If they haven't, they had better be, and should have, by now! The incumbent President of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan of the governing People's Democratic Party (PDP), peacefully accepted his defeat at the Nigerian 2015 presidential elections. He has reportedly congratulated his opponent, former Army General Mohammadu Buhari, the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who emerged victorious in the elections.

The beauty of true democracy is to see opponents respect the principles and ethics of democracy that they have subscribed to, in all of its aspects. President Goodluck Jonathan, either through behind-the-curtains prodding or persuasions or not, neither objected to the declared election results, nor sought to rig the election in any way. He did not hesitate to acknowledge his defeat by hurriedly phoning his opponent to congratulate him on massively winning the election.

The President has my compliments for respecting the expressed wish of the Nigerian people for a change in government without resorting to any illegal election rigging tactics to mar the whole democratic process.

Now, there are a few lessons to be learnt from Nigeria by both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Then presidential candidate Buhari and his APC party could not have won the elections without hard work, strong and purposeful campaigning with the convincing message to reform the economy of the country through stamping out of officialdom, near-institutional corruption, incompetence and various acts of injustices in the country.

He did not sit on his backside, same complacently believing that the deterioration of the Nigerian economy with the concomitant public outcry would be more than enough to delivery the victory to them on a silver platter. He did a proper and hard campaigning before success could be his.

There were no divisions or any known fissures or simmering disagreements within his party, his support base or among his teeming sympathisers. Hard work/Dedication, Unity, and Focus were the cardinal pivots on which his success revolved.

From the above, where do the NPP in Ghana stand when looking themselves in the mirror? Are they serious to win election 2016 with all the rumoured AGENDA 2020 bandying around in the political arena? Are they eager to win the election with some of their top brass being suspiciously lackadaisical? Do they think the fact that President Mahama and his NDC are messing up the economy with the public agitation for a change is in itself more than enough to bring about the anticipated change in government from NDC to NPP?

It is pointless spending all my time in the world elaborating on the facts why the NPP should not be complacent but fight hard until victory is theirs, ours, and yours. With the current backbiting, seeming acts of underhand sabotage against Nana Akufo Addo - the NPP flagbearer, and the self-defeating policy of discriminatory sexism in allocation of parliamentary seats, and cost of the internal registration with the party as a contesting parliamentary candidate, are all negatively impacting on, or exacerbating, our chances of winning election 2016.

The NDC and President Mahama are to learn that they cannot continue to be in power with all the revelations of the massive corruption they are allegedly involved in. The incompetence, cluelessness and infatuation with selective justice or injustices, blatant acts of nepotism or tribalism encouraged by the government as yardsticks for recruiting people into the public and security services should be more than enough to force NDC into the dark election abyss.

NDC, and in this case President Mahama, should not dare collude with the Electoral Commission to rig the election, but to do honour to himself by bowing out peacefully as President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria has just done, should he lose the election. He must respect the wish of the Ghanaian voting public. He should not make any attempts to pull wool over our eyes. Should he dare attempt that, we shall resist him.

WHAT A LESSON TO BOTH NPP AND NDC, THE NIGERIAN ELECTIONS FEATURING THE NOBILITY OF BOTH THE OUTGOING PRESIDENT JONATHAN AND INCOMING PRESIDENT BUHARI.

Rockson