As the April elections draw closer, Nigerian politicians perfect strategies to outrig one another. Nigerians who cared to discern utterances of politicians knew that scripts on how to rig this month’s elections had been written. They have those technical features as cast, plots, sub plots, conflicts and resolutions. Watchers of Nigerian politics have now seen that the stratagems cut across political parties and a broad spectrum of highly placed individuals and organisations.
However, the butt of the greatest number of criticisms is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, headed by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Indeed, his 10 February statement helped to confirm people’s worst fears.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
When President Obasanjo addressed stakeholders from Abeokuta North Local Government Area of Ogun State on the much expected polls, he fired some potshots at people who criticised him for taking the shine off the Katsina State Governor, Umaru Yar’Adua, the PDP presidential candidate, at campaign rallies.
"I read that somebody said that I was campaigning," President Obasanjo began. "I will campaign." His reason was that his administration had begun a reform programme which he wanted the new helmsman to continue in order to make Nigeria one of the leading countries in the world. If Nigeria is targeting 2020 as the year it would become one of the leading 20 economies in the world, Mr. President argued, then it must not pray for spoilers and criminals as leaders in the next elections.
"We want those who will succeed us to continue where we stop," he reasoned. Before he handed over to President Shehu Shagari in 1979, the current Nigerian leader lamented, the country was self-sufficient in rice production and poultry. His successors, according to him, lifted the ban on those things and Nigeria could not produce but became importers of them.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });
He complained that in 1979, Nigeria was the 48th biggest economy, and, as he put it, "we were 173 when I came back in 1999."
He further took decisive swipes at those who said Yar’Adua, his prospective successor, in unhealthy. "Some people said he has one kidney. Can somebody with one kidney play squash?"
For these reasons and more, President Obasanjo croaked into the microphone, even as his audience cheered: "I will campaign. This is because this election is a do-or-die affair for the PDP."
Characters in this hideous drama, entitled Do-or-Die, have begun work. They are the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nigeria Police, the Army, State Security Service (SSS) top notchers of the PDP and their stool pigeons in other parties.
In Edo State, the Action Congress (AC) governorship candidate, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, has condemned the appointment of one Mr. Iho as a returning officer to Etsako West Local Government Area. He said this was a negation of the principle of fair play. Iho is reportedly related to Professor Oserheimen Osunbor, the PDP governorship candidate in the state.
When Oshiomhole visited INEC office in Benin, he complained: "It is unfair to appoint Mr. Iho as a returning officer to his own local government area. This is against the principle of fair play." Oshiomhole asked INEC authorities to effect Iho’s transfer.
On 2 April, Oshiomhole accused the new INEC Commissioner in Edo State, Mr. Martins Okofulaju, of meeting with PDP leaders in the state "in order to perfect rigging of the forthcoming elections in favour of the party." Oshiomhole alleged that on Sunday 1 April, the commissioner, in company of another Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Austin Eni Okojie, a native of Uromi (but serving in another state) visited Uromi "to strategise with Chief Tony Anenih on the master plan of the election rigging."
At Uromi, Anenih allegedly gave Okofulaju a "comprehensive master list" of adhoc staff made up of partisan members of PDP. They, as Oshiomhole charged, were to be used as presiding officers and polling clerks in the coming elections. This is contrary to INEC’s position that neutral people like teachers, civil servants and members of the Nigerian Bar Association are to be used as adhoc staff in the polls.
To prove his point, Oshiomhole added that a former PDP governorship candidate later joined the two resident electoral commissioners. They allegedly drove away in Federal Government vehicles with registration numbers DE 67 BEN, FG V01, FG 172 V01 and DP 40 ABC at 12.20 p.m. With all these, he said, the AC in Edo State, "demands the immediate removal of the commissioners."
These were in addition to the politics of disqualification that had dominated public discourse for the past two months. Critics wonder why INEC appealed against the candidature of Chris Ngige, disqualified Governor Peter Obi but cleared Dame Virginia Etiaba, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA) governorship candidate in Anambra State.
