Kogi guber: election or war?

Just when you thought you have seen it all in Nigeria, many more stark realities will await you, meaning; you haven’t seen anything yet.

Friday 16th November 2019, the INEC scheduled Kogi governorship election was held. The people trooped out with the hope of a peaceful election where they will freely vote for the candidate of their choice.

Rather than an election, the people were visited with an unprovoked war. What happened in Kogi was war, not an election. Voting and collation of results were disrupted by armed thugs who unleashed violence on hapless voters.

The over 35,200 security officers comprising of conventional police, mobile police force , counter-terrorism unit, special forces, intelligence response unit, special tactical squad, mounted units and K9 Section, Airwing and maritime unit deployed to Kogi alone for the election did nothing to protect lawful voters. The violence that went on was captured live and went viral on different social media platforms. Clips of the brazen assaults and daylight robbery perpetrated by the armed thugs remind one of the elections in either Mexico or Congo.

The people that said Bello will not be re-elected heard tatatataa! and were left with tears, sorrows, and blood. Among the dead was a young National Youth Service Corps member trained and mobilized to duty by INEC as an ad-hoc staff. Another 35 INEC officials were reportedly missing.

What the the commission did afterward left every one ashamed of our democracy which has been on a free fall since the appointment of Prof Mahmood Yakubu as the INEC Chairman. Since after the 2015 election, the commission has been a complete failure. It has time after time demonstrated gross incompetence to undertake the simplest of task. It is unwilling to enforce rules as much as it is ever ready to do the biddings of unscrupulous politicians.

INEC by trick or magic manufactured and declared a pre-written result whereby it returned the APC candidate with 406,222 votes. Elections are not prosecuted with guns and violence. Any declared results emanating from such brigandage and desecration of our democratic institutions should not be acceptable.

You cannot spill blood without regard to the sanctity of human lives, without respect for the dignity of the people and claim you have been reelected by an overwhelming majority.

What happened in Kogi on Friday 16 November is not an election. It deserves condemnation and not commendation and congratulations. We are sick of excuses and tired of expending taxpayers’ money on people who do nothing.

Except we have all gone mad, we must stop pretending that thugs and violence against opposition parties is a democracy. Producing magic numbers that didn’t reflect the true wishes of the people is not democracy. Also using state resources to buy votes is not democracy.

Democracy is not all about winning in an election. Losing elections also serves its own valuable democratic lessons, but unfortunately, all that our politicians are interested in is to be declared a winner at all costs. It doesn’t matter how many lives they destroy in the process and how many institutions that were destroyed. They are not ashamed of compromising the institutions and brutalizing their own people. Enough is enough!

With what I saw of what happened in Kogi which was first tried in Rivers State in 2019, I see a dress rehearsal of what is to come in 2023 and beyond.  I wish our country and our democracy the best of luck. But for me, for us who are democrats by choice even though it is no longer convenient, we have to remain as democrats.

More than any other time we have to encourage the powers that be to initiate  a serious conversation on electoral reforms and the protection of our democracy.

What is the worth of the value of our investment in PVC if we cannot use it freely to elect our leaders because our vote no longer counts? A situation where INEC is a ready biased umpire and the police collude with hoodlums to unleash violence is not acceptable. In a civilized clime, these are sufficient reasons for the police and INEC chiefs to resign.

Democracy entails strong institutions. It entails a level playing ground, protection of rights of the opposition, freedom of the press, free speech, one man’s one vote and an independent judiciary that will be courageous to dispense justice without fear of the ruling party.

Reading through the congratulatory message sent by the president in regards to the Kogi election, I was left to wonder our sense of values. What is there to celebrate and commend in Kogi election? How can any democratically elected leader refer to that callousness in Kogi as ‘well won’ victory? How can an election where security agents and sponsored hoodlums brazenly and at gunpoint robbed the people of their rights to vote be ‘well won?  How can the president say an election is ‘well won’ when people were killed and injured and many others missing? The people that died were Nigerians that went to perform their civic responsibilities. They do not deserve their violent and untimely death.

Who were those hoodlums?  Who were their sponsors and in whose interest did they operate? These are the questions the president should be demanding answers to and not a congratulatory message that makes him seem like endorsing the violence as a new normal.

The Kogi election fell short of our expectations. It is rather unfortunate that INEC is failing our democracy with every election it has conducted since 2015. The commission has not done anything to improve her capacity despite the huge expenditure on it. Again, we saw in Kogi the unnerving situations where security agencies like the military and police are involved in ballot box snatching and providing cover for hoodlums who operated freely.

To protect our democracy, we have an urgent need for electoral reforms and the need to revisit the electoral amendment bill.

I have always maintained that President Buhari can shape Nigeria the way he will want to be remembered.  He can leave a positive legacy or an embarrassing one. He can grow this democracy or allow it to be destroyed. The choice is his to make. I will, nevertheless, advise him to get beyond partisanship and think of the nation. He can immediately set up a small committee to take another look at all the major electoral reforms beginning from the recommendations documented from the Justice Mohammadu Uwais electoral reform committee to Sheik Ahmed Lemu committee on post-election the violence of 2011 to the 2014 National Conference report to the Senator Ken Nnamani presidential committee on electoral reform down to all major election observer reports and submit to the National Assembly for prompt legislative action. Unlike in 2015 when the National Assembly spearheaded the electoral reform process, President Buhari must, this time around, seize the initiative.

Some of the recurring key electoral reform issues have been highlighted by many writers and they include the need for electronic voting and electronic transmission of results; granting of voting rights to Nigerians in the Diaspora through out-of-country voting; enhancement of participation of marginalized groups in the electoral system through affirmative action for women, youths, and persons with disabilities; provision for early voting for millions of Nigerians who are disenfranchised from voting due to their election-day duties.

There will be need to decisively deal with issues of election violence. Armed thugs must not have space in our elections; the police and other security agencies must protect voters and deal with troublemakers. Sponsors of electoral violence must not be allowed to benefit from their desperate acts.