SUNDAY ISUWA writes on the call for a review of the electoral laws following inconclusive elections, court orders, military interference, and other issues that characterised the elections.
Out of the 29 states where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted governorship election, elections were declared inconclusive in six states. Several states, National Assembly and FCT constituencies also had inconclusive elections in some places.
The trend of inconclusive polls in Nigeria, according to pundits, if not tackled, will affect the country’s democracy as citizens might lose confidence in the process.
Some Nigerians including academicians are already accusing their colleagues over the role they played in the 2019 general elections, describing some of their actions as segregatory.
INEC conducted elections in several constituencies starting from the presidential and the national assembly polls, governorship election in 29 states, 991 members of Houses of Assembly in all the 36 states of the federation, six council chairmen as well as 62 Councillors for the Area Councils in the FCT.
A total of 1,082 candidates were supposed to be elected by citizens across the country but some states, constituencies and Area Councils experienced inconclusive elections.
Court orders and military interference also contributed in prolonging the electoral process that was supposed to be completed by March, 2019.
Even though some politicians are exploring some lapses in the electoral laws, it is very clear in the constitution the role the military should play during such exercises.
The Nigeria Police is the lead agency for election security. Other security agencies especially the para-military are to play a supportive role to the Nigeria Police.
Section 29 (3) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended states that: “notwithstanding the provisions of any other law and for purposes of securing the vote, the Commission shall be responsible for requesting for the deployment of relevant security personnel necessary for elections or registration of voters and shall assign them in a manner to be determined by the Commission in consultation with the relevant security agencies.”
It provided that “the Commission shall only request for the deployment of the Nigerian Armed Forces only for the purposes of securing the distribution and delivery of election materials and protection of election officials.”
But the 2019 general elections witnessed heavy deployment of military personnel who were seen pursuing voters even to their homes.
Even though the commission made efforts to ensure that Nigerians got better deal than what they encountered during the presidential and the national assembly elections that were supposed to have be been held February 16, and March 2 which were later, shifted to february 23 and March 9 for presidential, governorship, 36 states house of assembly and the federal capital territory area Councils elections, respectively, most materials and relevant personnel arrived at the Registration Area Centres (RACs) which made most of the polling units to open by at 8.00 am.
In addition to elections into the 1,082 constituencies nationwide, the Commission conducted supplementary elections in 14 states of the federation covering 7 Senatorial Districts and 24 Federal Constituencies. Elections in the affected areas were disrupted mainly by acts of violence involving ballot box snatching, abduction of INEC officials, over voting and the failure to adhere to regulations and guidelines.
The number of registered voters in the affected polling units was more than the number of votes received by the candidates with the highest number of votes. Therefore, supplementary elections were required to determine the winners. Consequently, the Commission decided to conduct the supplementary National Assembly polls on Saturday March 9, alongside the Governorship and State Assembly elections.
In the gubernatorial elections, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) Election Analysis Centre had identified nine key battleground states where the race for the position of the governor would be fierce.
CDD listed Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Imo, Adamawa Ogun, Plateau, Bauchi, and Sokoto among the states the contest would be fierce.
Among these states, Kano, Adamawa, Plateau, Bauchi and Sokoto were among the states the elections were declared inconclusive. Even though analysts did not rate Benue as one of the states in which the election would be fierce, the process was also declared inconclusive.
A rerun election was organised for the six states on Saturday, March 23, 2019.
Bauchi and Adamawa were exempted because of court orders. The process were later concluded which saw the two states going to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The commission also insisted that Rivers state’s process that was said to have been disrupted as a result of ‘military interference, got a timetable for the completion of the process.
But the March 9, 2019 elections were described as strategic since governors, State House of Assembly and FCT Area Council chairmen and Councillors are more closer to the people.
“Governors are about the most strategic positions in governance and who emerges often has a direct bearing on good governance and improved or worsened security,” Dr. Joe Abah, an analyst at the EAC and the Nigerian director for UK Department for International Development, said.
“The greatest challenge to good governance in Nigeria is the relatively high percentage of governors who are excessively corrupt, irresponsible in their governance mandate and often almost completely absent from their respective States,” Abah said, adding that citizens must closely monitored and assessed the performance of their governors.
