always a dangerous move. There is nothing more sobering than a Professor discovering that political theory in his textbooks and Nigerian reality are deadly, irreconcilable enemies.
By the time Professor Jega discovers that straightforward mathematics and the fault lines of Nigerian nationhood are equally enemies, he may be presiding over ashes and sackcloth where a country once stood. A storm is brewing because the Professor is insisting on mathematics in Nigeria. He wants to create new polling units for the 2015 presidential election. He says he is putting 21,000 of those new units in the North (70% of the total) and 8000 (30% of the total) in the south. Professor Jega has been riding the quiet storm that has followed this announcement because the storm is still rideable for now. The general public has not yet fully logged into this little business. In fact, only Musikilu Mojeed and his folks at Premium Times are covering this potentially explosive issue for now. Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo and his Sahara Reporters people haven't even caught on to this yet. People are still pillorying Goodluck Jonathan and Doyin Okupe for their recent embezzlement of the Chibok symbolism for cold-blooded political schemes. People are still digesting Obama and ISIS. People are still mocking Ribadu. People are still wondering waz gwan with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. When they are done with all these issues, they will turn their attention to Attahiru Jega and the developing story of his new polling units.
Career Jonathanians who until now have considered 2015 a cakewalk for their Orisha will suddenly realize that 21,000 new polling units in the north may make life much easier for an opposition northern candidate. They will accuse Jega of unsayable and unhearable things. Whether they are of the PDP or APC, all those opposed to a Northern presidency in 2015 will team up with career Jonathanians to pillory Jega. Like I said, the accusations are already flying but the nation has not yet fully logged into this unfolding drama. Wait until Ken Agala and his fellow career Jonathanians plenipotentiary catch wind of this potential danger to their Orisha.
Jega will keep on retailing his very sound mathematical explanations. He has been saying that he relied on population figures and number of registered voters in each state and each geopolitical zone to arrive at his polling unit sharing formula. In essence, the north has recorded a 70% population increase in his reckoning. The trouble is that the mathematics of population figures have always been inferior to the bitter politics of division in Nigeria. North of the Niger, you will accept Jega's explanations, his mathematics, and his 21,000 polling units. South of the Niger, you will scream blue murder and dismiss his mathematics as another expression of the fuzzy census math that has been our lot since independence. These are predictable scenarios. A lot of insults will flow across the Niger and cloud out any handshake.
What is not predictable is what could happen if Jega's new 21,000 polling units turn out to be the decider in 2015. In the case of an unfavorable result, what if Itu Baba Ita Edwin Clark and Dokubo Asari turned off the tap and ask Jega to find alternative ways of feeding the 21,000 new polling units in his neck of the woods? What if swift retaliation comes and Itu Baba Ita Clark and Dokubo Asari are asked to find alternative sources of protein? This scenario will continue to be plausible so long as we operate the current invidious order where perception and politics are superior to mathematics, forensics, and knowledge. And the reign of knowledge, the superiority of mathematics, cannot happen until we address all the errors of the rendering and redesign this unfair, unjust, and dysfunctional thing we call a nation-state. Those who went to the National Conference to reinforce entrenched divisions and injustices on all sides are the ones perpetuating a country where poor Jega cannot work with straightforward mathematical principles without running the risk of bringing down the roof.