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•Good turnout, BVAS glitches, security concerns, vote buying, others characterise poll
From Romanus Ugwu, Priscilla Ediare, Ekiti
Intriguing drama, endless complaints, malfunctioning Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), high incidents of vote buying and selling, security concerns and massive turnout of voters among others were the factors that characterised last Saturday’s Ekiti State off-cycle governorship election.
In many part of the state, the governorship poll was remarkably a combination of the good, the bad and ugly and the most beautiful as the electorate and stakeholders expressed both satisfaction and reservations over the conduct of the poll.
Early reports across the state confirmed a remarkable improvement in the commencement of voting process, marginal turnout of voters, and prompt deployment of voting materials and relatively peaceful conduct of the poll.
Expectedly, the incumbent governor, Biodun Oyebanji, while expressing satisfaction with the conduct of the election, appealed to the people to be patient with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) while the process lasted.
The governor who is already on the verge of breaking re-election jinx in the state with his early lead in the poll jubilantly told newsmen after exercising his franchise with his wife that; “Reports across the state have been positive. The election went on smoothly.”
“People exercised their franchise; they are happy, the turnout was impressive, and I am glad that people listened to my call that they must come out and exercise their franchise because there is a link between what is happening today and their future.
“But I need to also appeal to our people to be patient with INEC; with all processes, there might be glitches, and they have been assured that all those glitches will be attended to. They have assured that nobody will be disenfranchised. People also need to cooperate,” Governor Oyebanji, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, noted.
Although there were reported cases of voter apathy particularly due to incidents of certain anomalies, however, there were large turnouts of voters at many parts of the state.
On the flipside, incidents of malfunctioning BVAS, and the complaints about its failure to accredit elderly electorate, disturbing cases of vote buying and selling in all the polling units with amounts ranging from N3000 to as high as N30,000 and pockets of violence recorded at many voting centres were the factors that marred the poll to a large extent.
Other negative incidents like the glitches in the use of the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal, alleged bias by the security agents in handling issues against the opposition candidates, political parties and their stakeholders, intimidation, bullying and outright breakdown of law and order, despite promises by the police, the election security lead agency.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the electoral process, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Wole Oluyede, complained bitterly about the malfunctioning of the BVAS machine during voting process.
Oluyede equally alleged, after casting his vote, that security agents were harassing voters at polling units.
“It is very unfortunate that all I can get here is an army of cameras, whereas down the road, where the deputy governor is voting, there is an army of policemen harassing people.
“And you feel it is funny because you are not there and you are not reporting. So go there. The process is actually useless. People have been here for about one and a half hours, and only five people have voted in my polling unit. That is what they do all the time. So, I am suspecting that there is something wrong with the INEC process.
“I am going to hang around. If they are voting five people per hour, that is sad. Something is wrong. They have called the officials for the past 45 minutes. They have not been here. You cannot disenfranchise these people.
“It is sad for democracy in Nigeria. Although I am still very confident that my people are going to stay here peacefully, and we are still winning this election. But gentlemen of the press and ladies, go down there and see the army of policemen that are harassing people.
“They are using force vehicles. I taped them. I have evidence of that. And I will show you when it is appropriate. This is nonsense,” Oluyede said..
The PDP candidate was not alone in his complaint as former Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, equally complained about the malfunctioning of the BVAS machine after voting at his polling unit, Ward 08, Unit 09, in Ado-Ekiti, Local Government Area of Ekiti State.
Speaking with newsmen, Ojudu said: “The people are orderly, but the process is cumbersome. The people have come en masse to vote. They are peaceful, they are on queue, as expected, but the process is cumbersome.”
“Before they could get my vitals, I mean my fingerprint and my photograph, it took almost 30 minutes. And if it takes 30 minutes to capture one person and then make him vote, I do wonder how many hours are going to be required to have 500 people voting. So, there is a problem with the system, with the INEC system.
“The BVAS is malfunctioning. I don’t know what is happening in other polling units, but I am reporting directly from my polling unit. We were here at exactly 8 am and the time now is 8.59. Only one person, has voted, and that’s me.”
While raising the alarm on the magnitude of vote buying and selling, Yiaga Africa described it as troubling, suggesting that it could be the reason for the large turn out of the voters.
While condemning the menace, the Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, told newsmen in Ado-Ekiti that “the level of vote buying in this election is really troubling. And it was a missed opportunity for all the actors who were determined to reduce vote buying at the election. On the whole, so far with the conduct of the process, we would say that generally, the environment was peaceful,” he quipped.
Although the Commissioner of Police for the Ekiti State governorship election, CP Abayomi Shogunle has reassured that there would not be high incidents of breakdown of law and order, however, there were reported cases where some operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were chased away by voters at a polling unit in Iyin-Ekiti, perhaps over attempts to check incidents of vote buying.
Trending video clip of the incident showed irate youths angrily ordering the anti-graft commission operatives to leave the scene, chanting in Yoruba, “We don’t want you here”, “Get away”, “Leave here.” Operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were seen calming frayed nerves while assisting the EFCC operatives out of the scene.
Raising concerns over the perceived lack of impartiality among some deployed security personnel, CLEEN Foundation disclosed that 46.3 per cent of the security officials observed by its monitors were rated as “not impartial at all”
The foundation described the development as a serious threat to electoral integrity and public confidence, noting that while 31.7 per cent of security officials were rated as very impartial and 17.1 per cent as impartial, the high perception of bias among some personnel required urgent remedial action by security agencies
Describing the conduct of the poll as generally peaceful, CP Shogunle said: “We have peaceful situation replicated across all polling units in the local government areas of Ekiti State.
“Accreditation and voting commenced promptly at 8:30 am. As you can also observe, there is a high turnout of voters, which is quite different from what we have witnessed in some previous elections, where people usually come out in large numbers only at the beginning.
“However, within the first hour of the election, we have continued to witness a significant turnout of voters. This confirms the findings of our pre-election assessment, during which voters expressed high level of confidence in the security arrangements put in place for this election.
“As far back as two days ago, based on our assessments, we anticipated that many people would come out today to vote. That is exactly what we are beginning to see. So far, voting has been peaceful, based on reports I have been receiving from across the LGAs. We expect this peaceful atmosphere to continue until the end of the voting process,” he assured.
