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Conduct of elections in Nigeria has really moved to the next level. It is, indeed, marvellous.
Interestingly, many Nigerians, including the well-educated, either pretend not to know what they are confronted with or they are yet to appreciate the uncharted course the ship of the Nigerian state has taken.
Elections, for one, have attained a new level of raw predictability. If, after the 2023 general election, anyone has 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 seemed designed to throw more light on the new order.
Elections have become entirely different enterprises from what they used to be. Now,elections are a show of chutzpah, raw might and institutional-collaborative compromises, without apologies.
Yiaga Africa, the highly-regarded electoral process monitoring civil society organization, found itself last Saturday raising the alarm and pointing out infractions in the conduct of the governorship elections of November 11, 2023.
As was the case in the general election in February 2023, Yiaga and other observers, were, again, confounded during the November 11 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. In Imo, videos of unrestrained thumbprinting of ballot outside voting areas went viral.
Yiaga’s alert led to the Independent National Electoral Commission initially announcing suspension of the election in the identified local government areas in Kogi. 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 criminal occurrences as results being uploaded from areas where elections did not hold raise doubts about the integrity of the polls.
Clearly, Yiaga Africa and other credible election observers have become voices shouting in the wilderness of Nigeria’s electoral process. Of course, they can shout, but after that what?
Unfortunately, neither the multitude of security agencies that littered the physical environment of the polls on November 11 nor officials of the election management body in the field could deter the desperadoes who were determined to have their way during the elections of November 11.
Although there were a few references to the police stopping one or two efforts to divert electoral materials, there were many other reports of such diversion occurring. The threat by the election management body to cancel the election wherever there was violence ended up being a mere threat.
As has become the case in recent elections, the security agencies, led by the police, generated so much noise prior to November 11. At the end of the day, however, brigandage, threats of violence and actual violence still reigned in many locations.
It is sad that the very considerations that led to the establishment by INEC, of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security [ICCES], still substantially prevail in many instances during elections.
The police, by law, are the lead security agency in the electoral process. It is always well-provided for during elections.
Unfortunately, while its leadership seems to have mastered the art of waxing eloquent before elections, the police, through the action of some of their men, have often been found wanting at critical junctures during elections.
Before every election, the leadership of the police always talks with infectious confidence, 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, such sounding off is punctured by unflattering action of some policemen during elections. Indeed, in various instances, some policemen on election duties turn out, at times with pictorial evidence, to be active participants in electoral fraud and intimidation of sections of the electorate and the opposition parties.
There has hardly been 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.
Police need to reflect on standing before the public during elections. They need to do better, generally. So much confidence cannot be reposed on them to combat electoral violence, only for some to turn round to become willing tools in the hands of unconscionable politicians.
The conduct of the governorship elections on November 11, and indeed the outcome of the exercise, could not have been any different from the way it came out. The exercise reflects the reality of Nigeria’s present state of being.
Over a year ago, even before February 2023 happened, Yahaya Bello, the outgoing and substantially incoming governor of Kogi State, declared with amazing sure-footedness that it was his sole prerogative to determine who will succeed him as governor of the state. He spoke with a clear knowledge of his environment and the era.
Front-loaded result sheets of the November 11 governorship election in Kogi may have been flagged off by Yiaga Africa. Election in some 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, similar to what 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, were, at best, out of tune with the times.
Not only was the Imo govership election result already declared by INEC before allegations of rigging came in, the returned governor had already promptly delivered his acceptance speech.He profusely thanked the good people of the state for showing him love. Who now, can dispute the love Governor Uzodimma said his people showed him?
The landscape of elections in Nigeria has changed, possible for a very long time. The most 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 candidates expect that anything can change in the outcome of the contest.
Poor chairman of the Social Democratic party in Kogi state.He had not fully ended his passionate pitch on television,on Sunday November 12 2023, 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 welbeing 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 will represent their interest in governance. When that truth no longer holds, democracy may have no justification,any longer,to exist. If that is the case, elections become no more than a farce, indeed, a tragedy, a rip off.
