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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
With the clock ticking toward next year’s general election, the fear of compromising the electoral process by some political parties and power brokers has continued to dominate political discourse.
For critical observers, the trending allegations of possible rigging do not come as a surprise as such has become literally part of the electoral process in the nation’s democratic journey.
From the first Republic to the current one, political actors have always been associated with all manner of rigging antics to manoeuvre the electoral process and sway elections to their favour.
The rigging tricks, according to observers, ranged from the distribution of essential commodities to woo the electorate, training and unleashing political thugs responsible for ballot boxes snatching or disrupting the voting process, stuffing the boxes with ballot papers, deploying door-to-door canvassers, and lobbyists, to even politicians stockpiling both arms and cash to oil their rigging machines.
Whatever mode of rigging the politicians and the political parties choose to adopt, including arming hoodlums and miscreants to unleash mayhem on the hapless voters at voting centres considered enemy strongholds, their ultimate target has always been to outdo one another and emerge winner at all costs.
Rigging has transmuted from the era of Option A4, which significantly curtailed electoral malfeasance to the era of do-or-die, which represented a period of heightened desperation by political stakeholders, a win-at-all-cost syndrome and let the losers go to court.
Regardless of the anti-democratic rigging method politicians choose to adopt to place them at an advantageous position, all have been counterproductive to Nigeria’s electoral process and even resulted, sometimes in military incursion into the Nigeria political space.
Not even when the electoral process progressed to the use of Smart Card Readers, especially during the 2015 presidential and other elections, there were little or no significant changes, as politicians relied on the use of Incidence Forms to corrupt and outsmart the process.
In the estimation of many, the trends of election rigging have not only worsened the electoral process but have also been responsible for the emergence of the inefficient political leadership that has over time overseen the administration of the country.
However, political stakeholders desperately interested in the end justifying the means have cared little or nothing about the disastrous effects and incalculable damages their actions and inactions have impacted on the Nigerian democratic process.
On the contrary, they have continued to obnoxiously evolve more antics ahead of any anti-rigging democratic ethos adopted by successive electoral umpires, to perfect the conduct of a credible, free and fair electoral process in the country.
But the message of hope is that all those rigging antics seem to be threatened ahead of the 2023 general elections with the deployment of an anti-rigging machine antidote by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Prominent among them include the use of tested and trusted technologies like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).
The legally backed technological innovation has not only destabilised the manoeuvring winning tricks plotted by the usual desperate politician and political parties, but also put them in disarray that nobody can accurately predict the outcome of the presidential election less than 100 days to the poll.
The deployment of the technology has apparently heightened the anxiety, apprehension and uncertainty in the camps of the political stakeholders. It is expectedly so because of the high percentage success it recorded in the staggered governorship elections in states like Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti, and Osun, in addition to other several legislative bye-elections across the country.
And in its attempts to reorient the unrepentant political stakeholders ahead of next year’s polls, the commission’s chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, had constantly read the riot act, reminding them that the era of rigging is over with the introduction of BVAS and IReV.
For the umpteenth time, Yakubu, had warned that; “INEC will not be biased. We are going to provide credible, free, fair and all-inclusive elections. Technology is evolving and improving, but with BVAS, we are almost covering everything. What you see now is technology all over.
“BVAS has eliminated voting by proxy and identity theft. It will guarantee one man, one vote. The politicians should know that the days of rigging have gone, and the issue of incidence form is buried…” he has repeatedly warned.
Counselling them further, Yakubu emphasised that: “with the Electoral Act 2022, we have murdered rigging of elections in this country, and have buried it. That was the greatest thing that has happened to elections in this country. There will be no double or multiple voting again. It is not possible.
“The machine is there, you bring your voter’s card, and they will match it with the machine where your name and identifications have been configured. The card is placed side by side with the machine; your biometrics will be authenticated, but if your identifications do not correspond, it means you don’t belong to that particular unit,” he explained.
But, apart from the technology and warnings by the electoral umpire against rigging, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s) new monetary policy to redesign naira notes is another measure aimed at complicating and making rigging during next year’s elections very difficult, if not impossible.
The offshoot concomitant effect of the redesigned naira note, to many progressive-minded thinkers, will definitely be the icing on the cake as a reliable antidote to finally nail the coffin for dubious candidates and parties still nursing the target of the emerging winner through the model clinical vote buying method.
Going by the warnings of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, that it will be difficult to withdraw a huge volume of cash with the naira redesign policy, the disturbing trend of vote buying is almost half solved. According to the arrangement, it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for politicians to have enough cash to buy votes during the elections.
Hear him; “in other countries, in the US, if you want to withdraw $10,000 from the counter, you will be interrogated, you will fill numerous forms, and they will even track the use of that $10,000 cash that you are withdrawing. If you want to withdraw £10,000 from the counter, they will refuse and if you insist, then you will fill out forms.
“The problem we have had in the past is that we say this is a cash economy. There is no economy that is inbuilt thinking that it has to be a cash economy. The world has moved away from predominantly cash to a cashless economy. And I think Nigeria and the CBN is prepared at this time to move towards a cashless economy.
“And that is the reason for the reissue of these notes. We will insist that cashless would be nationwide. We will restrict the volume of cash that people can withdraw over the counter. If you need to withdraw large volume of cash, you will fill uncountable forms. We will take your data, whether it is your BVN, your NIN so that enforcement agencies like EFCC or ICPC can follow you and be sure that you are taking that money for a good purpose,” Emefiele warned.
And in what looks like an orchestrated plan to completely stamp out vote buying, President Muhammadu Buhari had enthusiastically warned political stakeholders recently to brace up for a shocker, emphasising that the naira redesigning policy is targeted at making vote during next year’s polls very difficult for the enemies of democracy.