Critics of Professor Maurice Iwu alleged that he wanted to pit Etiaba, considered a political paperweight, against Andy Uba, the PDP governorship candidate in the state. The Uba brothers were, according to reports, instrumental to Iwu’s appointment as INEC chairman.
Emmanuel Bello, writing in Daily Trust, argued that although the case of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, appears the most celebrated, other politicians affected by the grand plot to prevent them from contesting in this month’s elections have continued to decry the development. As he put it: "They argue that the commission has no right to appropriate the role of the court, the institution vested with that sort of responsibility… INEC’s primary role is to verify and screen and beyond that it has no powers to disenfranchise any of the contenders."
Mani Ibrahim Abubakar, a senatorial candidate, was also quoted in the same report: "For the fact that it has been established that the document that brought the disqualification and so on was doctored by the presidency, it brings a credibility problem on the whole exercise. People are also suspecting the hurried way the whole thing was done. That has also raised a question mark on the process. But I have always said that certain people in certain quarters who do not want elections to hold are using this and other things to cause confusion and thus lead to an extension of tenure."
The Human Rights Watch, a US-based organisation, also fired some shots at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), accusing it of selectively recommending candidates for indictment, leading to their disqualification from election. It charged further: "Instead, an Administrative Panel of Inquiry of questionable independence and lacking due process conducted two days of hearings confirming the indictments against 37 candidates."
"This," as the body put it, helped to clear the field of opposition candidates in some of the country’s most high profile state-wide electoral contests.
There is also the security angle to the allegation of a plot by PDP to rig the polls. This involves the Federal Government’s monopoly of the means of coercion. That is, the police, State Security Service and the Army. This was reinforced by a 28 March 2007 report, released by Human Rights Watch, which said the coming elections would be characterised by "threat of violence, intimidation and fraud." Indeed, TheNEWS gathered that the plan to flood the streets with soldiers during and after the elections is to ensure that where elections are rigged in favour of the ruling party, the sight of soldiers will nudge opposition elements and any one stung by such injustice to think twice about taking to the streets in protest.
Chris Albin-Lackey, a representative of the organisation in Lagos, accused the Nigeria Police of inaction, even as violence relating to politics had escalated in recent times. "The use of violence for political ends," Albin-Lackey argued, "has become routine in Nigeria and politicians in many states have mobilised and armed criminal gangs ahead of the elections in order to harass their opponents, as well as to intimate and disenfranchise the voting public."
The Human Rights Watch official said that over 100 individuals had lost their lives in over 170 political fracas since November last year. "Some credible estimates of the election-related death toll range considerably higher," he maintained.
Albin-Lackey accused the PDP of instigating violence with a view to rigging the election. He condemned a statement by Ehindero to the effect that those fracas were "a political problem" that did not demand a law enforcement response.
There is apprehension in the land over the IG’s revelation that 80,000 weapons and 32 million rounds of ammunition had been procured for the police to enhance security during the elections. They comprise 40,000 pieces of AK-47 rifles, 30,000 K-2 rifles, 10 million rounds of bullets and 10,000 units of Beretta pistols. Vanguard newspaper, in its 13 March editorial said "it would be interesting to know whether these arsenals are meant to secure the votes that would be cast or to protect the voters at the polling venues."
Over 2500 jeeps and hundreds of walkie-talkies have also been procured for the police by the Federal Government. According to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, "we are having more equipment and we’ve been training the policemen not to use their firearms unnecessarily. You’ll see in those rallies, some of my policemen have been injured, but we’ve not had an occasion where a policeman is said to have fired. That’s the result of training."
Ehindero revealed further that they were discussing with INEC to know where electoral materials will be located in order to ensure adequate security for them.
He added that over 200,000 policemen would be deployed and paid allowance. In Lagos alone he vowed to send over 23,000 policemen. However, in a society where a sergeant earns less than N10,000, an analyst argued, then his skills could be for sale to the highest political bidder.
That the police could be used as an interested party in the coming polls was, recently, confirmed by Ehindero himself, albeit unwittingly. He argued that no Police could be completely independent in a presidential system of government. This is because, according to him, when the President gives an instruction, the IG is bound to obey. Complete impartiality could only achieved, he said, when the police are independent of the executive.
