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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
For the umpteenth time, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has raised the alarm that the endless attacks on its offices and facilities in some states pose the greatest threat to the conduct of next year’s election.
No fewer than eight of its facilities and offices have been callously burnt and vandalised in within the last four months this year, curiously less than 70 days to the conduct of the crucial poll.
Regrettably, each of the incidents comes with a humongous level of damages, ranging from electoral materials like voting cubicles, ballot boxes, to official cars, office furniture, and a countless number of uncollected Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs).
From Ogun State where thousands of uncollected PVCs were consumed in the inferno to Osun where movable and immovable facilities were reduced to rubbles, to several states in the South East geopolitical zone of Imo, Ebonyi, Enugu and Abia, where the spate of the attacks have heightened, the commission has continued to writhe in pains, and agony over the helpless situation confronting it.
In last month’s November 10 Ogun incident, considered one of the worst attacks, the main building and all the movable assets in the office were destroyed. The assets include 904 ballot boxes, 29 voting cubicles, 30 megaphones, 57 election bags, eight electric power generators and 65,699 uncollected PVCs.
It was so bad that the Ogun State Police Command even placed a N2.5 million bounty on the hoodlums that burnt the office at Iyana Mortuary, in the Abeokuta South Local Government Area of the state.
“In furtherance of the directive to get to the root of the matter and bring the perpetrators to justice, the command has resolved to reward anybody with credible information that will lead to the arrest of the perpetrators with the sum of N2.5m.
“In view of this, any member of the public with useful information that will assist the command should come forward, and be rest assured that such information will be treated with utmost confidentiality,” the State’s Police spokesperson, SP Abimbola Oyeyemi, announced in a statement, adding that the Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, has equally directed the State Criminal Investigation Department to investigate and unravel the arsonists.
In the Ebonyi State latest incident which occurred on November 28, the level of damages was equally mindboggling. They include 340 ballot boxes, 130 voting cubicles, 14 electricity power generating sets, large water storage tanks, assorted office furniture and yet-to-be-determined quantities of PVCs.
Earlier before the attacks on Ogun, Osun and Ebonyi, the Enugu State office of the commission had equally come under attack on July 4 this year. Although no human casualties were reported, 748 ballot boxes, 240 voting cubicles, office furniture and equipment were completely destroyed in the inferno.
Giving further details about the attacks, the commission revealed that it has suffered 50 attacks across 15 states in the past three years, with Imo state topping the chart with 11 incidents between 2019 and 2022.
The documents specifying the attacks on its offices released last week revealed that Osun came second with seven attacks, Enugu and Akwa Ibom had five attacks each. Ebonyi, Cross River and Abia states had four incidents each; while Anambra had two; Ogun, Lagos, Ondo and Bayelsa states had one incident each.
Giving a further breakdown on the type of incidents, INEC explained that there was one Boko Haram, bandit attack, 18 other attacks as a result of #EndSARS protests, 20 attacks by unknown gunmen and hoodlums, four, as a result of post-election violence while thuggery during elections accounted for six.
“These are attacks as a result of election-related violence, protests unrelated to elections and activities of thugs and unknown gunmen. The list does not include damages to facilities as a result of fire accidents, natural disasters such as flooding or rain/wind storms, the snatching/destruction of electoral materials during the election, burglary and attack on election duty officials,” INEC disclosed in the document the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, released.
Miffed by the unceasing attacks on its offices across the country, the commission in a statement signed by the National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, described it as systematic.
“Once again, the commission expresses its concern on the consequences of what appears to be a systematic attack on its facilities across the country on the conduct of elections in particular and electoral activities in general.
“Overall, this is the 7th attack on our facilities in five states of the federation in the last four months. This is one attack too many on our facilities and they have negative consequences on our preparations for the 2023 general election,” Okoye warned recently.
But, despite all the entreaties to the determined arsonists, the situation deteriorated last week when the Imo State office of the commission was attacked, recording the highest number of human casualties. After the attack, three of the agents of the devil, a policeman, were killed, just as two of the arsonists were arrested.
The commission had petitioned all concerned authorities and even convened emergency and regular meetings with relevant security agencies towards finding a lasting solution to the dastardly acts without any light at the end of the dark tunnel.
Of major concern to the electoral umpire and many stakeholders was the increase in the spate of attacks dangerously close to the next year’s elections, especially the difficulties involved in reprinting the burnt PVCs and distributing them to the owners to enable them to exercise their franchise.
Only last week, the commission’s chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, while appearing at the National Assembly, again warned that the attack is posing a serious threat to the conduct of next year’s polls.
“The attacks have far-reaching implications on preparation for the general election. First, the facilities that are destroyed, especially offices, would take time to rebuild. They are not like items of procurement that you can procure off the shelf. So, an alternative arrangement has to be made.
“In some of the states, in addition to these malicious attacks, other matters that have arisen as a result of fire and flooding, we would have to make alternative arrangements by renting. In some places, we can find facilities to rent. In some of the remote areas, we may not find facilities to rent. So, we have to look for alternatives to the damaged facilities.
“Secondly, several materials lost would have to be replaced. In the recent attacks, some of the PVCs, for instance, were lost. For the PVCs, we have instructed our state offices to send the Voter Identification Numbers of the lost PVCs so we can reprint them. We can, from our database, quickly regenerate and reprint the cards so that citizens are not disenfranchised.
“We have to rebuild the facilities and our funds are overstretched by a number of factors. We cannot continue to replace and rebuild. And what is even more worrisome for us is the attack in Izzi local council of Ebonyi State. The building was first attacked on May 18, 2012. We found the resources in our election project plan budget to rebuild the office.
