Conduct of elections in Nigeria has really gone to the next level. It is, indeed, marvellous. Surprisingly, many Nigerians, including the well-educated, do not seem to appreciate, or pretend not to realize, the dizzying altitude at which the ship of state, is now cruising. Elections, for one, has been elevated to a predictable.
If, after the 2023 general elections, anyone had still not come to terms with the magnitude of the change in the science and methods of elections in Nigeria, last Saturday’s governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, would have further confirmed the new order. Election is now an entirely different enterprise in Nigeria, a show of chutzpah, might and institutional collaborative compromises, without apologies.
Yiaga Africa, the highly-regarded electoral process-monitoring civil society organization, found itself last Saturday, once more, raising alarm and pointing out infractions in the conduct of elections in the country. As it did in the general elections on February 2023, Yiaga and other observers, were, again, confounded during the November 11 2023 off cycle elections, by scenarios that clearly flew in the face of fairness, integrity and free polls. In Kogi State, the election-monitoring organization discovered already prepared result sheets, even before the polls were underway.
Yiaga’s alert led to the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] initially announcing suspension of the election in the identified local government areas. Yiaga later challenged the election management body to be definite about the status of locations where elections were not to be held, or indeed, did not hold, but results were uploaded. Such strange occurrence as results being uploaded from areas where elections did not hold, raise doubts about the integrity of an entire election. As was the case in the past, Yiaga Africa and few other credible election observers seem to have become something of a voice shouting in the wilderness of Nigeria’s electoral process. Of course, they can shout of course, but after that what?
Unfortunately, neither the multitude of security agencies that littered the physical environment of the polls on November 11 2023, nor the officials of the election management body in the field, could deter the desperadoes who were determined to have their way and render the elections a huge joke of sorts. The threat by the election management body to cancel the election wherever there was violence ended up being mere threat.
As has become the case during elections, the security agencies, led by the Police, generated so much noise prior to November 11 2023. At the end of the day, brigandage, threats of violence and actual violence, still characterized the polls. It is so sad that the very considerations that led to the establishment by INEC, of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security [ICCES] has failed, to a large extent, to impact positively on elections.
The Police is the lead security agency in the electoral process. It is always provided for during elections. Interestingly, while it seems to have mastered the art of waxing eloquent before elections, it has always been found wanting at critical junctures during elections. Before every election, the police leadership always talks almost like politicians, reeling out strategies to rein in violence. They talk impressively of their intelligence gathering dexterity, identification of flash points and readiness to saturate the environment on D-Day. Annoyingly, all such sounding off hardly come to much during elections. Indeed, in many instances, some policemen on election duties turn out, in many instances, with pictorial evidence, to be active participants in electoral fraud and intimidation of sections of the electorate and the opposition parties.
There is hardly any report of hijacking or diversion of electoral materials or intimidation of prospective voters during elections, that did not involve uniformed policemen. The same was the case on Saturday November 11 2023. Does it make sense then, to continue to budget so much for the police during elections, only for them to turn into willing tools for unconscionable politicians? Well, does election still make sense in Nigeria, in the first place?
The conduct of last Saturday’s governorship elections, and indeed, the outcome of the exercise, could not have come out differently. The exercise reflects the reality of Nigeria’s present state of being. When, over a year ago, even before February 2023, Yahaya Bello, the manifesting outgoing and latently incoming governor of Kogi state, declared with amazing sure-footedness that it is his sole prerogative to determine who succeeds him as governor of the state, he spoke with a clear knowledge of his environment and time. That was even before February 2023.Front-loaded result sheets of the governorship election in Kogi state may have been flagged off by Yiaga Africa. Election in the affected local government areas may have been halted for a short time, but at the end of the day, what happened? Did Yahaya Bello not have his way?
In Imo State, Governor Hope Uzodimma posted a hundred percent scorecard, chasing such record as Yoweri Museveni used to score in Uganda and Robert Mugabe used to post in Zimbabwe. Reports emanating from some quarters in Imo State, to the effect that there was no election in many of the areas to which handsome results were ascribed and uploaded in INEC result portal, are, at best, out of tune with the times. Not only was the Imo result promptly declared by INEC, the returned governor equally promptly delivered his acceptance speech, with thanks to all the good people of the state for showing him love. Who now, wants to dispute a people’s love for their governor?
The landscape of elections in Nigeria has changed, possible for a very long time. The much candidates of the opposition parties who lost out in the elections in Imo and Kogi, can get for now is sympathy. It will amount to being unrealistic, if any of these, expect that anything can change in the outcome of the contest.
The chairman of the Social Democratic party in Kogi state had not fully ended his passionate pitch, demanding for cancellation of the election in the areas of the state where his party alleged infraction, when the election was called for Yahaya Bello’s candidate of the APC. For the SDP chairman and his candidate, the challenging question as belligerent American cow boys are wont to ask is, ‘so what you gonna do?’ Go to court? This is the reality of Nigeria, post 2023 general election.
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria [HURIWA], critically pungent as always, summarily dismissed the off cycle governorship elections of November 11 2023 as been no different from “African Magic”, a reference to the loose genre of racy, everything-is-possible dramatics on the pay channel of that name.
The sad thing there, however, is that African Magic is make-belief, theatre. Elections, on the other hand, deal with life, the present welfare and future prospects of citizens, millions of people, who had been led to subscribe to democracy because in it, they have the right and opportunity to choose who to represent their interest in governance. When that truth no longer holds, democracy may have no justification to exist, any longer. If that is the case, election become no more, than a farce, indeed, a tragedy, a rip off.