Even though INEC was commended for blocking the loopholes it earlier encountered in the presidential and national assembly elections, there were significant challenges which affected the smooth conduct of the gubernatorial, State House of Assembly and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Councils polls.
The Smart Card Readers (SCRs), which authenticate the Permanent Voters Card, accredit voters and matches voter biometrics to the INEC database, was dogged by glitches, mainly when it came to reading and matching the fingerprints of voters.
In some places where they deliberately refused to use the smart card readers, manual voting was reported by some observers in locations like Kazawa Primary school polling unit in Kazawa Ward of Kano Central Senatorial District and Unwanar Ganji Open Space Ward in Rimi Gado of Kano north Senatorial District.
Voters turnout was low in many parts of the country during the March 9 elections.
Most people said they were only interested in the outcome of the Presidential election, while some expressed doubt as to whether their votes would count. The threat of violence also kept away some voters from the polls”, it was gathered.
Over 30 people were reportedly killed in various violence in the 2019 general elections.
LEADERSHIP reports that armed thugs turned their guns on citizens and members opposing political parties which led to the killings.
“We also noted the actions of armed bandits and Boko Haram insurgents in Katsina and Adamawa states. We also note with dismay the activities of security personnel around the country, who have been accused of interference in the electoral process and failure to protect electoral staff and materials.”
“We flag the need to review the rules of engagement guiding the involvement of security personnel in election duties. It is saddening that a suspected ballot box snatcher was killed and that an aide to a candidate also lost his life to so-called accidental discharge,” a report by CDD said.
CDD in its report, said different forms of threats, harassment, intimidation and assault were reported during the elections.
“We reckon that these attempts are aimed at undermining the system usually to favour the perpetrators. Our monitors on the ground did not only report cases of intimidation but were victims, too.”
“One of our observers was arrested by soldiers in the Mile 2 area of Lagos by soldiers on his way to cover the protest over non-payment of allowances by ad-hoc staff.”
“Political thugs slapped and abducted our observer in at PU 2 Afaha Nsit ward of Akwa Ibom and later requested a ransom. Our observer was abducted by political thugs for reporting and sharing photos and permanent voter’s card of underaged voters in Polling Unit 15, Ward 04 of Shendam local government area of in Plateau state.”
“He was later released. In a related incident, a politician slapped a BBC journalist in Lagos in a brazen show of power.”
“By extension, the weaponisation of abductions of INEC staff and the ad-hoc staff is worrisome and constitutes a drawback to the progress we have made so far. INEC officials were kidnapped and later released in Benue, Katsina, Kogi, Imo, Akwa Ibom and Rivers during voting and collation of results, with Katsina alone recording 20 cases of abductions,” CDD said in the report signed by Prof. Adele Jinadu.
Irregularities were reported in Imo State were open ballot stuffing at polling unit 010A and 010B at Mbutu Ward, Aboh Mbaise, Local Government Area of the State were experienced.
This was the polling unit for Emeka Ihedioha, former Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives and the winner of the election.
Ihedioha had not yet cast his vote at the time of the incident, so it was difficult to know whether his supporters did it or sponsored by his opponents who wanted to humiliate him by making him lose at his polling unit.
INEC announced on the election day the sacking of its ad hoc staff in the state on the grounds that they had been compromised by politicians and announced new ad hoc staff on the election day apparently to ensure they would not be compromised.
However, it was said that even the new set of ad hoc staff appointed on the election day were also compromised.
In Eziama Obire, Nkwerre Local Government Area of the State, political thugs reportedly murdered a PDP party agent following an argument in one of the polling units in the state.
In Ward 002 Karanolu, in Nwangede Local Government Area of the State, angry youths upturned and destroyed ballot boxes in protest against voting by unaccredited voters.
Before upturning the ballot boxes, the angry youths had reportedly demanded the cancellation of some votes by the unaccredited voters but were allegedly rebuffed by the electoral officials.
The police reportedly arrested no fewer than 105 political thugs in the State. The thugs were allegedly arrested for offences that ranged from ballot box snatching to disrupting elections, harassing electoral officials and impersonating police officers.
Vote buying remains a significant concern for Nigeria’s election considering what happened during the governorship and state houses of assembly elections.
