Does Nigeria’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu deserve a Spotlight in the Guinness Book of Records just like Liberia’s Charles Dunbar Burgess King?
As we all know, before something is documented into the Guinness Book of Records, it must be either positively or negatively unusual. In fact, such achievements are globally described as extreme and/or “meta-human”. The Guinness Book of Records contains in it a myriad of unbelievable natural and artificially designed creatures as well as human achievements and world eventualities spanning through social, cultural, economic, legal, religious, and political projections and organisations from all over the world.
Politically, one of the mind-blowing and most significant event in the history of electoral fraud and election rigging that won a page in the World Guinness Book of Records is the 1927 Liberian Presidential election orchestrated by Charles Dunbar Burgess King. Born in Monrovia (Liberia’s capital) on March 12 1871 by Sierra Leonean parents, Charles D.B. King became educated and gradually rose through the ranks of the legal profession. He later joined politics and contested for the number one political seat and position of Liberia in 1927.
The Liberia’s Presidential election in 1927 between Charles D.B. King and his opponent Thomas Faulkner later came to be described as the worst ever case of electoral malpractice in history. This was evident as Charles defeated his opponent, Faulkner by scoring 243,000 votes as against Faulkner’s 9,000 votes.
However, what seem to be more confusing is how Charles got up to 243,000 votes when the registered number of voters in the country were less than 15,000? “Where did the more than two hundred extra votes come from and why was he declared the winner of the election even when it obvious that he rigged it?”was the question on everybody’s lips”. A year after the election, his opponent, Thomas Faulkner brought up an allegation on Charles and his cabinet members. They are accused of criminality and impunity as they permitted slavery, forced labour and slave trade within the borders of Liberia. Faulkner also revealed that other government officials who worked with Charles were engaged in the forced shipping of labourers to the Spanish Island of Fernando Po and also were fond of using the Liberian Army (Frontier Force) to achieve this.
With this accusations came a massive wave of reactions from the international community. Meanwhile, a committee of the League of Nations was established to examine the authenticity of the allegations in order to ascertain what actually happened. In 1930, the committee provided a report of their findings. Named after the committee chairman “The Christy’s Report”, the report revealed that: persons holding official positions illegally misused their office in recruiting slaves in connivance with the Frontier Force; the shipment to Fernando Po and Gabon was associated with slavery because the method of recruiting was forceful and compelling; and not only Americo-Liberian government officials had benefited from forced labour, as a large foreign business operatives were also involved.
With the publication of the report, the House of Representatives initiated an impeachment procedure against Charles D.B. King. Fully aware of this process, he resigned thus escaping as public trial as spelled out in the Liberian constitution that: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital crime, except in case of impeachment”. Charles’s resignation although his strategy of survival, his personality was shaming and his rule, inefficient. He led Liberians through suffering and watched impunity overshadow his country.
Just as Charles D.B. King was not the popular choice of Liberians prior and during the 1927 Presidential election which made him engage in electoral malpractice, Nigeria’s Bola A. Tinubu, the self-acclaimed next president of Nigeria “by turn”, equally wears the same shoe. From all indication, he created a structure of electoral criminality and forced himself on Nigerians after the February 25th, 2023 elections. Of course, like Charles, Bola would surround himself with like-minded friends and associates who would not only impoverish the citizenry the more, but would enslave and unleash more woes and penury on them. As regards whether he would resign or be impeached, that is a matter of the “Supreme Court” to decide. But in all, it is quite pathetic to say that the 2023 Presidential election in Nigeria deserves to be documented into the Guinness Book of Records.
Bibliography
Akwei, I. (2017, October 8). Elections History in Africa’s Oldest Democratic Republic: Liberia. AfricaNews. https://www.africanews.com/2017/10/08/elections.history-in-africa-s-oldest-democratic-republic-liberia//
Sien, R. (2020, June 11). Liberia: History of Fraudulent Elections Resurrecting concerns as president closes in on NEC Appointment. AllAfrica. https://allafrica.com/stories/202006120195.html.
The 1927 Presidential Election. https://archives.liberiapastandpresent.org/1927/ElectionsMF.htm.