Meanwhile, the AC has alleged PDP plans to rig the coming elections, using the police. According to Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party’s publicity secretary, the sudden movement of police commissioners in the run-up to the elections is suspicious. He alleged: "We have empirical fact, one that the sudden movement of police commissioners in the run-up to the election gives us a lot of fright. We also raised an alarm that we are hearing that the PDP is planning to bribe each DPO (Divisional Police Officer) with half a million Naira (about $4000.00) so that the elections would be in their favour. And only today, the monitoring group of election observers have called out that INEC is making it difficult for
them to operate."
AC was referring to the redeployment of AIG Yakubu Mohammed from zone 10 to zone 9; AIG John Ahmadu from zone 9 to zone 10, AIG Emmanuel Amuniru to zone 8 and AIG Olusegun Efuntayo is moved to Lokoja. Mr. Udom Ekpoudom, Delta State Police Commissioner, is moved to Lagos; Mr. H. Dimka to Delta State; Mr. Shehu El-Uthman to Sokoto; Mr. Kefas Gadzama to Zamfara; Mr. Atiku Kafur to Kano and Mr. Emmanuel Adebayo from Lagos to Nasarawa.
Others are: Mr. Julian Okpaleke who moves from CP Airport Security, Lagos to Bayelsa State; Mr. Abayomi Onashile to Ekiti; Mrs. Atinuke Koyi from Ekiti to INTERPOL; Mr. M. D. Abubakar from Kano to Airport Security, Lagos; Mr. Audu Abubakar to Anambra, and Oliver Osichukwu to Niger.
Also, many SSS officials have been transferred across the 36 states of the federation.
However, the Force Public Relations Officer, Haz Iwendi, waved off AC’s accusation as "untrue and a figment of the imagination of the party to dent the image of the police." He added that the police were instructed to be neutral and that "the redeployment was a routine exercise."
This notwithstanding, AC insisted that the redeployments targeted those officers who would not undermine the nation’s democracy for filthy lucre and who will not allow themselves to be used by anyone, no matter how highly placed, for an evil purpose.
AC’s position is against an historical background. Young Arebamen, a police commissioner in Lagos during the 2003 elections was, along with his counterparts in other states, under instruction to detain opposition leaders. Instead of doing that, TheNEWS found out that Arebamen invited Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders to his office, warned them not to cause mayhem during the polls and allowed them to leave. The police high command angrily redeployed him after the elections in Lagos State won by AD. "We will not allow that to happen," a police source told TheNEWS at Louis Edet House, Abuja.
Also, the Transition Monitoring Group leader, Innocent Chukwuma, alleged that Nigerian security agencies were harassing local election observers in Abuja. He added that his coalition’s office had been ransacked for non-existent evidence of opposition financing. "They claimed that we are being funded by opposition politicians and they used this as an excuse to raid our offices."
In Akure, Ondo State, an AC rally was disrupted by policemen who claimed they were ordered from above to do so. But the police authorities in the state claimed that the party did not obtain police permit before its rally.
The use of soldiers has also crept into the strategy. According to Oshiomhole, solders were drafted to the Auchi rally of the PDP on Saturday 24 February. As Oshiomhole argued, "PDP was using soldiers to terrorise the people of Edo State at its rallies."
Although the Minister of State for Defence, Mr. Mike Onolememen, who was accused of deploying them denied the presence of soldiers in large numbers because "the only soldier present was my orderly," what makes the matter unsettling, as observers maintained, was the fact that the minister was Anenih’s nominee.
Will soldiers play any role in the coming polls? Lieutenant General Owoye Andrew Azazi, the Chief of Army Staff, earlier told his men that it was the role of the military to ensure that nothing goes wrong during the elections. He made his statement recently when he received 96 Nigerian peacekeepers who just returned from Liberia. In his words: "The role we will play (during the April elections) is to assist the democratic process so that nothing goes wrong. Our resolve is to ensure that nothing goes wrong. You may be called to escort ballot boxes and electoral materials."
