About a month ago the Police made some revelations about the December 10, 2016 rerun election in Rivers State. The revelations which were contained in the report of a panel set up the Inspector General of Police (IGP) among other things indicted 6 police personnel, 23 electoral officers and 2 administrative officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for unwholesome conduct during the election. In a previous article, we commended the police for at last investigating a failed election as well as indicting some of its own personnel.
However, the article did not fail to question the fact that the indicted police personnel were only those assigned to the governor. It also wondered why only 6 out of thousands of police operatives deployed were found wanting in a country where accusing fingers have always pointed at the police and other security agencies as wrong doers in our elections.
Although we applauded the swiftness of the police report, we were and still are of the opinion that the police being essentially an administrative body should have waited for their indicted colleagues to be found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction before dismissing them. Nyesom Wike Another aspect of the report is that which did not find anything wrong with several dozens of politicians except the few dismissed policemen and some INEC staff now being prosecuted.
This is baffling because history tells us that our politicians are the greatest culprits of electoral malpractices in Nigeria. This was pin-pointedly established long ago by the famous Babalakin judicial commission of enquiry into the defunct Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) of 1986. It is therefore curious that the recent police report highlighted the indictment of only one politician, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.
A discerning analyst may have imagined that even the authors of that police report could not have believed that aspect of their report.
The poser is: if the average Nigerian politician pursues an election not as a game but as war how can a well conducted enquiry find only one party to be at fault in a contest where everyone employs the strategy of the end justifies the means for achieving a winner takes all goal? Luckily a second investigation this time by the principal election manager, INEC is out and it gave credence to our fear that the Police cannot conduct a credible investigation into electoral malpractice in Nigeria. As INEC puts it, what went wrong with the police themselves were “mind boggling” The panel which was chaired by Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, a National Electoral Commissioner, found that most senior police officers behaved in disturbing manners and tried to lure INEC officials away from their posts.
The report added that there were “cases of hostage taking, hijacking of materials and physical attacks on INEC officials by security operatives.” The report also singled out a particular police officer for condemnation. Why did the police not know about the said officer during their own investigation? It therefore makes a lot of sense that before the hurried response to the INEC report, the police should undertake a second investigation that will not stand truth on its head. This is premised on the fact that this is not the first time election personnel have had cause to draw attention to the need for the police authorities to take a radical view of what their ambassadors do at election venues in Nigeria.
Sociology Professor, Lai Olurode while serving as an electoral commissioner had edited a book a few years back which among other things alleged that security agents often issued security tags to top government officials like State Commissioners, Special Advisers, etc. to disguise as security agents or observers in order to move freely during the elections thereby contravening the restriction orders. This convoluted posture of the security framework which is an open invitation to violence makes it easy to appreciate why INEC was for long reluctant to hold the Rivers’ rerun elections.
It also explains why the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) opted out of the rerun election in Etche Local Government Area to fill the Etche State Constituency II and Etche/Omuma Federal Constituency seats fixed for yesterday. From point of view of the subsisting disapproval by this column of huge security presence in an election, we can now rationalize why there are always thousands of security operatives that are never able to stop the hijacking of ballot boxes and other electoral malpractices in Nigeria.
As the INEC reported revealed, “there were too many security agencies involved in the process outside the framework of the Interagency Consultative Committee on Elections Security. It was not clear whether many of them were acting as part of their various organisations or as groups and individuals serving political interests.” If so, how were they deployed? Was there an accreditation exercise or was any person in uniform welcome? Should Nigeria refuse to depart from analogue elections in these days of technology, then these are issues which should guide the task of securing our future elections. Perhaps it can also help the police to review their huge presence in every public function.
As one critic asked 3 days back, does Ondo State need 5000 policemen at the inauguration of their new Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu? The point to be made is that no true patriot will condone police partisanship because if the Nigeria Police which is the main force a civil populace supports one political party against the other, free and fair election will be unattainable. Governor Wike once said that”when the security is apolitical, you have free and fair election. But when the security descends into the arena, the entire process is compromised.” There is hardly any difference between this and the INEC report which alleged that many security operatives showed profound political partisanship and that ironically, security operatives, who were expected to protect the process, turned on it.
This column has never hidden its dislike for the exuberance of Governors Nyesom Wike and Ayo Fayose of Rivers and Ekiti States respectively, because quite often, they tended to overheat the polity but with the latest INEC report, perhaps they have a point after all.
Vanguard
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