By Dele Sobowale

“We also call on the Police to ensure compliance by political actors with the restriction on movement in places where elections are holding”. Mrs Augusta C. Ogakwu, INEC official on rerun elections in Imo, Abia and Taraba. PUNCH, April 25, 2015.

The appeal by Mrs Ogakwu to the Police must occur to most observers of the nearly concluded elections as strange indeed. Every election before now had always been preceded by announcements about restriction of movements on election day by the Nigeria Police. Stern warnings are given to violators that they will be dealt with if they failed to comply. Yet, in every election, some individuals, with the obvious complicity of the police violate the restrictions to cause havoc.

•Card reader

The 2015 elections which should be partly concluded on April 25, 2015, provide another example of INEC officials, the Police, the DSS and, even the army failing to deliver what they promise on Election Day. It was not only in Imo, Abia and Taraba where bands of roaming thugs went about unchecked by security forces, the same things occurred in Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom States. I had spent the week before the Governors and State Houses of Assembly elections touring those states in order to obtain an idea of how the elections might turn out. The results later announced by INEC were totally at variance with the wishes of the people in those states.

In fact, if some of the video evidence now in possession of various individuals were not the record of atrocities allegedly perpetrated with the connivance of INEC and security agencies, one would have regarded it as a Nollywood comedy. But, now available in colour, we can see how despite the announced restrictions, a few individuals not only moved around to snatch electoral materials – card readers, result sheets, boxes etc – they even had the audacity to shoot either people resisting them or to scare away prospective voters from polling units. Thus, in one short step those individuals compounded ordinary felony with treasonable conduct.

Consequently, supplementary elections held on Saturday, April 25, 2015. Invariably, that amounts to shutting the gates after the cows have fled from the ranch. The perpetrators of evil have been allowed to secure through foul means insurmountable leads which the results of the second election could not erase. INEC had allowed some individuals to benefit from the proceeds of crime openly committed.

Let us pause to recollect that Bayelsa, Rivers, Abia and Akwa Ibom were the hot beds of opposition to the use of card readers. And, everybody knows those who were against a mechanical device introduced to prevent fraud. It was not surprising therefore that in every case where polling units were invaded by armed thugs the card reader was their first target. They invariably ensured that the equipment was taken away and forced INEC staff to resort to the traditional fraudulent system of voting – where voting took place at all. But, in some cases, when that approach was not enough to allow the thugs to perpetrate electoral fraud, they carted away everything from the polling units and merely announced results from unknown places.

What was INEC’s response to all these? Professor Jega, who had attempted to be totally impartial and who had come under attack from one political party out of over twenty-five over the introduction of card readers, who was being threatened with dismissal by these same political party, turned funny. Where identical electoral offences were committed in different states he gave two different judgments. In a book written about the REFORMATION IN ENGLAND Merie d’Aubigne, writing on Cardinal Wolsey, 1475-1530, remarked that “To the right he said yes, to the left, he said no. What would it matter that these perfidies were one day discovered, provided it was after the elections”. Jega, not wanting to further enrage the ruling party, despite overwhelming evidence refused to cancel the flawed elections and order a fresh election. To him it mattered not if the perfidies were discovered later by courts.

FOUR IGPS IN FOUR YEARS – A WASTE OF RESOURCES

“Every organisation is the lengthened shadow of one man.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882.

With the forced exit of former IGP Abba, President Jonathan has established another record. Four IGPs, granted one is acting, would have served under him by the time he is through. That is akin to one important division or subsidiary, in a Group of Companies having four Chief Executive Officers, CEOs, in four years. Anybody, with the minimum of patriotic feeling must be asking how we can expect the Nigerian Police, the first line in our security defence, to perform under the circumstances. As it is, even the Acting IGP might not last long on the seat. The post being political, the selection of the poor fellow might have amounted to a kiss of death.. But, that is the minor problem.

Each time an IGP is capriciously removed, and a new IGP is appointed, several top officers are forced to retire prematurely. Invariably, Nigeria loses a lot of experienced people. Between 2010 and now the cast-away of senior police officers had been unprecedented in our history.

Is this any way to run a government? Or, to govern a nation?