The presence of soldiers, according to media reports, has created panic among some Nigerians. In Kano, not a few inhabitants have relocated to the villages. Their fear, according to Abdulkareem Gindiri, is based on the fear that when soldiers get involved in crowd control, they leave death in their wake. He cited the 2004 riots in Kano, the 2001 Gboko and Katsina Ala, Benue State protests and the 1999 Odi mayhem.
Meanwhile, General Victor Malu, a former Chief of Army Staff, has warned against the use of soldiers in elections. He told The Sun: "In 2003, the PDP rigged the elections with the help of the military. What happened was that before the close of polls, a vehicle, either from the Government House or any of the official vehicles, will arrive at the polling booth, with either armed soldiers, Air Force, Immigration or Customs personnel, they’ll start to fire in the air. There would be pandemonium, and the delegates will run away. These armed people will collect all the polling materials, take them to wherever they wanted, do whatever they wanted with them before they will resurface many hours after ballot boxes have been already stuffed. That was my personal experience in Benue State where I come from."
Malu, therefore, argued that there is enough proof to show that the PDP is up to some dubious plan to, once again, steal the people’s votes. The former Army Chief charged further: "In 2003 when I was campaigning for General (Muhammadu) Buhari, I saw that PDP won the election with the aid of the armed forces, police, customs and anybody who could carry a rifle. I know it is the same strategy they want to adopt this time; for the Inspector-General of Police to be talking about quantum of arms that have been purchased for the elections."
The Third Eye, in its advertorial in The Nation, alleged that already, there is a battalion of soldiers in the Government House of Ekiti State, posted there "for the hatchet job of rigging." The group added that the official residence of the Deputy Governor has been designated as the base for members of the OPC, thugs, and other hoodlums to take off from 9 April. These people are also to hire armed men totaling over 8000 at 50 per local government, while one Aderiye "is to coordinate the drivers, Okada riders for the rigging agenda with the intention of using mobile men as cover."
General Buhari, the ANPP presidential candidate, also called on Nigerians to form a strong alliance to resist rigging. "During the 2003 polls," Buhari told the Voice of Germany (Hausa), "I openly advised and mobilised the masses to safeguard their votes against rigging but they refused, thinking that it was just a mere joke until when the results were released."
All these were confirmed during the legal tussle between Buhari and Mr. President after the 2003 polls. Though the Appeal Court threw out Buhari’s case, a minority judgment, delivered by Justice S. A. Nsofor, confirmed Buhari’s allegations. Nsofor submitted: "The deployment of the soldiers and police was to intimidate innocent electorate as alleged by the petitioners (Maj.-Gen. Buhari and ANPP). If not, why is it that no PDP member was killed or shot? Six innocent Nigerians were shot dead in police station. Others were wounded. All were ANPP members."
He wondered why law enforcement agencies turned their eyes from various atrocities inflicted on innocent Nigerians by the army and the police. "The deployment of military and the police who killed several innocent Nigerians desirous to exercise their voting rights was unconstitutional.
"I accept the petitioners’ unchallenged evidence and I find that there was violence perpetrated by President Obasanjo and INEC. The presidential election could not have been conducted under this situation to qualify this election as free and fair. Democracy and insecurity can never be bedfellows. In my opinion, therefore, there was no presidential election conducted in these states where there was violence."
The Supreme Court also threw out Buhari’s case. In his reaction on 1 July 2005, the ANPP candidate painted a dangerous scenario for 2007: "As we move to prepare ourselves for the 2007 elections, let us hope that there will be no circumstances created by those in authority before or during the elections, that would necessitate the imperative of self-help in the expectation that this time people would turn the other cheek. Regrettably, the main effect of this judgment is that no normal election will he held again in Nigeria in the near future. The local government elections held in 2004 and 2005 are clear examples of the character of future elections. There is also the danger of voter apathy, because many reasonable people, especially women, will not go to polling booths to risk getting caught in officially-sponsored violence."
