With a Certificate of Return and a broad grin of relief, Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has reclaimed his crown, leaving his main challenger and immediate predecessor Chief Timipre Sylva to sulk and threaten another fight at the tribunal. But what about those whose blood were spilled in the bruising battle for Creek Haven, the state’s seat of power?
The initial and main election was nasty, compromised by not just what is commonly referred to as irregularities but also, more frighteningly, brazen violence of booming guns and deployment of other tools of atrocity. INEC, the national electoral organ, declared the exercise inconclusive and promptly rescheduled a supplementary poll in places where election could not hold or where it did not meet acceptable standards. One can only conclude at this point that the electoral body was probably hoping that whatever was wrong the first time out would be fixed in the second round of ballot in the southern parts of the state.
It wasn’t to be. The guns boomed again. Other weapons of brutality were freely used, again. The result: many people died. The reports vary, as do casualty figures. But one said no fewer than 12 souls were probably lost in the Bayelsa governorship election. Another account said four policemen and two soldiers may also have died in the exercise. This is appalling and should be so labeled and condemned but beyond condemnation, every effort should be made, from Yenagoa to Aso Rock, to stem the bloodshed and bring its perpetrators to account.
The dead may have been more, and even more the injured and the terrorised. But you get this sneaking feeling that even if those who died were more, say, 20, 30 or 50, the public revulsion and reaction would still have been just about as tame as it has been after the exercise. In fact, if anything, it was the major rivals, Dickson and Sylva, who shouted the most about the violence in the election battle. The governor let it be heard from him that his election was fraught with violence, and that he and his party and supporters were appalled by the thuggish acts accompanying the exercise, and that his administration would do everything possible to fish out and punish the killers and the roughnecks. Even before he took the tribunal decision, Sylva equally, and quite vociferously, condemned the killings.
Both men left the questions open. Who did the killings? Who hired the killers or for whom were the killers working? What will come of any inquiry set up by the state in an election contested by two major party candidates, one of who was declared winner but each blaming the other for the atrocities?
From what we are used to, and by our unflattering standards, the Bayelsa election was always going to be mean. The Buhari and APC hurricane which swept Dr Goodluck Jonathan out of the presidency also left the hitherto ruling party with pretty little to hold on to. Only a handful of states were left standing in the PDP column. That was why Bayelsa, Dr Jonathan’s home state, looked like, in the language of a certain Owu lord, a do-or-die affair. If Bayelsa went, too, what would be left? Both Sylva and Dickson also had some personal pride issues of their own to sort out. The former was shooed off the state government house in a manner that had his disagreement with Jonathan written all over it. Worse, Dickson was drafted in from the House of Representatives and soon took over Sylva’s seat. Sylva defected and kicked off a campaign to reclaim what he lost, while Dickson did everything to ensure his predecessor failed in his comeback bid.
All of that was clear; what was not was the bloodshed that characterised the contest between the two Ijaw chiefs. Why was there so much violence? Why isn’t there enough spirit to deter the violent elements in our midst? How much blood will be wasted before we rise up as one against such assaults? How long will people who are neither in the armed forces nor law enforcement be allowed to acquire, keep and freely deploy high-calibre weapons in a country run by constitutional laws?
Decades ago someone made the point that Nigerians were immune to shock. Now, that someone would be shocked as to how even more hardened and inoculated we have become. We witnessed the horrors of the Niger Delta militants before they turned a new leaf, thanks to the departed President Umaru Yar’Adua. We have also seen how the Boko Haram militants scaled up their atrocities, slaughtering over 17,000 people, sending more than 2m out of their home including some 800,000 children. Homes have been wrecked, whole communities burnt alongside farmlands. Such plunder is rare even in full-scale war. We have the baby factories and all the seedy behind-the-gates acts among us. And while the baby merchants are at it, some other outlaws have turned kidnapping into an irresistible industry.
But does that explain why we seem to have lost our collective sense of, and sensitivity to, horror? Is that why it continues to look normal and acceptable if we cannot cast a ballot decently without spilling a drop of blood? Why does it look as if the outlaws are getting the better of the authorities and, by that stretch of reasoning, everyone else?
As I feared earlier in this piece, not much may come out of an inquiry into the Bayelsa election violence. So, what to do? Federal authorities should step in, activate all relevant laws, strengthen all necessary facilities and ensure that killers are brought book to justice.
I pointed out in an earlier installment that fighting corruption and insurgency, as President Muhammadu Buhari is doing, is in itself a huge undertaking, in fact, practically Nigeria’s most pressing task. Now, the president must add combating electoral violence and illicit acquisition of firearms and other lethal weapons. We must reclaim our humanity. Every life must count and no one should be allowed to spill blood and get away with it. It is the order of civilisation.
