Mike Odiegwu
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has listed the actions and utterances of political actors likely to militate against a peaceful conduct of the governorship election scheduled to hold in Bayelsa State on November 16.
National Chairman Prof. Yakubu Mahmood, who spoke yesterday when he visited the office of the Bayelsa State Traditional Rulers Council in Yenagoa, said unguarded actions and utterances of politicians could lead to the breach of the peace during campaign, voting and collation of results.
Mahmood, accompanied by senior officials of the commission and security agencies led by the Zone 5 Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Dibal Yakadi, also complained about the use of thugs to disrupt the voting and collation processes.
Describing Bayelsa and Kogi as the most difficult states to conduct major elections, Mahmood said the commission was bothered about the ugly trend of vote buying, adding that democracy should not be on sale in the open market.
He said the commission was deploying 10,000 ad-hoc officials in parts of Bayelsa to conduct the election, noting that INEC would not allow anybody to attack them.
Addressing the council led by the Amayanabo of Twon Brass, King Alfred Diette-Spiff, the INEC boss said: “We have a few areas of concern. The first one is action and utterances likely to lead to the breach of the peace during electioneering campaign, during voting on the Election Day and during the collation of results.
“The commission, working with the security agencies, will not accept attack on people we engage as ad-hoc workers. We are going to engage over 10,000 Nigerians to deliver this election in Bayelsa State. Many of them are in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) service, others are not. We are concerned about mobilisation of armed persons to disrupt the voting processes and collation of results as we experienced in previous elections.
“In 2015, up to the eight local government areas in Bayelsa State, we conducted elections conclusively and made declaration of results only in one local government area, Kolokuma-Opokuma. I have been asking all my friends in Bayelsa what makes Kolokuma-Opokuma thick? Today, I have the opportunity finally to actually visit Kolokuma-Opokuma and I was in Kaiama and the workers assured us that just as it happened in 2015, it will happen again.
“But with your assistance, we know that the entire state will become another Kolokua-Opokuma and election will be done conclusively on first ballot. Next is the recurrent problem where some unscrupulous actors follow voters to polling units with money on Election Day to induce them. It is called vote buying.
“Our democracy cannot be on sale in the open market. The citizens should be allowed to vote for whoever they choose on the Election Day. We appeal to you to continue to speak to politicians and their supporters on peaceful conduct during the campaign process and beyond.”
On why all eyes will be on Bayelsa and Kogi, Mahmood said: “First, this will be the first major election since the 2019 general election. What lessons have we learnt since the conduct of the general election that will help us to improve on the forthcoming governorship election?
“Secondly, Bayelsa and Kogi are not easy states when it comes to conducting major elections, particularly governorship election. The challenge is particularly in terms of the terrain and therefore it has an impact on electoral logistics. But another great challenge is the attitude of the political class, which has become a source of concern to the commission.”
Mahmood said the House of Assembly election would hold in Brass Constituency 2 in Brass Local Government on the same day scheduled for the governorship election.
“In addition to the governorship election in Bayelsa State, we are also concluding Brass Constituency 2 election in Brass Local Government on the same day. The election should have been concluded long ago but for litigations over the number of polling units where the supplementary election should cover following the disruption of the process on March 9.
“The commission concluded that we needed to go back to six polling units, but one political party and its candidate said it should hold in ward six in the entire polling units. This matter dragged through the court up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court recently decided that we were right to go back to conduct the election only in six polling units,” he said.
Mahmood said the commission was ready to conduct a peaceful, free, fair, credible and conclusive election in Bayelsa and appealed to the traditional rulers to make suggestions and contributions that would change the narrative in Bayelsa.
He said: “We want to assure you that as far as the credible processes are concerned, we shall maintain our neutrality as umpires. INEC is not a political party. INEC has no candidate in the election.
“The choice of who becomes the next governor is entirely in the hands of the people of Bayelsa State. We have delivered all the non-sensitive materials for the election. We have secured funding and made funds available to the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for the administration of the election.
“We have no problem whatsoever. We will deploy straight from our office in Yenagoa to the registration areas to make it faster for us to be able to open the polling units at 8am. We are committed to ensuring that voters don’t wait for INEC officials and materials to arrive. We should be there waiting for the electorate to come and vote.”
Ditte-Spiff hailed INEC for seeking the advice of the traditional rulers in the state and appealed to the commission to prevail on security agencies to reduce military presence during the election.
Addressing Mahmood, he said: “The military presence in the last election was too much. They were brought here by one or two candidates. They after the election eliminated one or two persons.
“You will need to appeal to the Army in particular to try to contain their men so that they would not go off the handle and scare people away from the polling units. One or two areas are not approachable.
“Quite a number of the population is now IDPs here in Yenagoa. Places such as Bassambiri, Peremabiri; you have to make time to see those areas to see that the displaced population will be allowed to go back and assured that they will be allowed to vote. As royal fathers, we are neutral.
“We don’t carry any party cards and we comport ourselves in the highest decorum. As you are watching the election, we are also watching you and we will give you pass mark at the end of the day.”
AIG Yakadi said the police were prepared for the election in Bayelsa, adding that every polling unit would be manned by five policemen.
He said striking units would be deployed in all the local governments, noting that the striking forces on arrival would liaise with the stakeholders.
“We are assuring you that snatching of ballot boxes and other things will be curtailed,” Yakadi said, describing the monarchs as major stakeholders in the election.
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