Tag: re-run

It is no longer in doubt that last week’s re-run legislative elections in Rivers state detracted substantially from a standard free, fair and credible poll. This should be a disappointment given the heavy deployment of men and materials for that singular poll.

Figures reeled out before the election showed 28,000 policemen, 18 gunboats, three helicopters, dogs and horses were handy for the exercise. This was in addition to the Army, Naval, Air force and DSS personnel mobilized to ensure that violence and all manner of malpractices were reduced to their barest minimum.

Given these, the expectation was that security agencies would provide a level playing ground for INEC officials to do their job so that the outcome of the elections would approximate the collective will of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box. Curiously, accounts from independent observers, election monitors and politicians from across the divide speak of infractions that cast slur on the impartiality of security agencies and credibility of the elections.

A coalition of about 70 civil society organizations under the aegis of Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room; observed late commencement of the elections with 10.30am as the earliest time while in some, it started later than 2pm. It reported that delays were so severe in parts of Khana and Eleme rendering them unable to confirm if voting started at all even as materials and staff never arrived in Lleuku and Nyokoro.

If these were not enough, their further report that a team of policemen and military personnel arrived in a commando style and removed election materials and staff from their locations when counting was about to start in two wards in the Gokana local government gives serious cause to worry. In Bomu, presiding officers were waiting to count; the situation was calm when a team of police and military personnel arrived in Toyota Hilux vehicles with an armored personnel carrier, chased voters away and carried materials and ad hoc staff, the coalition reported. They further observed the same curious manifestations in Etche, Andoni and Eleme local governments. The coalition summed up its observations thus: “the conducts observed called into question the neutrality of security forces and election officials”

Apparently piqued by this damaging report, the Nigerian Army was quick to deny involvement in alleged “killings, ballot snatching and mass arrests during the election”. The General Officer Commanding 6, Division, Major General Kasimu Abdulkarim said they only acted swiftly in response to security breaches to enforce the law, provide aid to the police and other security agencies.

On its part, the Nigerian Police found itself issuing two statements on the issue. In the first, its spokesman Don Awunah faulted reports by a non-governmental organization CLEEN Foundation which said the election was “marred by irregularities, large scale violence, professional misconduct and open bias by security operatives and electoral personnel” He admitted there were infractions of law in the course of the elections but the police and other security agencies rose to the occasion and ensured the election prevailed.

But in the second statement, apparently succumbing to the weight of evidence on the matter, he now said “some security personnel were arrested for professional misconduct, actions, inactions, omission and commission that were detrimental to the electoral process”. For this, he said a high powered investigation panel is currently looking into this unacceptable professional misconduct.

Before this, video clips had made the rounds in the media showing some of the INEC officials complaining bitterly of having been manhandled by the police for inexplicable reasons. INEC returning officer for Rivers East Senatorial district, Prof. Orji Onu Ekumankama gave account of how a contingent of the police and the army arrested and took them away from their location together with the results just before collation was to start. He said there was no threat to law and order before their arrival.

It is evident from these accounts that the conduct of some security operatives was a negation of the impartial role they ought to play in providing a level playing ground for a free and fair election to take place. And if one may ask, what was the rationale for carting away election materials and officials in many areas when voting had been concluded and collation just about to commence? What sort of challenge at the collation centers would prove so daunting for the security agencies that would warrant the confiscation of result sheets, chasing away accredited party agents and hauling INEC officials into waiting vans? And on whose instance were the security agencies acting?

Assuming there was threat to law and order at the end of those elections at the collation centers, what is the standard conduct expected of security operatives in such circumstances: provide adequate security for the collation to progress unhindered or cart away the materials and arrest INEC officials in very questionable circumstances?

These posers have been raised to underscore the point that the conduct of security forces contributed largely to the credibility deficits that was the outcome of the elections in Rivers state. It is therefore not enough for the army to assert that the role of its members was limited to providing aid to the police and other security agencies where there were security breaches. Neither was the attempt to exculpate them from events that compromised the credibility of that election successful.

Such excuses cannot stand in the face of several reports of the police and the army carting away results sheets and bundling electoral officers into waiting vehicles when collation was about to commence. There does not seem to be any reasonable explanation for that except the lure to put such results to partisan advantage. But for the doggedness and determination of the Rivers electorate, the outcome of those elections would have been different from the results that have been announced.

The matter is damn serious and should neither be covered up nor wished away given its frightening prospects for the success of democracy. We say so because allegations of security men aiding politicians to manipulate elections had been traded during the governorship election in Edo and the senatorial re-run in Imo.

If it was convenient to dismiss those ones, the case of Rivers has shown that we can continue to ignore them at a great peril to our democracy. During Obasanjo’s regime, election results were so manipulated that Nigerians almost lost hope in the credibility of that process. It took copious assurances and measures by Yar’Adua and his successor Jonathan to bequeath the nation an electoral process that showed substantial improvement for public confidence to be restored.

Jonathan strove relentlessly to give the nation an electoral process that was a remarkable improvement on the charade of the Obasanjo era. The true test of this was evident in the success recorded by President Buhari in the last general election.

As a beneficiary of free and fair elections, the open partisanship of security operatives in the Rivers contest should be a serious embarrassment to Buhari. And he cannot afford to sit by while the gains recorded in the democratic process are being quickly reversed through the embarrassing conduct of security operatives in conjunction with some politicians.

At a time the example set by Jonathan is having a domino effect in the West African Sub-region; it is a sad commentary that our security agencies are found neck deep in actions and inactions that compromise the credibility of the electoral process. Buhari must order a high powered investigation that will include independent actors into why in so many areas, security operatives had officials and election materials removed as collation was about to commence. That is the surest way of reassuring that we have not relapsed to the era when election results were falsified, altered and written in hotel rooms in favor of preferred candidates.