The 2015 elections have been held. Winners and losers have emerged. Some of the losers, including President Goodluck Jonathan, took the unprecedented step of conceding defeat and making telephone calls to congratulate the winners even before the final result was announced.
Suddenly, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is in opposition after being in government and also in power (apologies to former military President, Ibrahim Babangida) for 16 years.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), two years after its formation, has witnessed a meteoric rise to power. On May 29, it will become the ruling party. And Nigerians have moved on, or so it seems.
To the victorious members of the APC, the elections were the fairest and freest ever conducted in the country since the June 12, 1993 presidential poll. For the victors, Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is the best thing that has happened to Nigeria since independence in 1960.
But for the PDP and its members, the reverse is the case. The INEC is a fraudulent umpire, and Jega an evil genius who shortchanged Jonathan and wangled his Hausa/Fulani brethren to power.
For die-hard Jonathanians, his biggest mistake was his inability to muster the political courage to sack Jega and damn the consequences. They argue that if Jega was given the boot, nothing would have happened, or to borrow Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose’s cliche, the heavens would not have fallen.
They argue that even if there were consequences had he sacked Jega, they would not have been worse than Jonathan’s defeat at the poll.
Now, it depends on which side of the political divide you are but the truth is that the elections cannot be exemplars of free and fair polls.
Despite the fact that the elections produced an unusual outcome – the first time in Nigeria’s history that an incumbent government is sacked by an opposition party – the fact remains that the elections were as flawed as any other held since the return of democracy 16 years ago.
That most Nigerians want a change of government and the elections produced that change at the federal level and most states does not detract from this fact.
Rigging is not limited to only one political party. The two major parties, the APC and the PDP, were actively involved. Each rigged where it had comparative advantage
This is the first time in Nigeria election was declared inconclusive in three states – Imo, Abia and Taraba – because the number of outstanding votes after the first ballot was far higher than the number of votes that separated the two front runners.
Most of the outstanding votes that necessitated the supplementary ballot were voided due to all manner electoral shenanigans. Many registered voters were disenfranchised due either to the sheer incompetence of the INEC or the brigandage of the political class.
Most of the results declared by the INEC had nothing to do with the actual number of votes cast. The problem started from the collation centres. Most of the results announced at the polling booths changed dramatically at collation centres where losers suddenly became winners.
Most results were written in the bedrooms of party chieftains with the connivance of INEC officials.
I don’t know how many Nigerians noticed the drama during the collation of the presidential election result in Abuja where results from some zones were used as poker chips in the high wire political chess game.
The collation became a waiting game where results from some states described as “high value states” were not announced until results from correspondent “high value states” came in and adjustments made in the devious balancing act.
Is it possible that in Kano State that posted over 1.9 million votes, not even one was voided? Could that incredulous result be the reason for the tragic death of the Kano State resident electoral commissioner (REC) and members of his family in a mysterious fire incident?
Is it true that the REC refused to authenticate the result and had to be silenced permanently after he threatened to squeak? Is it true that a serving senator from Imo State was caught thumb printing ballot papers in his home with members of his family during the supplementary election?
Is it true that a former inspector general of police was caught on camera thumb printing ballot papers in his office?
Both local and international election observers reported there were no elections in most parts of Rivers and Akwa Ibom States. Yet, Rivers recorded over 70 per cent voter participation, the only state that achieved that feat.
For instance, in a report on Rivers State, SDN, a politically independent and non-partisan group, observed that “the governorship and state Assembly poll in Rivers State was marred by violence and disruption with over 470,000 of 2,537,520 (19 per cent) registered voters denied the chance to vote due to official cancellations. Many more stayed away from the polls due to well justified fears of violence.
“The inflation of announced votes in many local governments makes it impossible to know how many voters turned out for the polls but in six of the more closely contested LGAs (including Port Harcourt) official turnout ranged between 14-25 per cent of registered voters. From what we observed this seems a more plausible turnout.
“Some results seem to defy any effort to acknowledge reality. In Buguma town (Asari Toru LGA) where security forces finally ended with shooting and clashes mid-morning of election day, with one gang leader beheaded, official results later recorded turnouts of 84-90 per cent in the town (87 per cent for the whole LGA).
“In Gokana, where five wards were cancelled due to clashes and theft of election materials, the remainder of the local government recorded an official turnout of 94 per cent.
“Significant efforts by the INEC and police to improve security and election processes were simply overwhelmed by the breadth of violence and intimidation. Election officials were assaulted and abducted in incidents across the state and they often faced intolerable pressures from political actors.”
The report detailed killings, obstruction of voting, arson, voters’ intimidation, ballot snatching, missing result sheets, fake ballot papers, multiple thumb-printing, campaigning at polling units, compromise of INEC ad-hoc staff, absence of level playing environment, violence against observers, media personnel and impunity at different levels across the state.
The Nigeria Civil Society situation room coalition added Akwa Ibom, Taraba and Abia States where widespread electoral malpractices triggered violence and marred the elections.
The European Union Election Observation Mission in Nigeria (EUEOMIN) also questioned the “highly implausible data” from Rivers and Akwa Ibom where the process was blighted by violence and deliberate interference as examples in the governorship and state Assembly elections.
The same things can be said of almost every state.
We were told that one of the reasons the use of card readers became imperative was to consign acts such as ballot box snatching and writing of results to the dustbin of history. Yet, such malpractices became more pronounced in the last elections.
So, while Nigerians are happy that the country has not descended into anarchy as predicted in certain quarters, and may have indeed moved on with their lives, the 2015 elections have again failed significantly the test of credibility because of the selfishness of politicians and greed of some INEC staff.
It is a pity that 16 years after the return of democracy, every new election in Nigeria is worse than the previous one.
If President-elect Muhammadu Buhari wants to be taken seriously on his promise of sanitising the polity, the place to start is the electoral process.
Nobody who contributed to the violation of the electoral will of the people should go unpunished. Electoral malpractice is the most cynical form of corruption.
There is, therefore, need for the government to follow through with its promise and punish all those involved in the malpractices to serve as a deterrent to others.