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Ismail Omipidan
When American comedian, Groucho Marx, defined politics as “the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies,” he may not have had Nigeria in mind. But this definition appears to aptly describe the political situation in Nigeria.
In Nigeria, the powers-that-be appear to not only do anything they like, especially during electioneering, but also use everything at their disposal to settle perceived scores, in the name of politics. This, many believed may have been responsible for the ongoing bickering between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the militarisation of the 2019 elections, with Rivers State being largely the centre piece of the discussions and debates.
Before the 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections, many Nigerians had regarded the 2007 presidential and National Assembly elections, conducted under a PDP administration as perhaps one of the worse in the country’s political history. Although, it was never nullified by the Supreme Court, it was one election in which the winner of that presidential contest, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, described as being badly flawed. Even the Supreme Court held that it was “a horrendous intimidation of Nigerians.”
However, owing largely to the claims by some Nigerians that the 2019 polls were heavily militarised, some commentators are already describing the 2019 polls as perhaps another low in the country’s political history.
However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), believes it did its best in the circumstances it found itself, even as it also came hard on the military for allegedly overstepping its bounds in the course of carrying out election duties.
But while some are applauding military deployment for election duties, others are condemning it. For instance, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is one man who appears angry over polls’ militarisation, especially in an APC administration.
His anger stemmed from the fact that about four years ago, the APC, as an opposition went to court to challenge the militarisation of polls and got judgement in their favour.
”In 2014/2015, the All Progressives Congress (APC) as an opposition party went to court in Abuja, Sokoto and Lagos and recorded judgment to the effect that the military shall not be involved in our elections.
“Before then, in the case between Obasanjo and Buhari, the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, did say that it has taken us a lot of effort to push the military but that the political class must make a lot of effort to allow the system to be operated in such a way that our elections would not be militarised.
“But what have we just witnessed under an APC government? Armed soldiers were deployed in violation of existing, valid and subsisting court judgment. I was laughing the other day when the Chief of Army Staff said he was setting up a panel; to do what? Do you have any business with elections?”Falana asked.
But there are APC chieftains who believe strongly that the presence of soldiers was necessary in some parts of the country, to enable voters come out to freely exercise their franchise.
Abdulrasak Namdas is the chairman, House of Representatives, Committee on Media and Public Affairs. He said: “In my own part of the country, the North East, you certainly cannot do this election without the military. That would not be possible. But there are other parts of the country that you can do the election freely without the military. But there are places you can’t do that.
“On a general note, the attitude of our electorate also matters; once they don’t see security agencies around an area, some people get the confidence to do the unthinkable- you see people snatching ballot boxes, stuff ballot boxes and all the rest.
“It is not good to militarise election. It is a civic duty. Democracy is government of the people, for the people and by the people. And if that is the case, people should be allowed to vote freely. But we are still evolving. We will get to a time that we will not need the military.
“But for now, because of the spate of violence we have across the country; you go to the North East, you have Boko Haram; you go to Zamfara, you have bandits. On a good day without elections, people are killed; talk less of a time people will be gathering for election. Have you not heard of scenarios, where people are killed and they are going to be buried, even at the burial ground, dozens of the mourners are killed?
“If you go to the South, you have pipeline vandals, highways robbers. Sometimes, during this period when people gather for elections, hoodlums take advantage of the situation. I don’t like militarisation of elections, but there must be effort by government to ensure security of life and property.”
Speaking in the same vein, Chief Ndukwe Ikoh, an industrialist and a chieftain of the APC, said: “I would say that it not a good development. What is bad is bad. I do not see the business of the military in a democratic election with guns. It is a negative development. But there are some scenarios where politicians employ the services of thugs to disrupt elections especially in rural areas. When you have such a situation, it would not be out of place to deploy soldiers to maintain order because some of these thugs come with the intention to kill. So I would not blame INEC in such a situation.”
However, the PDP in Rivers believed that the militarisation of the state governorship election especially, was a calculated attempt at denying the people the opportunity to “freely choose their leaders.”
The PDP insists that anyone who supports the deployment of the military to the state during the governorship poll does not mean well for the people of Rivers State.
But Rivers APC thinks otherwise. They argue that but for the military’s presence, it would have been difficult for the people to come out on the day of election to exercise their franchise.
According to the party, “in the 2015 elections, PDP controlled the centre and the APC was in opposition, the military was heavily involved during the elections which took place in Ekiti, Rivers and a few other states.”
The Rivers APC accused INEC of not coming out clean on the militarisation of the governorship poll in the state.
“Since INEC’s reason for suspending the elections was widespread violence and disruption of the electoral process across the 23 LGAs, is it then still possible in such a widespread violent disruption situation, for the same INEC to honestly turn around and claim to have in its custody the election results for 17 out of 23 LGAs, as announced following the arrival of the INEC fact finding team? How could the electoral process have overcome the purported massive violence and disruption to produce over 70 percent return of results from the field? Either the claim of violence is false or the claim of concluded election in 17 wards is false,” the party said.
But INEC is insisting that the collation centres were invaded by some soldiers and armed gangs, thereby disrupting the collation in the process.
Its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said, “collation centres were invaded by some soldiers and armed gangs resulting in the intimidation and unlawful arrest of election officials, thereby disrupting the collation process,” adding however that the commission will “engage with key stakeholders in Rivers State with a view to ensuring a smooth and peaceful completion of the process.”
The national commissioner, who said results from 17 of the 23 councils in the state were in its custody, added that the commission had considered the report of the Fact-Finding Committee set up to assess the situation in the state.
Apparently following the recommendations of the committee, INEC announced that resumption of collation and announcement of results for the governorship would be done between April 2 and 5, and that where necessary, supplementary elections would take place on April 13.
The commission had on March 10 suspended all electoral processes in Rivers State having determined that there was widespread disruption of collation of results of the elections conducted in the state on March 9, just as it said it remained committed to completing the collation process where results of the elections have been announced.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian populace eagerly awaits the report of the committee set up by the Army authority to probe its personnel over alleged interference in the Rivers governorship poll. What will the verdict be? It seems only time will tell.
But all eyes will once again be on Rivers State and its people, the military and INEC, as collation of results resumes again tomorrow.
