By Ochereome Nnanna
I PARTICIPATED in the coverage of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections in Lagos on March 28th 2015. The election was an unqualified success because everything the Federal Government and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) put in place worked according to plan.

INEC officials played their roles according to the rules. The Smart Card Readers (SCR’s) and the Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVC’s) were fully deployed. They were the sole sources of discerning the people’s electoral choice.

The law enforcement agents, especially the Police, watched over the process with professional detachment, while some patrol gangs moved from one polling district to another to maintain law and order. In particular, the Army (and its sister security agencies), which the opposition parties had feared might be used to rig the election for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, did no such thing. When the results were announced, they were not disputed.

Though Jonathan lost his re-election bid, he congratulated the winner, President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari. Also, the Lagos governorship poll later produced a loser who congratulated the winner. Even in areas around the country where there were reports of rigging through the use of the controversial incident forms, the outcome reflected the wishes of the generality of the electorate. Fear of violence vanished from the polity. Today, we have peace, and the whole world is applauding us. That was because no one made any attempt to subvert or thwart the wishes of the majority of the electorate in most parts of the country.

For the Governorship and State Assembly polls, I relocated to my native Abia State to observe the proceedings. What happened there is no longer a secret. Proceedings in Abia and her sisterly neighbour, Imo, were dramatically different from what took place in other parts of the country. The Chairman of the INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, had promised that the Commission would use the two weeks between the national and state elections to correct whatever observed lapsed took place on March 28th. But it is now obvious that Jega abandoned Abia and Imo States for the political gladiators to help themselves.

Results from electoral jungle

The polls in Abia and Imo States produced nothing but results from the electoral jungle, which INEC described, rather hypocritically, as “inconclusive”. How can you say an election is inconclusive when your officials allowed politicians to alter the results with figures that flew in the face of trends established by results recorded in areas where the Card Reader and PVC were used in line with INEC’s directives? Why call an election “inconclusive” when there were clear evidences that the rules were violently subverted by politicians in cahoots with INEC officials and security personnel deployed to safeguard the polls and the electorate? The polls in Abia and Imo were not inconclusive; they failed woefully.

In Abia State, politicians openly haggled and negotiated to buy over INEC polling officers, the Army and Police. They offered all sorts of unholy incentives for them to “look the other way” to enable them steal the vote.

It was, therefore, not surprising what we saw happening on live television. The Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba, who is also the Electoral Officer-in-charge, put up a performance that left us all aghast.

On Sunday, 12th April 2015, the collation of the results at the INEC centre in Umuahia was in full swing. When the results from Obingwa, Isiala Ngwa North, Osisioma and a few other areas were brought in for collation, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) polling agent, Mr. Ahamdi Nweke, hotly raised objections. He said there were no elections in those areas. According to him, the results were simply written. He even submitted a report signed by the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Habila Joshak, confirming that electoral materials were discovered in the bush in Osisioma. Joshak was present when Nweke was making his loud complaint, and he did not controvert it. Both local and foreign observers confirmed massive irregularities in those areas.

At first, Prof. Ozumba agreed to cancel the elections in those areas. In any case, the results looked very phoney compared to those from parts where the Card Readers and PVCs were used and allowed to stand. In those areas, the results showed keen competition between the two major political parties – the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its main challenger, the APGA.

Real shocker

The real shocker came when the Governor of Abia State, Chief Theodore Orji, stormed the collation centre with other leaders of the PDP, such as the National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Chief Olisa Metuh; Minister of State for Defence, retired Col. Austin Akobundu; former presidential Aide, Dr. Onyema Ugochukwu, and others. After a moment of behind-closed-door parley, in which the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Oko was present, the august visitors departed and Ozumba came out to announce the reversal of his earlier decision to cancel the elections. APGA’s governorship candidate, Dr. Alex Otti, described the visit as “abuse of power” aimed at subverting the wishes of the people.

Questions have been raised as to whether the governor and his team had the right, under the rules of engagement, to be at the collation centre in a manner suggestive of influencing the work of INEC. More curious was that the two esteemed professors not only allowed them into their offices but also knuckled under their partisan pressure to reverse an earlier decision. Prof. Ozumba said they brought “new information”. What “new information” could they have brought which the INEC staff in the field and electoral monitors and observers did not report to the Electoral Officer and the REC? It is shocking that these distinguished professors needed politicians to come and push them around with “new information”, which has now put the expressed will of the Abia electorate in danger of being subverted.

Nothing short of the total re-run of the Abia election will suffice. Those results from the three Ngwa LGA’s already added were fraudulently obtained. Let there be a new election, where the eyes of the whole world will monitor the process and defeat the antics of desperate politicians. The Smart Card Reader and Permanent Voters Cards brought a revolution to our elections in other parts of the country. The Abia electorate have the right to be allowed to choose between change and continuity. Those who want continuity will vote for Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, the candidate of the PDP personally handpicked by the departing Governor TA Orji (Ochendo). Those who enjoyed Ochendo’s stewardship in his eight years in power will like to transfer their admiration to his chosen successor to extend the rule of PDP to a possible 24 years.

But those who want change; a clean departure from the Orjis’ dispensation will give their votes to Dr. Otti. During the campaigns, it was obvious where the minds of Abia people pointed to. Abia should not be abandoned to a situation where the electorate will be overpowered by the might of the party in power. The Smart Card Reader and PVC revolution, which has swept through the Nigerian political landscape, must also make its landfall in Abia State. Whoever wins in a free and fair election must govern the people.

Otherwise, the new regime will have to depend on the same force and wastage of public funds with which it stole the mandate of the people to govern them oppressively, knowing they did not, and cannot win a free and fair election. Attahiru Jega’s INEC must resolve the Abia election conundrum – through the Card Reader and PVC – just as they did in other parts of the country.