Specifically promising to make it difficult for nefarious politicians to mobilise resources and thugs to intimidate voters during the polls, Buhari said: “My aim is to ensure that Nigerians believe that we respect them as an administration.
“So, Nigerians should vote for whoever they like from whichever political party. Nobody will be allowed to mobilise resources and thugs to intimidate people in any constituency. That is what I want to go down in Nigerian history for as a leader,” he warned.
Rattled by the machinery in place to curtail their usual rigging antics, parties and politicians, seem to have gravitated into a high complex level by redesigning a novel and sophisticated antics to fraudulently beat the system.
But their new plans seem to be crumbling like a badly arranged pack of cards already, as the gladiators, in declaring war against one another, have blown the lid against the plan perfectly orchestrated to rig next year’s presidential poll.
Going beyond the allegations of plans to circumvent the new technological innovations deployed by the electoral umpire to curtail their infamous intentions, the leadership of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) recently raised the alarm of a fresh plot by the ruling APC to beat the system.
The CUPP had consistently accused the ruling party of attempts to compromise the voters register by populating it with fake names. They followed it by unravelling orchestrated attempts to stop the use of BVAS, due to all manners of excuses especially lack of adequate power supply and unreliable network services from telecommunication providers.
CUPP also claimed that when the party’s plans failed to achieve the desired results, they allegedly started plotting to force the sack of INEC chairman, Yakubu.
However, all these attempts seem to be a child’s play to the recent revelation by CUPP leadership that APC agents nationwide are deceptively beguiling the unsuspecting Nigerian electorate by harvesting the bank details of over 10 million voters.
Describing what it called ‘operation wire-wire’, as a huge threat to the credibility and outcome of the 2023 general election, and against the provisions of the Electoral Act, CUPP spokesperson, Ikenga Ugochinyere, claimed that; “this plot, which has already received the approval at the highest level of the APC and its PCC, was designed in Imo State and exported to 21 other states of the federation.
“It requires the party’s agents harvesting names, account numbers and Voters Identification Numbers, Bank Verification Numbers of citizens arranged in tables for each polling unit on the understanding that money will be sent to each person by electronic means to purchase their votes,” he explained the dubious workability of their plans.
Ugochinyere, while exposing the plot further, claimed that in Imo and Ebonyi States, particularly, it was executed under the platform of Support Group Coordination, South-East, and in other states of the region like Abia, Enugu and Anambra, it was executed as APC Empowerment Form.
“In Katsina State and other parts of the North West, the plot is being executed under the Citizens Grassroots Farmers Association, while in Ekiti State; they are operating under the Ekiti Development Front (EDF). In the North Central, Operation Wire-Wire is being executed under the North-Central Women for Tinubu.
“In Cross River State, the details are harvested under the Forum of Tinubu Support Groups. In the rest of the country, the APC is harvesting details using the vote canvassing form,” Ugochinyere further alleged.
He did not just stop at revealing the plots but also urged banks and security agencies to collaborate in identifying the illegal transactions from the banks and immediately prosecute the culprits.
“Again, we call on the Police, the DSS, and the EFCC to swing into action and arrest the harvesters of these bank details. If security agencies claim they do not know who harvested them, we now tell them to apprehend the persons whose identities are contained in these documents and, from there, get the identities of those they surrendered their personal details to,” he charged.
In what appeared like playing into the hands of the enemy and confirming the grave allegations against it, the National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu, last week, confessed reservations over the capacity of INEC to conduct credible election with the technologies it planned to use.
He specifically expressed concerns over the functionalities of the technology, particularly the BVAS, meeting up with the desired expectations of the masses in the face of apparent inadequacies of telecommunication and power supply.
Explicitly expressing the reservations when he hosted Commonwealth Delegation for the 2023 Elections at the party’s national Secretariat in Abuja, Adamu said: “I told you that I was privileged, as a Senator, to be part of the debate on the introduction of the technology into our electoral process.
“However, one thing that remains noting and worth noting is part of the transmission of results electronically. We have taken a major step in the transmission of election results, but I have reservations about the capacity of INEC to do so electronically in every part of the country.
“Why I am pessimistic is that I know for a fact that even in Abuja that is the seat of power, electricity supply is not steady. It is the same in a substantial part of this country, and from now till February next year, no one can guarantee 100 per cent supply, as and when due, to ensure that transmitting results will be without hitches as regards charging of the equipment they came with.
“It is an area that requires serious attention because if they cannot transmit, in real-time, as we saw in Osun State, which is a matter still in the court, how do we use such a system nationwide? It is an issue of great concern, a real concern because of power supply and poor telecommunication system,” he noted.
But responding to his reservations, CUPP National Secretary, Peter Ojonugwa Ameh, described it, “as part of its ploy to rig next year’s poll, noting that it is most unfortunate, uncharitable and a reflection of the thinking of the party to hold Nigerian electoral system down from gradual evolution.
“It is a subtle manifestation of the plot by the APC to manipulate and rig the 2023 general election having sensed the inevitable rejection by Nigerians in the impending elections.
“We encourage INEC to stay strong and proceed with the systematic implementation of these laudable reforms capable of cleansing our electoral system and setting it on the path of glory. We wish INEC success in the task ahead of her but advice that it be weary of agents of retrogression such as the APC,” he appealed.
In his own reactions, an APC chieftain who spoke to Daily Sun in confidence, said: “Truth be told, what happened to the APC during the Osun governorship election was a clear indication we will struggle to win in any fair and credible technologically backed election conducted anywhere by INEC.
“Our situation is understandable. There is this feeling that our party has underperformed and lived below the expectations of many Nigerians. If you have been following some derogatory campaign messages, you must have heard the one urging APC to embark on an apology rally, not a campaign rally. All these underscore the feelings of the electorate over our party. It is going to be really difficult.”
