Counting Votes or Counting Bodies? By Kayode Komolafe

INEC

The electoral commission declares the candidate adjudged to have scored the highest number of votes as the winner. If there is a dispute in the counting of the votes the court is approached to give a final declaration as appropriate. This is according to the provision of the law. However, apart from votes scored (or claimed to have been scored) in Nigerian elections, dead bodies are also recorded in the process. Neither the INEC nor the court makes any declaration about the dead bodies as that is said not to be within their remit.

So who does the counting of bodies? Should the counting of corpses be part of electoral culture in the first place? Aggrieved candidates pursue the counting of votes to the legal limits; their mandates are in some cases restored in the interest of justice. However, the system has not been efficient enough to punish those responsible for political killings before, during and after elections. Justice is hardly served victims of electoral violence. After the heat of elections, the nation moves on leaving the dead behind as mere statistics. Doubtless, election-related killings constitute a grave human rights issue for the polity. Respect for human lives should be among the values of democracy to be promoted.

In the course of the last year elections killings were reported in some parts of the country. The National Human Rights Commission documented some of these killings as part of its laudable advocacy against electoral violence. Judicial verdicts have been conclusively pronounced on a good number of electoral disputes. Losers and winners have, of course, accepted the judgments of the final court of appeal. But there is hardly any record of successful prosecution of suspects of election-related killings. Neither has one been reportedly prosecuted for electoral offence.

What happened last year is in the pattern of the electoral violence that has been witnessed since 1999. One of the great things President Umaru Yar’Adua did to enhance political development was the appointment of some eminently patriotic Nigerians into a committee on electoral reform. The committee was headed by former Chief Justice Muhammadu Uwais. Among the important recommendations of the Uwais Panel were the ones aimed at curbing electoral violence.

According to the panel the government should take steps towards “encouraging a culture which views elections, not as war, but as part of a wider and continuous process of ensuring accountability in public life.” The committee recommended the setting up of electoral offences commission to ensure prosecution of offenders even after the winner will have finally emerged. Unfortunately, the recommendation didn’t find favour with the Yar’Adua government. The violence of the 2011 elections happened thereafter and the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan set up another committee under the leadership of the respected Islamic Scholar, Sheikh Ahmed Lemu.

The Panel looked into the crisis and reported that 943 persons died and 843 were injured due to electoral violence. Again the Lemu Panel recommended the establishment of “an autonomous and constitutionally recognised Electoral Offences Tribunal, but which may be an ad hoc body as it may not have much to do in between election periods.” Significantly, the Jonathan administration not only accepted the helpful recommendation, it also directed the Attorney General to take steps towards setting the tribunal. That was four years ago. The tribunals are yet to be established.

The Buhari administration should take steps to deepen the process of electoral reform begun by Yar’Adua by taking steps towards the establishment the electoral offences tribunal without further delay. If the administration takes this important step, it would be strengthening the democratic process in a significant way. It is more effective to do that than waiting till the eve of election to beg political gladiators to sign “peace accords” against electoral violence.

Now, electoral malpractice and violence are organically linked. Perpetrators of violence seek to intimidate or possibly overwhelmed their competitors in the power game. With maximum violence heralding and defining the election it would be easy for vote riggers to go about their nefarious business. The law enforcement should ensure security at all times and suspected killers should be apprehended and prosecuted. The tribunals would be taking the burden of trials of electoral offences cases off the neck of regular courts.

A system could be designed to ensure speedy administration of justice for this specific purpose. The National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be interested in this matter and it should take pro-active steps in this regard. You cannot be talking of credible elections when killers and riggers take control of the process with impunity in some areas.

For instance, the tension heralding the forthcoming elections of legislators in Rivers State presents a tragic case of counting bodies even before voting begins. In the last few weeks there has been an increasing tendency towards the collapse of the rule of law in the state. The Nigerian state has no excuse for not halting the bloodletting in the state.

The security matter in Rivers probably goes beyond elections. Someone said recently that at the rate of political killings taking place in Rivers, members of the All Progressive Congress (APC) might soon become an endangered political species. The observer added that it would soon require a lot of courage for any one to identify himself or herself openly as a sympathiser of the APC.

The war of attrition between Governor Nyesom Wike and Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, is raging in the state. You can feel it from the violent verbal exchanges. The government of Wike has attributed the reported violence in the state to “retributive attacks launched by rival cult gangs leaders battling for supremacy.” The Rivers State government has accused Amaechi of “ instigating anarchy” in the state with an “open invitation to the military to invade homes and communities.” But the fact remains that most of those killed were identified as members of APC.

This has prompted the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, to say, while on fact-finding to the state, that: “This is purely genocide visited on APC members… What is happening here is worse than what we hear over there. Our people must not continue to die because they identify with a political party.” Beyond the accusations and counter-accusations of politicians, there have been credible reports of brutal and bestial killings in Rivers State. The development should be horrifying to all respecters of human lives.

There is the risk that the matter could be reduced to exchange of tirades among politicians while everybody moves on after the elections. No! All the lives taken should be accounted for as it is done in every civilised society. The rule of law should be alive in Rivers State. The state must not descend into a political jungle. In this respect, it is sad to observe that the Nigerian State has failed in its constitutional duty of making the “security and welfare” of the those killed the “primary purpose of government.”

Elections should ordinarily be festivals of democracy, as they say. Turning an electoral constituency into a killing field should not be part of this festival. As INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, prepares for the credible counting of votes in Rivers, the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, should ensure that his officers and men stop political killings in the state. The police should ensure the prosecution of all the killers in the state. It is not only votes that should count; human lives should count even more!

THISDAY

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