It most elections, Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) often struggles with logistics. That’s why polls start behind schedule and sometimes end in overtime. It’s the reason for bust ups over non-delivery of important items required for statutory documentation.
The fiasco was so bad in 2019 that presidential and National Assembly elections were postponed at 2.30am on polling day! Where such a dramatic step wasn’t taken over the years, many voters were casually disenfranchised and simply returned home to carry on with their lives.
Experts in election management say you prepare for them the same way you plan a military campaign. Indeed, some countries are known to have hired former generals with background in logistics to handle the assignment.
With it’s less-than-stellar record, INEC now has to contend with violence as a factor that could make its latest assignment more nightmarish.
In parts of the Northwest, legitimate government has lost grip – especially in rural extremities – leaving bandits to fill the void, even down to the point of imposing taxes and levies.
A sustained military campaign over the last 12 months has failed to totally obliterate the threat they represent. Some of their notorious leaders like Zamfara’s Bello Turji are still strutting around, reveling in their ability to survive the best that security agents have thrown at them. They retain their capacity to be disruptive unless they are put out of business soon.
The situation in the Northeast isn’t as bad as it was in January/February 2015 when President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration pressured INEC to agree a six-week extension for military operations that would sufficiently pacify the region, enabling elections to hold.
Still, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and remnants of Boko Haram engage in opportunistic attacks. There are so many ungoverned spaces in the zone which former residents are too frightened to go back to because of the absence of security. Such persons may have to be content with voting in camps for the internally displaced. It is, however, expected that electoral activities would take place with minimal disruptions across the region.
Where there is growing concern is the Southeast. It’s hard to estimate the number of those who have succumbed to the indiscriminate bloodletting perpetrated by faceless killers rampaging through the zone. Some victims are security agents, others are ordinary citizens who just found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, or were dumb enough to step outside when someone ordered they should stay indoors.
In the recent past it was easy to attribute these killings to separatists activities in the Southeast. But the latest sinister dimension is the intensified focus on INEC offices and those who protect them. On Sunday, armed men attacked the commission’s office in Oru West Local Government Area of Imo State. Three days earlier, another facility in Orlu Local Government of the state was targeted.
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On Monday, the attacks were ratcheted up when gunmen visited INEC office in the capital Owerri. When the dust settled five people lay dead – two policemen and three attackers.
Given the nature and targets, it is obvious that this is political. Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, speaking after the most recent attacks blamed them ‘desperate politicians.’ Perhaps he was merely hazarding a guess because if he had more concrete evidence the suspects should be cooling their heels in detention.
But he may not be wrong if we interrogate the situation further. For instance, why would anyone want to bomb an INEC office with such violence? These are not mere robbers looking to plunder cash or property. Their obvious goal is to destroy the commission’s facilities and by extension its ability to function. During the voter registration exercise we saw similar attacks on venues where it held.
While suspicion may be strong as to political motives, security agencies haven’t done enough with intelligence to pin down the sponsors. That leaves the other major suspect – the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). It is hard to absolve the organization and other separatists who have embraced militancy from the violence ravaging the region.
Like always happens with such groups, factionalisation has set in. With its founder Nnamdi Kanu trapped in detention, a certain Simon Ekpa has been issuing counter orders. One minute the tendency loyal to Kanu says it didn’t direct any stay-at-home protest, the next day gunmen are killing those who defy the orders. The police swear IPOB is to blame whatever they say. Others say killings won’t stop for as long as Kanu remains in custody. That’s another way of saying that even if official IPOB swears to an affidavit vowing not to disrupt the 2023 polls, there would still be gunmen out there doing the very thing.
So how much impact would the violence have on the elections in the Southeast? Part of the problem is a failure of intelligence. It’s hard to say when and where the attackers would strike next.
Some say there are not enough security agents to protect every inch of the land. But that can equally be turned around to argue that there are not enough malevolent gunmen to disrupt every polling unit. It’s just that one incident of terror can drown out reports of one hundred places where things went well.
That tells you the central goal of the attackers and their sponsors is to instill fear. It works where people permit it; it falls flat when they confront what they dread the most. In reality, our worst fears never come to pass.
Let’s not forget how in the run-up to the polls that brought Chukwuma Soludo to office as governor, Anambra was paralyzed by threats against those who intended to come out for voting. Even after IPOB disavowed plans to disrupt the election, the worries didn’t go away, leaving many to wonder if polling would actually happen. Election Day turned out to be one of the most anti-climatically peaceful in recent times.
In every Nigerian election cycle there are always mercenaries and anti-democratic agents looking for a rationale to call for postponement of the day of reckoning. They latch on to the usual ready-made excuses: INEC’s unpreparedness, heated rhetoric of politicians ‘heating up the polity’ or orchestrated acts of violence. We should see those maneuvers for what they are. Violence, no matter, how dramatic should never be an excuse for postponing elections. In fact, nothing short of a full blown war should cause a country to casually junk its constitutionally-ordained process of democratic transition – with free and fair elections embedded therein.
That said, violence is powerful because of the fear it transmits. If these attacks continue unchecked many would be sufficiently frightened to stay away from voting. The upshot would be historically low turnout, further neutralising the regional impact on the outcome of the pivotal 2023 presidential election.
