Follow Us on Google
In the run-up to today’s governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections, the nation witnessed a replay of the ugly incidents that happened before and during the last presidential and National Assembly elections. Tension was high and desperation was palpable on the part of many political actors. Attacks on political rallies, threats, harassment and intimidation of the electorate occurred in some states. Nigerians have been apprehensive and have prayed for peaceful and credible elections today.
Their apprehension is understandable. They had looked forward to having free, fair and credible presidential election on February 25. President Muhammadu Buhari and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had heightened their hopes with pledges to deliver free and credible elections.
Nevertheless, INEC failed and, thus, dampened the hopes of millions of Nigerians. The elections were marred by late arrival of materials in some places. INEC officials did not turn up in some areas. Even in some of the areas where they turned up, they forgot to come with materials such as stamp and ink.
Also, in the presidential election, violence, thuggery, intimidation and harassment of voters were manifest. In some parts of Lagos and Rivers states, for instance, thugs snatched ballot boxes and even inflicted injuries on the electorate. Voters who would not vote for a particular party were asked to go home and not to vote. In some cases, security men looked away when some of these infractions were being committed.
The worst experience of the last election was that INEC failed to adhere to electronic transmission of election results from the polling units to INEC portal real time as it promised on several occasions. The umpire had announced a process, which would require the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for accreditation and voting, and that all election results would be transmitted electronically from each of the 176,606 polling units to INEC servers. But, it largely ignored this, prompting the reported manipulation of results after Nigerians had voted. Many Nigerians, including foreign and local observers, condemned this situation.
The lame excuse was that the non-transmission of election results was due to technical glitches. This is contrary to the strong assurances of the commission that it was set for free, fair and credible elections. Nigerians were not amused. They expressed their anger in so many ways. The electoral umpire later vowed that the hitches identified in the February 25 elections would be corrected before the governorship election of today. Will INEC fulfill its promise this time?
Nigerians should remain hopeful. Today’s elections are crucial ones. They were initially scheduled for March 11, 2023. INEC later rescheduled them for March 18 to give it time to reconfigure the BVAS and perhaps tidy up some other things. Hence, we want to believe that the commission has used this window of opportunity to right all the wrongs with the electoral process. We hope it has sorted out technical issues and resolved logistics challenges so that the voting process will be seamless. This is an election the electoral umpire has received almost everything it asked for. Therefore, it must ensure that the wishes of Nigerians reflect in the results and the votes must be made to count. It must not bungle the election again. It now has an opportunity to redeem itself from the shameful performance of February 25. Anything considered to be below the average will not be good enough.
It is also our hope that there will be adequate security for this election and that there will be no room again for ballot box snatching, violence and intimidation of voters. Nobody should be discriminated against or blackmailed because of his ethnicity. Such acts must not be heard of in 21st century Nigeria. People should be free to exercise their franchise freely in any part of the country where they domicile. We demand that armed security men be deployed to all the polling units across the country to protect voters. We also demand that those who were arrested for election offences should be prosecuted.
Good enough, the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd), has given marching orders to security agencies to crush electoral offenders. He said the Federal Government would give maximum support to security agencies to do their job in this election. We hope the Federal Government walks its talk.
We must all realise that these elections have direct impact on the people. The stakes are so high. Though confidence on INEC has waned considerably, we call on the electorate to exorcise unhappy memories of the past elections from their minds and still come out today to participate in the voting process.
Generally, it is incumbent on everybody – INEC, voters, parties, candidates and security agents – to make these polls a success. Election is a celebration of democracy and it must be free, fair and credible. Anything short of this is unacceptable