To further accuse the PDP of rigging, critics of PDP have adopted the usage of advertorials in major national dailies. In one advertorial, published in The Nation of 5 April 2007, The Third Eye alleged that the PDP, with active collaboration of General Adetunji Olurin and Chief Yinka Omilani, Vice Chairman, PDP, South-west, planned to rig elections in Ekiti State. The group claimed that two meetings were held at the Government House, Ado Ekiti, between 28 and 29 March, 2007. At the conclave, as the Third Eye put it, decisions were reached, among others, to arrest some prominent candidates of opposition political parties, days before the elections.
Also, according to the Third Eye, there was a plan to intimidate members of parties opposed to the PDP who are adjudged to be stumbling blocks to the plan to foist Mr. Segun Oni as Governor. Confusion would, the group said, be caused in Ado Ekiti, Ikere, Oye, Ekiti South-West and some other local governments.
The Third Eye claimed that the decision to cause these disturbances was reached at Omilani’s Lagos home on 1 April 2007. After another meeting in Ibadan, Oni reportedly drove back to Ado Ekiti in one Aderiye Omolafe’s car to recruit members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) to participate in the mayhem.
Apart from the Attorney-General of Ekiti, Gboyega Oyewole, who is the alleged coordinator, The Third Eye named other members of the hatchet committee that now daily holds meetings in Ado-Ekiti as Mr. T. K.O. Aluko, Bosun Osaloni, Niyi Adedipe (Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, leader), Omolafe Aderiye (NURTW Chairman), Bunmi Ogunleye, Ojo Olowojolu (Ojojolu), Bunmi Olugbade and Mr. Akin Omole, Secretary.
In Ogun State, Alhaji Gbenga Kaka of the Democratic People’s Alliance (DPA) alleged that a large cache of arms and ammunition had been brought into the country. He added that military uniforms were being surreptitiously provided to be worn by impostors who would rig elections this year.
Kaka maintained: "They are already importing arms with the hope that they will use them to rig elections both at the national and local levels. We are hoping that we would not be pushed to the level of the 60s."
He alleged further that the fracas at the studios of Gateway Television on 12 April was caused by the PDP and ANPP.
The Action Congress is not immune to the accusation of planning to rig either. In an advertorial published on page 12 of The Guardian, 5 April 2007, signed by Chief Tunde Daramola, Secretary, Lagos PDP, Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the state was alleged to be plotting to ensure victory for his party by foul means.
Daramola based his accusation on the fact that adhoc staff hired by INEC for the Lagos State elections are from names submitted by the Tinubu administration. These people, according to the PDP, had already been assigned to all local governments in the state and their mission was "to set the stage for massive rigging on behalf of Tinubu’s favourite candidate."
The Lagos PDP further alleged that huge financial inducement running into billions of naira of state-owned money had been paid to these INEC temporary staff to aid and abet electoral malpractices.
Worse still, Tinubu’s critics charged further that the former INEC commissioner in Lagos State, now redeployed, hurriedly promoted three electoral officers prior to leaving and posted them to three strategic local governments in the state.
The PDP, therefore, called on Professor Iwu to "immediately review all the hired temporary staff within Lagos State INEC and fish out the contaminated officials."
In Ekiti, the party has also been accused by a group, Ekiti Concerned Citizens, of working in collaboration with Olurin, the Administrator, to rig elections.
"The facts on ground," the group argued, shows that Olurin has been more visible in helping the AC camp. "The recent accord between the AC and the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) candidates in person of Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Mr. Akerele which was blown open by no one other than the disgraced enfant terrible, suspended Governor of the state, Mr. Ayo Fayose, makes the situation of the Administrator unenviable," the group maintained. It added that there was already an accord among Fayemi, Akerele and Fayose (who would support the trio with finances). The group further maintained that Fayemi was a consultant to Olurin when he was ECOMOG Commander.
However, this accusation, according to watchers of Ekiti politics, seems far-fetched, considering that AC and other parties in the state had about two months ago, accused Olurin of being close to the PDP and nursing a plan to deliver the state to the party.
With all these developments, will Nigeria experience a free and fair elections? The world is watching.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });