The results of the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states are already
known. As at yesterday those adept in political punditry already got
the winners as at 2.00pm. And we hereby congratulate all the winners
for a house of assembly seat in Bayelsa, the governorship seat which
was filled with a lot of intrigues, the Kogi West senatorial seat
which became vacant due to a court intervention and the governorship
seat. The two states hold off season gubernatorial elections due to
court interventions that unseated previous governors. One thing
however that has characterized elections in the two states however is
high level electoral violence.
In fact in Kogi, Yahaya Bello became governor by default. It was
violence which stalled the process in 2015 that necessitated a repeat
balloting in some units. It was within that split second that the then
candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC Abubakar Audu passed
away. This vacuum created was what brought in Yahaya Bello who usurped
votes cast for Audu who had already won the election anyway. Violence
was rife at the time and a few persons lost their lives and even more
votes were cancelled.
In 2019 there were violence recorded too. Gun shots rent the air and a
few persons lost their lives. There were several instances of
destruction of voting materials at collation centres and also
instances of dispersal of voters at polling units. Voter suppression
has become a key factor in determining vote tallies as politicians
continue the apply strategies to upend their opponents. In Kogi it was
almost prevalent. In fact on Sunday the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC announced that it was looking for 30 of its staff.
Among the missing staff on Sunday were youth corps members who are
usually used as adhoc staff. They were most probably seized by
politicians to either inflate the figures they had or destroy the
results they had. This is very unfortunate.
Interestingly, Bayelsa that used to be the hotbed of violence did not
witness the kind of violence it was known for. In 2015, its election
was rescheduled twice. It became so ridiculous that even INEC got
tired of announcing that the poll was inconclusive. Militants and
other thugs completely seized some parts of the state and refused
elections from holding or ensured that their own figures were what was
announced as results. Bayelsa was ridiculous in 2015 and it is a thing
of joy that there has been a massive improvement in relation to
security this time. Maybe it is because of a near consensus of a
determination to vote in a particular direction that caused the mild
violence we witnessed.
Vote buying is still rampant. In fact in Kogi a senatorial candidate
was seen in a video and photo sharing money on the day of election. He
said he was only paying for some wares bought for the people. Vote
buying has become a destructive menace. The worst set of traders is
not even those who collect N500 to N6, 000. It is those who collect
Rolls Royce, $140, 000 among others. It is the big men and women who
use their influence to extort huge sums of money or favours from
public office seekers but turn around to lament about those lower
income earners who are excited with N5, 000.
In some locations INEC officials were late to disburse materials. For
example, as at noon on Saturday INEC officials were nowhere to be
found at Goodluck Jonathan’s polling unit which is situated directly
opposite his home. The former president came out early at 7.35am
without seeing anyone; but he was later to vote when the officials
showed up. INEC has not learnt anything about public relations. In
2015 the same polling unit machine could not read his biometric in
2019, INEC officials did not arrive early at all. That is not
permissible. Even if there were operational or logistic challenges,
the Electoral officer in Ogbia or indeed the Resident Electoral
Commissioner should have taken care to ensure that the process did not
have any problems in that polling unit knowing that the eyes of the
media and by extension the world will be there.
Nigerians must learn to avoid violence most importantly. Even the
gladiators have found a way to use the courts to get justice where
offended. So why should other indirect participants be the ones to
lose their lives or property? We condemn the violence and probable
manipulation of the process. Nevertheless we call on anyone who feel
cheated in the process to go to go.
