Successes and foibles of Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa governorship polls

 

Introduction

Periodic election is one of the pillars of democracy. Historically, electoral democracy had been introduced in Nigeria in May 1919, when the Townships Ordinance gave the right to vote for three members of Lagos Town Council to some men. The first elections to the council were held on 29 March 1920. The first general election in this country took place in Lagos and Calabar on September 20, 1923, after the coming into force of the 1922 Sir Hugh Clifford Constitution. There are several types of elections. They include: General, Off-cycle, Supplementary, Run-off, Re-run, and By-election.

There are 11,082 political offices in Nigeria comprising of: I presidential seat, 36 governorship seats, 109 senatorial seats, 360 House of Representatives seats, 993 Houses of Assembly seats, 768 Local government chairmanship seats, 6 Area Council chairmanship seats (see section 3 sub. 6 of the 1999 Constitution, as altered) and 8,809 councillorship seats. As a result of judicial activism and intervention, off season election crept into Nigeria’s electoral lexicon when the appellate courts invalidated earlier victories of some governors and declared another candidate winner. This started in Anambra in the locus classicus case of Chris Ngige and Peter Obi over the 2003 governorship election in the South East state. This scenario has also played out in Ondo, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Bayelsa, Kogi and Osun states. In essence, only 28 states had their gubernatorial elections during the general elections in Nigeria as at now.

On October 25, 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced November 11, 2023 as the date for Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi off-cycle governorship elections. That means the electoral management body gave more than a year notice for the election which took place two Saturdays ago. Here are some of the basic facts about the three states. Bayelsa is in the South-South, Imo, South East and Kogi, North Central geo-political zones. It is the first time INEC will combine three off-cycle gubernatorial election together. Bayelsa has 8 LGAs, Imo has 27 and Kogi has 21. Bayelsa has 105 Registration Areas or Wards, Imo has 305 and Kogi has 239. Bayelsa has 2,244 Polling Units, Imo has 4,758 PUs, while Kogi has 3,508 PUs. There are 2 PUs with no registered voters in Bayelsa and 38 of such in Imo State. Registered Voters in Bayelsa are 1,056,862 out of which 1,017,613 collected their Permanent Voters Card better known as PVCs. In Imo, there are 2,419, 922 Registered Voters out of which 2,318, 919 collected their PVCs. In Kogi, there are 1, 932, 654 registered voters out of which 1,833,160 collected their PVCs.

Some of the pre-election activities carried out by various stakeholders include: party primaries and candidate nomination by political parties, campaigns, voter education, collection of PVCs, procurement of sensitive and non-sensitive electoral materials by INEC, Recruitment of poll officials such as Supervisory Presiding Officers, Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers I, II, and III. There are also Registration Area Technicians better known as RACTECHs, Collation and Returning Officers. INEC also signed Memorandum of Understanding with National Association of Road Transport Workers and National Association of Road Transport Workers Unions as well as National Association of Boat Owners. The electoral umpire also accredited Polling Agents, Observers and Journalists covering the elections. There was also compilation of names, training and deployment of security agents such as the Nigerian Police, Directorate of State Services, Nigerian Civil Defence, military personnel and paramilitary staff to provide election security.

Ahead of the November 11 gubernatorial elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi, there was a lot of apprehension due to the volatility and high political tension in the three states. Indeed, there were a lot of incidences of physical, structural and psychological violence ahead of the polls. This was part of the reason National Peace Committee signed Peace Accord with all the contestants and their party chairmen in the three states on Wednesday, November 8, 2023.

Outcome of the Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi gubernatorial elections

Though Bayelsa State has eight local governments, however, the gubernatorial election was not concluded until Monday, November 13, 2023 due to the difficult terrain of the state, half of which is on water. The Returning Officer, Prof Faruq Kuta, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, announced Governor Douye  Diri of Peoples Democratic Party winner of the poll at the collation centre of the election. Diri who was seeking re-election polled 175,196 to defeat his closest rival, Timipre Sylva of the All Progressives Congress, who garnered 110,108 votes.

In Imo State, INEC declared Governor Hope Uzodimma of the APC winner of the November 11, 2023 governorship election in the state. The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Prof Abayomi Fashina, who was the state Returning Officer declared Uzodimma re-elected.  The APC candidate polled 540,308 votes to defeat his closest rivals, PDP's Senator Samuel Anyanwu, who scored 71,503 votes and LP's Senator Ethan Achonu who got 64,081.

The candidate of the APC in the November 11 governorship election in Kogi State, Ahmed Usman Ododo, was declared the winner of the election. Ododo polled a total vote of 446,237 to defeat his closest challenger, Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party, who scored 259,052 votes, with the candidate of the PDP, Dino Melaye, emerging a distant third with 46,362 votes. The Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Johnson Urame, made the formal declaration.

From the foregoing the two governors who sought re-election won their elections in Bayelsa and Imo States. While APC won in two states, Kogi and Imo, PDP won in Bayelsa.

Appraisal of the three off-cycle elections

Though all the three elections were won on the first ballot without being declared inconclusive, a lot of intrigues, sharp and corrupt practices happened during the polls. As I have characterised it in other commentary on the polls, it has the features of "The good, the ugly, the bad" the 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach as "the Ugly". In my own assessment, the good thing about last Saturday’s polls are as follows: The elections started on time than they did during the general elections earlier in the year. There was priority voting for the elderly, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and persons with disabilities. The three elections were concluded on the first ballot while there was timely uploading of the results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal. However, the bad aspect includes the reported incidences of vote buying and abduction and holding of poll officials’ hostage in some communities such as Brass LGA in Bayelsa State. The death of George Sibo also allegedly occurred at a Collation Centre in Twon Brass also in Bayelsa. Furthermore, is the reported bypass of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System Device better known as BVAS by some unscrupulous INEC Poll Officials. The ugly incidents include the discovery of pre-filled result sheets in some of the LGAs in Kogi. According to INEC, reports indicate that the incidents occurred in Adavi, Ajaokuta, Ogori/Magongo, Okehi and Okene Local Government Areas. The most serious incidents occurred in Ogori/Magongo, affecting nine of 10 Registration Areas. This is preposterous!

Another baffling thing is the press statement issued by YIAGA Africa on Sunday, November 12, 2023. According to the civil society organisation which was accredited to observe the polls, reports from some Watching the Vote observers in Imo State indicate elections did not take place in 12 per cent  of YIAGA Africa sampled polling units. These cases were prevalent in Orsu, Okigwe, Oru East, and Orlu LGAs. Yiaga Africa also monitored the upload of results on the IReV, especially those from polling units where elections did not hold. The group gave a breakdown of about 40 of such PUs where elections did not hold in Imo State yet results were uploaded on the IREV Portal. How so? I have also seen a number of inflated results where the number of voters is higher than the figures of those who were accredited in the Polling Unit. This is a clear evidence of result manipulation and over voting. This happened because the integrity measures put in place in section 64 subsections 1 – 9 of the Electoral Act 2022 were ignored by the Presiding Officers as well as the Collation and Returning Officers.

The Guardian of Nigerian in its November 15 online edition reported that “With sustained efforts by election riggers to undermine the electoral process, the act of inducing voters, not only with money but even degrading items like wrappers, drinks and food, is a menace that won’t go away soon despite efforts of security agencies to curtail it”. It said further that “The off-season governorship election held in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states revealed that politicians have perfected illegal acts of voters’ inducement to sabotage the will of the people. Gone were the days when voters could collect money and still go ahead to vote their conscience, party agents see the thumb printed papers before “paying” for the vote in what is now known as “see and buy”, even to exchange votes for food stuff and drinks, party agents had their ways of ascertaining that candidates were voted for.”

The PUNCH of November 17, 2023 reported that the National Peace Committee led by former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, on Thursday, November 16, 2023 decried cases of violence, intimidation, and vote-buying, among other practices during the off-cycle governorship elections in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa states. In a statement the peace committee said, “We are not unaware of the glitches recorded during the elections. Sadly, we have noted that some of the old ways remain and ordinary people continue to collude with corrupt members of society to stall the processes of our elections. The persistence of the culture of vote-buying, intimidation, and voter apathy, among others are disturbing. A democratic culture will only grow if we participate in cleaning up the process of our elections because, in the end, we are the victims. The corruption of the process will lead to the emergence of corrupt leaders if we collude with merchants of corruption.”

Conclusion

I had thought that given the opposition candidates hues and cries that the November 11 elections were rigged against them, INEC’s chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu would invoke Section 65.—(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 which says  “The decision of the returning officer shall be final on any question arising from or relating to— (a) unmarked ballot paper ; (b) rejected ballot paper ; and (c) declaration of scores of candidates and the return of a candidate : Provided that the Commission shall have the power within seven days to review the declaration and return where the Commission determines that the said declaration and return was not made voluntarily or was made contrary to the provisions of the law, regulations and guidelines, and manual for the election.” Unfortunately, the Commission did not do that and had rather gone ahead to issue Certificates of Return to the winners on Friday, November 17, 2023. Shockingly too, no arrest of those who pre-filled results in Kogi or uploaded manipulated results on the IREV Portal has been made by INEC or security agencies. These are the desirable things to do to checkmate the culture of impunity. But again, it is a missed opportunity.

Some of the candidates who lost the elections have threatened to go to tribunal to challenge the outcome of the polls. It is within their right to do so. However; they should be aware of the provision of section 135 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022. It says, “An election shall not be liable to be invalidated by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of this Act if it appears to the Election Tribunal or Court that the election was conducted substantially in accordance with the principles of this Act and that the non-compliance did not affect substantially the result of the election.”