BY CHUKWUDI NWANZE

OF all the elections so far held in Nigeria this year, the reported fraudulent and criminal activities that characterised polling in Ika North of Delta State are shameful and disgusting. Dr. Godwin Awvioro, a lecturer in Anatomy at Delta State University, was the returning officer there. He refused to announce fabricated election results, even at gunpoint. He later surfaced at the Police Headquarters in Asaba, the Delta State capital to cancel the results of the fraudulent elections.

It is said that those who seized Dr. Awvioro at gunpoint have been identified.

Dr. Godson Echiejile, the Nigerian High Commissioner in Sierra Leone, hails from Ika North. He witnessed the thumb-printing of ballot papers by party thugs who were dressed in fake National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) uniforms.

He protested the blatantly undemocratic development, pointing out that President Goodluck Jonathan was unambiguous in his directive that the elections should be free, fair and transparent. For his efforts, Ambassador Echiejile was beaten to within an inch of his very life. Those who manhandled the diplomat have been identified.

To gather inside a voting centre and flagrantly thumb-print ballot papers is presumptuous and extremely irresponsible. It shows the perpetrators as a law unto themselves.

The genuine NYSC members who are bona fide ad hoc employees of INEC have testified to being turned away by party thugs. They testified that their positions were taken up by non-Youth Corps members dressed up in NYSC uniforms. It is understood that a lot of these miscreants are under arrest.

They deserve to be promptly brought to justice because what they did is condemnable. How could unscrupulous politicians and their cohorts acquire NYSC uniforms and put same on political hirelings? How did they summon the courage to chase away NYSC members employed by INEC as ad hoc staff and trained for the purposes of the election?

There is something not to be said for someone aspiring to become a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who indulges in despicable electoral acts, simply to achieve victory. There is a lot to be said for Professor Attahiru Jega’s INEC. It is obvious that, against all odds, they have managed to give the country some of the most transparent elections in living memory. INEC’s patriotic conduct of these elections should not be sullied by the desperately unbecoming acts of a few unconscionable politicians.

It is laudable that INEC has instituted a high-powered investigation into the conduct of the National Assembly elections in Ika North. Widespread intimidations, wanton violence, high-jacking of voting materials, forcible eviction of INEC personnel and their replacement with fake NYSC members were reported during the elections. Consequently, “votes” in excess of 20,000 were fraudulently posted on non-INEC paper for Ika North alone, whereas every other local government area of the Delta North Senatorial Zone recorded an average of 9,000 votes.

We thank goodness that science has pushed past the stage of forged thumbprints because forensic experts can use appropriate equipment to isolate ballot papers according to the thumbs that printed them; it is easy to collate ballot papers, whatever the number, that bear the print of a single thumb-print. That makes easy to pursue legal action and easier even to void elections that are fraudulent.

It is now obvious that the generality of ordinary Nigerians are interested in genuine democracy. They yearn for it. This explains why they disregarded the elements to wait for endless hours on polling day, just in the bid to exercise their franchise. The physically challenged – the blind, the crippled, the very sick, all of them, they courageously waited under the heat of the sun, to have a chance to vote. It is wicked and inconsiderate that, against this background of patriotism by the governed, those who seek to govern are employing criminal means to achieve their purposes.

The only measure that will assuage the wounded feelings of the Ika North electorate is glaring evidence that those who had the effrontery to abuse the electoral process in their community have been put through the rigours of the law and punished appropriately upon conviction. The only way to further demonstrate that our march on the road to genuine democracy is being consolidated is for INEC to remain resolute and dismiss actors and actions of disrepute in our electoral process. Given their record so far, we are certain that INEC is poised to do the right thing and give reassurance to all and sundry that the franchise of Nigerians will no longer be toyed with.Mr. Nwanze, a political analyst, wrote from  Agbor, Delta State.

Mr. Nwanze, a political analyst, wrote from  Agbor, Delta State.