It seems we are gradually slipping forward into the past as our elections beget more and more violence. It isn’t that our previous elections had always been violence-free. It is just that for a long while, the incidence of violence did not become the main angle of news reportage of elections. But the last few elections, particularly those in Bayelsa and Rivers states have thrown up violence more than anything else. The magnitude, prevalence and impact seem to have gone beyond the “acceptable” national average.
Time was, when children could accompany their parents to the polling stations and even play around while the adults voted and they all went back together. But Bayelsa and Rivers seem to tell us that election is war. And even though there are rules even of war, the prosecution of these recent elections by many politicians did not brook many rules as the use of force became the rule of law.
Like the election in Bayelsa, that of Rivers, its sister state, was bound to result in violence as the build-up indicated. The main political gladiators in Rivers were the immediate past governor and the sitting governor, even though the election was for several federal and state parliamentary seats, which neither of them was a contestant. Whether the archrivals, Chibuike Amaechi and Nyesom Wike admit it or not, they remain complicit in the orgy of violence that befell their state and citizens. Their do-or-die attitude going into the election, their utterances and their “body language” spoke volumes of the unwillingness to brook opposition and their readiness to use any force necessary to achieve their selfish aims of showing who “owned” the state, as far as politics go.
My concerns were heightened when Governor Wike threatened those who were planning to conduct election in the state that if they tried to manipulate the process, they would be treated as armed robbers. He in fact advised such election officials to write their wills before getting to Rivers State. Such ridiculous and audacious threat from a sitting governor could not have been dismissed easily. It was apparent that Wike, a lawyer that he is, had no faith in the legal process of addressing any alleged infraction of the electoral rules.
Even before the elections, there were reports of various incidents of violence which occasioned deaths and varying degrees of physical and mental injuries. From most accounts, the Election Day was simply electrifying, with more deaths recorded, including that of a National Youth Service Corps member, Samuel Okonta. Again, the two generalissimos went about with loads of armed security personnel, all in a bid to secure their personal interests. The highpoint was when they converged on the Independent National Electoral Commission headquarters for what might have been a showdown by both men and their “troops”. It is in the face of all the above that some election results were announced and many elections cancelled or declared inconclusive.
As ridiculous as it may seem, the current law, based on the most-recent Supreme Court judgments, has apparently promoted the “win-at-all-cost” mentality. This is because the court expects a petition against the declared election on account of violence, disruption, non-conduct of elections and the likes to prove the existence of such in a large majority of polling stations. The implication is that there is a heavy burden on the petitioner to prove widespread breach of the rule or breakdown of law and order, for the election to be set aside. This is almost impossible to prove in a majority of instances. Thus, the larger the electoral districts, the more unlikely for an election to be cancelled by the judiciary, on account of widespread violence as such would be more difficult to prove.
This explains why some partisan supporters have been calling on INEC to go ahead and declare all the results, knowing that it would be more difficult to set such elections and results aside in the tribunals and courts. We are therefore back to the days up to the 2007 elections where all a political party had to do was cause wanton destruction of electoral materials, violence, thuggery, threat, and manipulation to get the result they wanted and the opponent is asked to go to court to prove otherwise. I am usually shocked to hear people who should know better suggest that the violence and confusions reported, although existed in fact, they were “isolated” and did not affect the totality of the elections. They suggest that whatever outcome we see reflects the will of the majority of the electorate. Such arguments beg the question, “how do we know what the electorate wanted?”
Today, the situations favour the Peoples Democratic Party because the more recent re-run elections have happened where they have a stronger presence than the alternate All Progressives Congress. I see the PDP supporters in a very happy mood while the APC is condemning everything. In fact, they are asking for total cancellation. Tomorrow, perhaps, if similar elections are conducted in an APC stronghold and the party is also declared winner after a very violent and disruptive process, we would see the PDP call for cancellation too. And the rigmarole would continue.
But truly, Nigeria had gone beyond this primitive manner of elections. As I said about the 2003 and 2007 elections, it was dubious to dignify the process by referring to it as an election in the first place. I had said then that those who manipulated and rigged the elections were so callous that they did not mind eroding the very substance of credibility needed for the beneficiaries of the electoral process to carry on their electoral “mandate” with a sense of pride and authority. I drew allusion to a case of a groom who rapes his wife-to-be, a few days to the wedding. Even if the wedding goes on, it erodes the integrity and dignity of the marriage. That is how I see beneficiaries of deeply-flawed elections as we have, if they and their followers wilfully destroy the process meant to give them credibility in office.
The easy way out, as usual, if for most people to blame the electoral body, for “failure” to conduct credible elections. In fact, INEC has of late been taunted for conducting “inconclusive elections” as if it enjoyed repeating the elections over and again. But the truth is that any election in Nigeria is as successful as the people, more particularly the politicians, want it to be. No matter how much INEC tries to ensure the integrity of the process, the forces against it are humongous, legion and powerful. And they have a lot of resources to stand up against INEC’s integrity processes and mechanisms.
Consider the build-up to the 2015 general elections. Who were the most strident opponents of the use of the permanent voter cards and the card reader for the elections? It was the politicians. In that election and in the recent ones, who have been those behind the use, misuse and abuse of military, security and law enforcement officials? It is the politicians. In the final analysis, the forces who determine the credibility of the elections are far more than INEC as a single entity.
The ways out of this quagmire include the entrenchment of strong independent institutions such as the law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice administration that includes an attorney general who is free from the clutches of any incumbent president or state governor who would be expected to diligently investigate and prosecute every case of electoral manipulation. To allow such important tasks in the hands of politicians and partisan citizens means that we shall continue to slip into the cesspit of undemocratic democracy.
The judiciary needs to be more pragmatic in its interpretation of the quantum and effect of violence and electoral manipulation on the country’s democracy. The current state of the law is certainly a minus on the progress achieved in recent years.
Citizens also need a re-orientation to realise that the politicians who manipulate them or procure them to perpetrate acts of violence or other electoral crimes do so for very selfish reasons. Too often those politicians sit together at the table with their previous opponents to plot future opportunities. And this happens, even after they had caused the destruction of many life and property, as well as livelihoods.
PUNCH
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