•Nigerians should be asking questions about this dangerous dimension in the country
ALTHOUGH the August 9 governorship election in Osun State has come and gone, we note with consternation how the election was crudely militarised. Shockingly, an elevated record of impunity, far above the awful Ekiti State election example, was set when a hooded cast of men in military uniform, Department of State Services (DSS) and policemen manned checkpoints and raided designated homes of politicians, to illegally harass, intimidate and psychologically traumatise opposition politicians. This does not speak well of the country in the comity of civilised democratic nations, especially coming from an administration that touts itself as out to promote credible elections.
The Gestapo-like hooded security style is alien to our democracy even as it clearly underscores a low in the savage and abysmal practice of the rule of law under President Goodluck Jonathan. Notable politicians of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their supporters were harassed by military, police and DSS men, while a flabbergasted nation watched. Suspicious men in military and DSS uniforms; their faces shielded behind black cloths and well fortified with assorted rifles such as AK-47 assault rifles, pistols and other weapons terrorised the people before and during that election.
Democracy cannot be celebrated under an avoidable atmosphere of ferocious siege and criminal infliction of state’s instrument of coercion on tax payers that are out to discharge their civic duty during an election. However, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government exhibited a lack of finesse as only its party members and supporters were deemed to be above the law. Others in the opposition could be arrested, even for doing nothing, or on the lame excuse of ‘loitering.’ Consequently, Lai Mohammed, national spokesman of the APC, Senator Isiaka Adeleke and Afolabi Salisu, Deputy Chief of Staff to Ogun State governor and countless others tasted the harassment of these unknown security personnel.
The resort to these mystery security personnel signifies a perilous moment for democratic governance in Nigeria. The people, the world over, are the hallmark of the electoral process if credible elections are indeed to be guaranteed. But this cannot be assured in the midst of state support of inhuman/criminal persecution and terrorisation of some Nigerians by doubtful security personnel that President Jonathan is gradually turning into the enforcement arm of his ruling PDP, without any modicum of decency. We arrived at this position, without being immodest, because no single PDP chieftain was arrested by these goons despite the presence of PDP chieftains such as Chris Uba, Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State for Defence, among others, who were rather protected by these shadowy security men.
We recollect that former President Olusegun Obasanjo sometime ago alerted the nation through his letter to the president that he (president) was, among other things, training not less than 1,000 snipers. The presidency publicly denied this but recent events, especially the deployment of the hooded security persons, in obvious desecration of military and security institutions’ integrity in Osun State, seemed to affirm this long forgotten admonition. Were these hooded military and DSS men the snipers that Obasanjo was talking about?
The wearing of unconventional outfits and hoods during election creates a philosophical contradiction in the presidency’s battle against terrorism. This is well amplified in view of the fact that Boko Haram terrorists, also from reports and pictures, dress in army uniforms and are sometimes hooded. Proceeding from this, we ask, what justification does Dr. Jonathan have in combating Boko Haram terrorists in hoods and army uniforms? His administration’s imprimatur in this sartorial outfit rids him of any high moral purpose.
What Jonathan and his service chiefs did during that election was fit only for terrorist zones and season and not areas/states inhabited by decent and law-abiding people. From this point of view, it is hard for this government to condemn the terrorists for impersonation when a group of men unknown to law are parading themselves in army uniform.
More condemnable is that, the PDP governorship candidate, Iyiola Omisore, proudly pranced about with a hooded man as his security guard. This is not only an endorsement by the upper notches of the military but also from the political high brass of the PDP of which President Jonathan is head.Yet, his APC counterpart, Rauf Aregbesola, never had such concession of security.
One of the most sanctified, inalienable human rights is the right to vote and be voted for in an atmosphere of tranquillity which is now baselessly being denied in the country. We ask: What has happened to the rule of law as enshrined in our constitution? Under what constitutional cover did the hooded security and the unknown soldiers taken to Osun operate? Under what division did they operate and who authorised such absurd operation? Could the president justify such affront to the integrity of the military of which he is the Commander-in-Chief? Who was to be held responsible for the criminal breaches that occurred before and during that election?
That untenable impunity is an indictment of the president, his National Security Adviser, the Chiefs of Army and Defence Staff, Director-General of SSS and the Inspector-General of Police under whose aagis the integrity of the military, police and intelligence services were greatly eroded. It is still incomprehensible that in the face of routine barbarities of Boko Haram onslaughts in the north-east and a largely de-motivated military, the president still had the effrontery to deploy the military to illegally prosecute elections in the nation for his selfish 2015 presidential ambition.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) cannot exonerate itself from blame in the entire notorious illegality. We deprecate the commission’s cold silence over the entire matter. The commission needs to state whether it raised security concerns that necessitated the militarisation of the Osun election process. In future elections, we expect INEC to live up to its autonomous status by preventing glaring subversion of its role of conducting election in an atmosphere that is devoid of intimidation. It is indefensible that not less than 73,000 ‘security agents’, including the military, police, DSS, Civil Defence and alleged ex-militants were deployed for that election. We believe that INEC ought not have tolerated the militarisation of that election, assuming it never told the authorities that there were security concerns in the state. On the DSS, we have not seen any provision in the constitution that backs that service. The DSS is therefore an illegality.
We hope that the Osun State impunity will not be repeated in the approaching 2015 general elections. In defiance, the President has declared that he would deploy the troops. This is wrong and wrong-headed. We call on the opposition and other stakeholders in the current democratic dispensation to quickly approach the court to seek clarifications over whether the president has the power to deploy the military, whether hooded or not, for elections when there is no imminent threat of an insurrection. This is as important as it is urgent so as to prevent the president and his ruling PDP from returning the country to an era of the savage rule.
The process leading to an election is as important as its result.
