The 2015 general elections, to the surprise of many, were largely free, fair and to some extent peaceful. If one could ignore what happened in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States in the name of election, it could be safely said or assumed that Nigeria’s democracy has finally come of age. But it would be foolhardy and even dangerous to brush aside what took place in these states on March 28 and April 11 and conclude that Nigeria has finally joined the global enviable league of established democracies.
Located in Nigeria’s south/south region, Rivers and Akwa Ibom State are two of the three states, the other being Delta, heavily relied upon by Dr Goodluck Jonathan and his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)to deliver votes in their millions to the president to aid his re-election bid.
Jonathan’s expectation of a heavy voters’ support for him in this region was based mainly on the fact of his being from the south/south and not on account of any outstanding performance. But the people of this region, especially residents of these two states were not given to this sentiment.
In the run up to the elections it was glaring that they were not ready to reward incompetence as exemplified by the Jonathan administration and instead were ready to team up with the rest of Nigeria rooting for change. They were leaning towards the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). In fact, Rivers States has an APC government already in place and the expectation was that the state would go the way of the party in the general election, the fact of Jonathan coming from that region notwithstanding.
The financial recklessness of the Godswill Akpabio administration in Akwa Ibom state with nothing tangible to show for the huge state resources available to him also commended the APC to the people of the state as the party of change that they yearn for. So, like Rivers, the expectation here also was that the wind of change would blow the PDP away on elections day. But that was not to be or rather, not allowed to be by the powers that be.
Faced with an imminent defeat at the polls, the Jonathan federal government deployed all State’s and non-state’s resources at its disposal to rig the election in its favour with the hope of making it back for a second term. In the March 28 presidential election, Jonathan recorded near overwhelming support in these two states, with over 95 per cent of the votes, but it wasn’t enough to win him the presidency again.
The way this ‘victory’ was achieved cast doubt on the legitimacy of the result. In Rivers State, apart from the pre-election violence that led to the killing of many people, mainly from the APC, no election in the real sense of the word took place anywhere on that day, a fact acknowledged by both foreign and domestic observers, yet the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it was satisfied with the exercise and declared Jonathan the winner in the state. While no voting took place, results were allocated to parties by INEC officials in a predetermined way to give victory to PDP with a landslide.
In Akwa Ibom State, the way ‘victory’ was achieved was disingenuous. While voters were given the impression that they could vote and their votes would count, (at least in places where INEC was allowed to show up), government/PDP agents/thugs were deployed to polling units to obtain the number of accredited voters and forward same to a situation room in the Government House where the votes were allocated to parties based on the number of accredited voters, with the PDP getting the lion share. The figures recorded on the result sheet at the Government House were then forwarded to INEC which in turn released same as the outcome of the election.
With the outcome of the presidential election in these two states not enough to tilt the scale of victory in Jonathan’s favour nationwide, the PDP went back to the drawing board for the governorship and state assembly elections on April 11, to ensure that its rigging plan not only produces a winner but retains/returns the control of the two states to the party. The outcome was a sham election that even PDP sympathizers in some so called opposition parties could not stomach.
The Labour party governorship candidate in Rivers State, Prince Tonye Princewill, a known supporter of President Jonathan was so disappointed in the conduct and outcome of the election that he described the exercise as neither free nor fair. He expressed his frustration in the following words: “Without the presence of INEC officials or material in some areas, results were declared in the very same areas as if elections actually did hold. What kind of message are we sending? Can the people who experienced this ever have faith in politics or the electoral process again? This process was neither free nor fair and it certainly was not credible. But in the end INEC felt otherwise.”
Observers from the African Centre for Leadership Strategies and Development described the elections in Rivers State as not only bloody but also fraudulent, urging INEC to cancel the polls. International election observers also spoke in the same vein, yet INEC went ahead to declare the result giving victory to PDP. The same things happened in Akwa Ibom. The APC, the party at the receiving end of this electoral fraud is crying foul but INEC does not seem to be listening.
The implication of INEC accepting the result of these sham elections is that the electorate in these areas would never have faith in politics and the political process, especially the principle of one man one vote. And as long as the result stays good people will continue to stay out of politics in these areas and we will continue to have thugs as leaders coming from there; and when they come to the national stage you can imagine the pollution they would bring to national politics.
I don’t want to dwell on the violence that attended the so called elections in these states, it is sickening. People being beheaded, whole family being wiped out, political thugs, at times in military/police uniform going from house-to-house, clubbing or shooting opponents to death, most of these in the presence of and even with active connivance of security agents. What kind of democracy is that? And on elections day, ballot boxes/papers being snatched and yet INEC accepted the results from such polling units?
For the sake of the democracy we are trying to build and also the credibility of Professor Attahiru Jega’s INEC, the result in Rivers and Akwa Ibom States should not stand. Let there be fresh elections in these states with enough security personnel on ground to prevent the killings and the fraud that attended the March 28 and April 11 elections. This is how to build a good democratic culture. Let the winner win clean and clear and the loser lose clean and clear as well.
