By Akintola Omigbodun

During the early 1970s, I lived for about a year in north-western Nigeria in what is now Kebbi State. I had to travel on the road between Kalgo and Kamba, a town on the border with Niger Republic. The road had a laterite soil surface which was evenly corrugated. The corrugations could be removed to give a smooth surface using a grader but the corrugations reappeared within a few weeks of their removal.

Anyone travelling on the road had to drive at a very slow speed rolling from one corrugation to the next corrugation. The alternative was to go very quickly, literally flying over the corrugations, with the result that I had to change all the shock absorbers on my car when I returned to Lagos.

We have been preparing for the 2015 national elections in which Nigerians eligible to vote and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, are being conveyed in a vehicle called the Electoral Act and the security forces are the shock absorbers on our journey. I was in Osogbo, Osun State on a visit on the Thursday before the elections for the position of Governor held on 9 August 2014. During the visit, I observed that the different units of our security forces were driving around the town in a show of force.

However following the election, one of candidates approached the Election Tribunal with complaints indicating irregularities in the conduct of the election. The tribunal recently dismissed the petition and newspaper reports indicate that the tribunal was satisfied that the irregularities complained about could not have taken place given the substantial presence of the security forces in Osun State during the election.

We must understand how we have arrived at the position in which the security forces are the shock absorbers of our electoral processes. In the elections held in the 1950s and 1960s, each political party had a box with the party’s logo on the box. The voter placed his/her ballot paper in the box for the party of his/her choice.

At the close of voting, the ballot boxes were conveyed to the counting centre. There were reports of attempts to intercept the ballot boxes used in the elections and replace them with other ballot boxes before the boxes arrived a the counting centre. The voting process was subsequently altered such that the voter would place his/her thumbprint on the ballot paper against the party of his/her choice and then drop the ballot paper into the one box provided at each polling unit.

Ballot papers are counted at the polling unit and the number of votes for each party is recorded and announced at the polling unit. This procedure did not stop attempts at changing the ballot box before the box was brought to the collation centre. The collation centre is the place where the results from the different polling units are added in order to determine a winner from amongst the different parties. Court decisions on election petitions have shown that manipulations of the results take place at the collation centres.

We therefore need the security forces to watch over the electoral process and when the forces are not available we are completely helpless. INEC has announced the postponement of the 2015 elections to new dates.

There are also economic difficulties with the drop in crude oil price, the devaluation of the naira against United States dollar and the attainment of stable political and economic conditions seem uncertain. What should we do? The electorate should continue to speak out on their expectations and in particular that the elections must take place at the rescheduled dates of 28 March and 11 April 2015.

TO BE CONTINUED