“Our staff moved in on Friday. On Sunday that weekend, the office was burnt down again. There are five of such offices nationwide where in spite of our best efforts; the facility was attacked not only once, but twice. We have five offices in which even after rebuilding or trying to rebuild, they were attacked again.
“The commission and security agencies must also continue to provide safety around the facilities and this, as I said earlier, may be very challenging, because the security agencies are also protecting all of us and other national assets”, he said.
In agreement with the commission are the government, National Assembly and the security agencies who insist that the situation now requires desperate measures before next year’s poll.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, warned recently that the attacks pose not only a colossal threat to INEC’s capacity to conduct the 2023 poll, but also democratic governance.
Describing the perpetrators of the attacks as enemies, he said: “it is on this basis that the House of Representatives not only unequivocally condemned these nefarious attacks but also resolved to set up an ad-hoc committee to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the incessant attacks on INEC facilities.
“We are indeed hopeful that at the end of this investigation, the committee would be able to come up with far-reaching recommendations that will not only bring an end to these unfortunate attacks on our democracy but also ensure that the perpetrators of the nefarious acts are made to face the full wrath of the law,” Gbajabiamila charged.
In his analyses of the situation, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Baba Alkali, fingered politicians and secessionist agitators in the South East and South West as the forces behind the attacks.
He promised to deal decisively with the arsonists, warning that it will no longer be business as usual for the criminal groups causing unrest in the country.
“We have put measures in place to prevent future occurrences, apprehend the culprits and bring them to book. We have also deployed personnel to deter the attacks, we have stepped up intelligence gathering, and we have discovered that the criminal elements were using petrol bombs, dynamite and gunfire at distance to carry out their dastardly acts, but there will be no hiding place for them.
“Nigeria Police and other security agencies are on top of the situation, we are calling on the members of the public to assist us with credible information about these criminals,” he blew hot and cold in his effort to arrest the development.
The IGP further noted that the Police, being the lead agency in internal security and elections generally, was always at the receiving end, assuring that; “whatever happens, it is the duty of the police to protect here and there.”
Blaming the politicians for the spate of the incidents, he explained that: “the campaigns commenced and what we realised initially was inter and intra-party disputes. We realised that members of political parties were destroying billboards, posters and campaign offices in some parts of the states.
“We quickly alerted the Commissioners of Police in charge of the commands and gave them a clear directive that it is the right of every political party to go to all the nooks and crannies of society and campaign. It is a constitutional right, and on no account does a state governor or any state actor prevent political parties from moving about to do their campaigns,” he explained.
In fact, despite IPOB exonerating itself from any complicity in the attacks, the IGP while blaming secession agitators, said: “On the attacks on INEC facilities, of recent, the ones that took place in Osun and Ogun, then in Ebonyi, Imo and Enugu, it is a well-known fact that in the South-East geopolitical zone, we have issues of secessionists – the IPOB and ESN.
“These groups are bent on stopping elections from taking place in the South-East. They have been attacking our personnel; they have been retrieving arms from members of the security agencies, not only the police but also the military and other paramilitary agencies that are there. The election is approaching very fast and they are putting much pressure to see that this election does not hold in the South-East geopolitical zone.
“In the South-West, we equally have the pro-Yoruba secessionists that are equally bent on seceding and not allowing the election to take place in their areas, hence the attack on INEC in Osun and Ogun of recent. Those ones are also sponsored by politicians and other stakeholders,” IGP claims.
He fingered failed and desperate politicians bent on stopping INEC from conducting the elections as forces behind the attacks. “The failed politicians are those who could not come back through any political party, and as far as they are concerned, let everything spoil, let everything scatter.
“They are using that opportunity to sponsor illiterate followers of the parties and hoodlums to make sure that this general election does not hold and should not be successful,” Baba alleged.
From almost every part of the southern region where the attacks have remained constant, there have been heightened anxieties and apprehension by the stakeholders on how best to deal with the ugly situation before it scuttles the polls.
INEC and other election stakeholders have appealed, petitioned and even threatened to use force, but their threats have been like water poured on a stone as the attacks have continued.
Several analysts have argued that the commission might find it difficult to replace the damaged facilities since it is conducting a general election, not staggered ones where it can easily mop up materials from neighbouring states to replace the vandalised ones as it did during the Anambra State governorship election.
However, the good news is that despite the concerns in many quarters that the electoral umpire might face the challenges of insufficient electoral materials, the commission’s boss has continuously given Nigerians and the international community words of assurance that the attacks will not stop next year’s polls.
“Our preparations for next year’s elections are approaching the concluding stages. We are conducting the 2023 general election with a new Electoral Act and several innovations in voter accreditation and result management. We are confident in our processes, but we will not be complacent. Responsibilities within our control are handled diligently.
“However, there are a few areas of concern, the main one being the prevailing insecurity in the country. In less than two weeks, three of our Local Government offices were attacked across the country, bringing the total number of such attacks to eight in the last four months.
“While we want to reassure Nigerians that we will recover from these attacks, and the election will proceed as scheduled, we would like to appeal to all citizens to see the commission’s facilities as a national asset. It is our collective responsibility to join hands in protecting them. The attacks must stop and the perpetrators swiftly apprehended and prosecuted,” Yakubu appealed.
It remains to be seen how the commission can weather the storm posed by the continued attacks targeted at decimating its strength to ensure the election will not hold next year.