Buying and selling of votes prevailed despite the warning by INEC, security agencies and the anti-corruption agencies.
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Observers reported seeing EFCC arresting people involved in vote buying in Benue, Kwara and other states but their numbers were insignificant to totally arrest the scourge of vote buying in many parts of the country.
Voters and politicians strived in the vote trading market during the last elections bargaining for a higher amount and sell their vote to the party with the ability to meet their demand. The trend is that votes traded from as low as N250 to N7,000.
Cases of underage voting were reported in Kano, Bauchi and Plateau States which according to observers, INEC needs to address the issue in future elections.
While civil society organizations and observers advocated for an effective result collation process, observers were denied access to collation centres in some parts of the country, particularly Rivers, Zamfara and Akwa Ibom States.
Late commencement of collation was reported in many states, especially Plateau and Benue states, it was gathered.
“We note with dismay the invasion of collation centres by some prominent politicians, the abduction and attempted inducement of collation officers. More worryingly was the fact that some lives were lost in a collation centre in Ondo State. This is a troubling development,” CDD director, Idayat Hassan said.
Adhoc staff welfare were also not well taken care of, some observers say.
In Mile 2 area of Lagos state, there were protests over non-payment of adhoc staff allowances which might deter corps members from participating in future elections.
The nature of training offered to ad-hoc staff in the run-up to the elections was also questioned with observers insisting there were reports of inefficiency and poor technical knowledge among election staff.
The collation challenges for Nigeria’s 2019 elections led to cancellations of the result which makes a rerun to be organized in six states holding on Saturday, March 23.
The election witnessed an unprecedented amount of cancellation of results . These instances place a further administrative and financial burden on INEC, who are charged with organizing supplementary elections in such affected areas.
In Benue state, the pronounced challenge at the ward and local government level was over-voting. In several cases the total accredited voters number was less than the total vote cast. In Makurdi LGA, collation officers and party agents had to go into long arguments before reaching a compromise on how to go about declaring the results. In Imo North Senatorial District results were cancelled in three LGAs, causing the elections to be declared inconclusive. In Akwa Ibom, the votes from Ikot Ekpene senatorial district with 10 LGAs was also cancelled as a result of failure to use card readers, and over voting with some polling units recording above the number of registered voters in contravention of the provisions of the INEC guidelines.
In Rivers State there were an unprecedented number of cancelled votes: more than 942,000 as declared by INEC. Cancelled votes exceeded the votes cast (666,000) by nearly 300,000. This was a result of two LGAs where election collation did not take place at all and four other LGAs where ward collation was moved to the local government centres but seriously disrupted by violence.
“The violence around collation had a severe impact on election officials. Two ad hoc staff died amidst shooting as they moved to local government collation in Degema and Emohua LGAs. Whilst clashes in Obio Akpor LGA meant that four wards were not collated, contributing to turnout of just 13% in the LGA. Overall disruption in Rivers state reduced the turnout from over 60% in 2015 to under 20% in 2019,” the report by CDD added.
Also, the European Union (EU) observers mission in their preliminary report, condemned violence that characterised the rerun elections.
YIAGA AFRICA Watching The Vote group in their preliminary findings complained about the security interference in the conduct of the rerun elections in Kano, Sokoto, Plateau, Benue and Bauchi.
The Report was contained in the Groups summary jointly presented by YIAGA Africa Watching The Vote Chair, Hussaini Abdu and the Group’s Executive Director, Samson Itodo.
The group in it’s briefing condemned the deployment of thugs by the two major political parties in the elections, noting that despite huge deployment of security personnel for the elections, political thugs visibly attacked voters and disrupted elections in some polling stations in Kano and Benue states without any resistance or reprimand from security agencies.
But many Nigerians are not happy about the inconclusive elections that is becoming increasingly popular in the country’s elections.
“The 2019 election was messed up with the deployment of compromised security officers,” a chieftain of the Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC) and chairman, Action Peoples Party (APP) Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere said.
According to him, the 2019 election will go down in history as the first time in the nations life that state backed violence and organised electoral manipulation was backed and funded by the state and coordinated by security forces.
“This election was so low and shameful that the security forces were seen working side by side with armed thugs. This was the first election armed thugs of ruling government set ballot papers and votes on fire. The act of chasing voters away from polling unit, kidnapping of electoral officers, forcing electoral officers at gun point to declared losers as winners were experienced,” Ugochinyere said.
