Amupitan’s Chatham House experience and the impending macabre dance

By Dr Victor Alewo Adoji

There is a difference between running an institution and running into an institution. Prof. Joash Amupitan has just done the latter.

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At Chatham House, London, the INEC Chairman faced what every Nigerian public officer dreads but must face — a room full of diaspora Nigerians who have seen how institutionalized nations are run. And outside that room, as videos show, a mass of diaspora Nigerians protesting. Not because they hate home. Because they love home too much to watch it be reduced to a joke.

This is the beginning of an impending macabre dance. And if we do not tell ourselves the truth now, the music will play, and we may all dance naked in 2027.

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Chatham House is not a hall. It is a mirror. When you stand in Chatham House, you are not talking to England. You are talking to yourself, reflected through the eyes of nations that have built systems that outlive men.

I have been in such rooms and daresay, the questions are not “Sir, what is your plan?” The questions are forensic: “How will you transmit results in real-time? How will you secure the server? How will you guarantee that the IREV is not a viewing centre but a legal reality? What will you do when an interested party calls you at 2am?”

In Nigeria, you can say “Go to court.” In Chatham House, they will ask you: “Which court? The one that gives judgment at 3am?”

That is why most diaspora Nigerians carry a palpable resentment. Not the resentment of enemies. The resentment of lovers who left.

They have seen a bus arrive at 7:03 because the timetable says 7:03. They have seen a council flat fixed because a tenant logged a complaint. They have seen police say “Sorry for the inconvenience” while arresting you. They know institutions can work. And they know that their ultimate destination is home. No matter how long they stay in Peckham, Houston, or Toronto, home is home. A man’s ultimate address is his village.

But therein lies their huge concern: Home must measure up to, or surpass, their current station before they return. So when they see the INEC Chairman in London, they do not see a professor. They see a gatekeeper. They see the man who momentarily holds the key to whether home will ever be worth returning to.

The Diaspora knowledge that is not in the textbook

The diaspora Nigerian is the most dangerous Nigerian to lie to. Why? Because he knows two truths:

1. He knows how Nigeria works. He grew up there. He queued for fuel. He wrote JAMB. He bribed a policeman at a checkpoint.

2. He now knows how institutionalized nations work. He has lived where light does not blink. Where you do not need a generator to survive. Where your vote counts and you see it count.

When you have both knowledges, you cannot be gaslighted again.

You cannot tell a diaspora Nigerian that “results could not be uploaded because of glitch” when he just used Starlink to do a Zoom surgery from Birmingham to Lagos. He knows it is not a glitch. It is a choice.

You cannot tell him that “logistics is a challenge” when Amazon delivers 40 million parcels a day in the UK before 12pm. He knows logistics is not a challenge. Lack of will is.

That is why their resentment is palpable. It is not that they hate Amupitan. It is that they know what is possible, and they know we are choosing impossibility.

THE IMPENDING MACABRE DANCE

Every election in Nigeria is a dance. But 2027 will be a macabre dance — a dance of ghosts.Men dancing as if ghosts are real.

If Amupitan does not understand this, let me spell it. The macabre dance is already rehearsed: This dance has happened in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023. The dancers have changed. The dance has not.

And that is why the diaspora was at Chatham House. Not to embarrass Amupitan. To warn him: Sir, the music is about to start again. Will you be a DJ, or will you be a dancer?

THE ONLY WAY TO STOP A MACABRE DANCE
You do not stop a macabre dance by changing the dancers. You stop it by changing the music.

The music in Nigeria’s electoral dance is impunity. The knowledge that you can rig and nothing will happen. That you can go to Chatham House, speak good English, and return home to do bad things.

The real third force (the diaspora) is saying: “We have seen how institutionalized nations are run. We love you, but we will not watch you institutionalize failure again. If you dance the old macabre dance in 2027, we will not clap. We will atrophy.”

This time around, the audience will not be in Nigeria. The audience will be the world. And the world, unlike Nigeria, does not clap for ghosts.

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