Sincerity In Our Democracy: Was The 2011 Election Truly Fair?

Hello Nigerians: The 2011 presidential election as been widely broadcasted as free and fair, not just by the local observers alone, but also by international observers. These I believe will make most of the people accept the outcome of the presidential election including me.

For this reason, I say Congratulation to the President elect (Good luck Jonathan) for winning the election based on the widely published and accepted result released by the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

This piece is not aimed at condemning or discrediting the outcome of the election, but to critically look at the election and making a firm stand on the following:

1.whether the election was actually free and fair as it was widely broadcasted
2.whether the claim by CPC/Buhari is genuine or not
3. For us as individuals to make a firm stand on the outcome of the election based on fact presented by CPC and others we may get and
4. To note any suspected foul play and learn to prevent future re-occurrence.

The 2011 presidential election and CPC has provided an avenue for Nigeria to be a truthful country.

Cpc said in their release:

The fact that there are no two people with the same fingerprint, every
fingerprint can therefore be scientifically verified basically through the
following preliminary basics of the technical Biometrics/Forensics methods which details will be made available by the experts:-

 65 days to be able to get all voters register authenticated, all disputed
ballot papers examined, any other electoral document assessed, all findings compiled and submitted to the court, and return of all source data and documents to INEC. Our firm has participated in 300 electoral processes in 19 countries with more than 500 million voters tallied for government, private and multilateral organizations.

To the CPC, this use of Forensic/Biometric system based on INEC’s capturing of all the 10 fingers of every voter is a novel idea that can help solve forever the challenges of multiple voting and outright concoction of results; two critical issues in our electoral malpractices.
This is a good one coming from CPC in my opinion,I think it’s high time we forget our interest in Party/Candidate but genuinely look at the case of the claim presented by CPC/Buhari and establish the authenticity of the claims.

I believe we all have the eyes to see the truth and the hearts to judge genuinely.

point of note (Its clear that its almost impossible for Buhari to win in court, but its not impossible for us to know the truth of the election),this will help our understanding in establishing the truth on what really transpired in the presidential election.

Some years to come, our children may ask us about what happened during this period, it will be destructive and unjust to tell them lies, based on our insisting not to know the real truth, its better for us all to open our heart and critically consider the facts and take our stand genuinely.

Claim by CPC in its petition

1. The national average turnout rate is about 52% and about 46% when the substantially above average turnout rate in the South South and South East zones is excluded. Why?
2. The average turnout rate in the South South and South East zones (without Ebonyi and Edo states) at 78% is 50% above the national average of about 52%. How come?
3. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP got over 85% share of the valid votes cast in all the 11 states in the South South and South East zones, with 10 of the said states at 95% and above including  4 of the states at 99% and 1 at near perfect share of 99.6% in his home state. Thus, all the 11 states in the 2 zones had a red flag for being above the national average turnout rate and/or were above 85% threshold. Do ‘these figures of 95% and above for one party suggest that these are fabricated figures’ as aptly stated in 1 above by the BBC World News reporter, more so that 10 states are affected rather than the 3 states he identified?
4. General Buhari of the CPC (and indeed all other opposition candidates) had no single state with a combination of average turnout rate above the national average and share of valid votes in excess of 85%. Why only Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in NOT one, two or three but nine states?
5. The inevitable reasonable conclusion from the incontrovertible facts in 1 to 4 above is that no credible elections took place in the South South and South East zones and that those returns were basically concocted through fraudulent thumb printing and stuffing of ballot papers and/or that the results were deliberately falsified in favour of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP.

8. In spite of the case of res ipsa loquitur (a thing that speaks for itself) adduced in Table 1 above, additional and specific evidence of massive rigging is to be found in Table 2 below which is a summary of a sample of ward level collation results in Rivers State. The average turnout rate in the sample is 49%; which begs the question as to how the turnout in the declared result for the state metamorphosed into well over 76%?

This is definitely a test of how independent INEC is; I sincerely hope INEC will come out of it successfully. I personally believe that scanning the ballot papers for multiple voting will strengthen our democracy and will serve as deterrent against future occurrence since perpetrators know that there is a process that will exposed them. INEC please cooperate and save our democracy, let no ballot paper miss from you custody.
I doubt if PDP/INEC will allow this to go ahead. Unfortunately, the 'blind' followers will also say 'CPC would not have won anyways' forgetting that this is a means of strengthening our democracy.

As a first step though, I suggest CPC should tell INEC to PUBLICLY declare results in EVERY Polling Unit (120,000). They can put this on their website.

The issue is not whether CPC would have won or not but to reveal how the speculated free and fair election was. if this is carried out well it will show how much we have developed in our democracy since its inception.
Let’s genuinely consider the claims by CPC in their petition sent to the Tribunal for the betterment of Nigeria.
Thanks

Abdulrazaq Oyebanji Hamzat