“We cannot even judge INEC well because of the security breach during the election which was deliberate. The role of the military especially in rivers where they turned into party agents, killing and aiding electoral thieves is national shame,” the party chairman said.
He added that the takeover of collation of results by the military was an act of treason that the punishment should be life or death sentence on all those who hijacked or obstructed the constitutional process of election
“It’s a provocative and act aimed at over running the state,” the IPAC chieftain said.
The Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani the inconclusive elections were as a result of what he described as inconsistencies on the part of the electoral umpire.
“On the issue of inconclusive elections that have created crisis, we’ve seen inconsistencies from INEC. They did not apply the same rules in some places. We’ve seen what happened in Kano, the same things happened in some places and it’s a contradictions which has created doubt on the part of INEC,” Auwal said.
According to him, it was very disappointing to see security agencies going to Kano to undermine the voting right of many voters adding that hoodlums were used to prevent peoples from voting and the security agencies deployed for that purpose could not help matter.
“The deployment of DIGs was wrong and we hope that the IGP and government will investigate that,” Auwal said adding that many people in the states are expressing dissatisfaction because their rights were violated.
“Inconclusive elections has created a problem of integrity in the process and it is important that INEC seat down and look at their overall performance and the role the security agencies play.”
“Sometimes you see the security agencies working to prevent voters from voting as it happened in Kano, Rivers because they think they are going there to vote for a particular political party. This is not good and should be corrected. We can’t continue with this. We must guarantee the voting right of Nigerians. If you feel excluded, there is no way you will want to be part of the process again,” Auwal added.
The civil rights activist advised INEC immediately resumed voter education adding, “We need to have a national dialogue and we must not keep confusing the voters. Some political parties can’t win anything. The requirements for registration must be looked into because most of these parties undermined the electoral process,” Auwal said while advising president Buhari to emulate late president Yar’Adua and introduce electoral reforms.
“The president must take this up with the lawmakers and he must see this as a priority. If we don’t take action to address this now, there will be political apathy and corrupt people will always undermined party primaries and the entire process,” Auwal said on the electoral laws amendment.
He also urged the president to investigate some political party chairmen who collected bribes to share party tickets.
“Some good candidates who could not pay bride were deprived of party tickets. Some party chairmen conived with governors to give tickets to people they want. Allegations of corruption against some of these party chairmen must be check and investigated so that the government will have the necessary legitimacy,” Auwal added.
An academician, Dr Philip Hayab said if one one compare the 2019 general election with what happened in countries like Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and other countries that had independence almost at the same time with Nigeria, that it would be evident that the election was below expectations.
“It was evident that the university Professors that were brought in to help in the process compromised in favour of some parties. It is unfortunate that this is happening now. We are supposed to have some gains to what happened in 2015 rather than retrogresing or going back to the old days we’ve passed.”
“Particularly, in the inconclusive elections, there were evidences that the elections became inconclusive in states some people think it won’t be in their favour. And the next thing was that results were not computed.”
“Some people even said they declare the election inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes were more than the number in which the winner was leading. I found out that the votes that were cancelled in the presidential election were over five million which is more than the difference in what INEC announced in favour of Buhari to have defeated Atiku.”
“So, this is a contradiction on the part of INEC and has thrown question on the part of the intellectuals. When intellectuals begin to compromise, you know that the country is in trouble,” Hayab said.
While advising INEC to introduce electronic transmission of results, added it was an important method that will help in the transparency of the process.
“Election rigging starts during the counting and taking it from one point to another. We need electronic transmission of result. As they are leaving the polling unit, ward level, local government level and the state, there is always a room for manipulation before reaching Abuja.”
“If it is a state election or local government election, the same manipulation can happen along the line. So, if we are going to have a system where, as votes are casted from the polling units, they are transmitted to a central data. So, we don’t need collation centre again, “ Hayab said.
“INEC need to seat up because they can’t get my applause based on what happened in 2019. I am ashamed that I am an academician myself. How can academics of this standing be insensitive over what happened? The voters should not relent. We must encourage them to come out and vote in every election hoping that things will change in the nearest future,” Hayab added.
