Kogi, Bayelsa: A Post Mortem Of Inconclusive Tradition

By January 27, Kogi State would witness a change of baton from the incumbent governor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Captain Idris Wada, (retd) to the lucky challenger of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Yahaya Bello. The inauguration of the new administration would however not bring to an end the various issues that continue to dog the governorship election in the state.
 
In the case of the just concluded Bayelsa governorship election, the spate of violence and recriminations over the impartiality of the electoral body and security agencies opened new apertures in the continuing efforts to improve the electoral system in the country. From an inconclusive election that necessitated a supplementary exercise to make good, INEC decided to take charge. The fact of cancellation of balloting in some polling units, which was in excess of the marginal difference between the winner and the runner-up, dimmed the brilliance of INEC’s unique provision in the election.
 
Altogether, the conduct of the Kogi and Bayelsa governorship election has shown that the challenge of sustaining the little improvements and innovations in the electoral system is enormous. Even for political parties, Kogi and Bayelsa elections should be a guide for the future. The need to highlight lessons from the two elections demands a kind of post mortem. This would help the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other critical stakeholders, especially political parties and security agencies to arm themselves with further knowledge on how to make Nigeria’s electoral system foolproof.
Bayelsa: Between Violence And Apathy

At the end of the protracted governorship election, Governor Dickson was returned as winner, having polled 134,988 votes to beat his rival on the APC platform, Timipire Sylva. Sylva scored 86,852 votes. The contest produced a distant third candidate in the person of Moses Siloko Siasia, who contested on the platform of Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM). He garnered 1,572 votes.
 
Agents of the two front-row political parties, PDP and APC, had their reservations. While the PDP agent, Mr. Fred Agbedi accused APC of levying violence and bloodshed leading to the cancellations of results, Mr. Dennis Otitio, of the APC faulted the announcement of Governor Dickson as winner by the returning officer, Professor Zana Akpagu. Otitio argued that since the total number of cancelled votes (53, 000) exceeded the margin of superiority between Dickson and the runner-up, what INEC should have done was to declare the exercise inconclusive and schedule a fresh date for another supplementary election as it did in Kogi.
  
The two parties bickered over the outcome of the elections in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area and other polling units that were cancelled during the earlier election on December 5, 2015. But the returning officer for Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, Dr. Johnson Dagana, announced that Dickson scored 23, 208 votes against Sylva’s 10,216 votes out of the 33,607 valid votes cast in the area.
 
What was clear in the Bayelsa election was that a pattern of voting had emerged during the inconclusive December 5 poll. That pattern tallied with the pre-election projections by pundits that it was going to be keenly contested election that would present a winner by slight margin. If not for the absence of accurate surveys, the contentions that trailed the election would have assisted INEC and even the political parties to coordinate their efforts better.
 
Despite the protestations by APC about the fidelity of the election, it was obvious that Dickson was set to win the election based on the distribution of votes at various councils of the state. Had Sylva turned in more than proportionate votes at the supplementary election, the pattern would have been breached. It could be that it was attempt to garner unmerited votes that led to the violation of the process and loss of lives.
 
If the pre-election public perception of the two front-running candidates was anything to go by, the APC primary election rendered a hint as to the nature of things to come in the actual election. It was also possible that the APC settled for Sylva on account of his capacity to ‘fight’ Dickson. Perhaps in subsequent elections the profiling of candidates would be necessary to know what to expect and how best to manage them.   
  
The Director of Publicity of Governor Dickson’s Restoration Campaign Organisation, Mr. Jonathan Obuebite, decried the level of carnage that attended the election in Southern Ijaw. Obuebite lamented that the victory of PDP in the governorship poll came at a great cost of human lives, stressing that those deaths were caused by the desperation of the opposition to win at all costs.
  
The claims and counter-claims on the origin of the violence and the casualty figure, notwithstanding, punishment of perpetrators of election violence must begin with the Bayelsa exercise. Governor Dickson, who praised the electorates for giving him a second term mandate, regretted that innocent civilians died in the effort to perform their civic responsibility. In a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, the governor said he would do everything practicable to identify and bring to justice those that perpetrated the electoral mayhem.

How We Survived The Governorship ‘War’
  

Agents and stalwarts of PDP in Brass local government area, who were allegedly matcheted by supporters of the APC, narrated their ordeals.  For instance, at Brass local government area, Austin Adigio, who had his fingers nearly cut-off, said: “On Friday December 4, 2015; about 12 and 1 pm, we had invited all PDP supporters and educated them on how to use their PVCs to vote. They came in their numbers and were enlightened on what to do at each polling unit.” Adigio explained that the essence of the voter enlightenment a day before the election was to ensure that there were minimal voided ballots. “We told them why they should not void one ballot paper given that the election was a critical one,” he stated adding that after the programme the supporters were asked to go back to their respective homes and come out the next day to vote.
   
“Apparently information got to the APC camp; myself my PA, the special adviser on students affairs, about 10 of us, we were just there gisting. The next thing we saw was a group of boys led by one Oye, who is jailbreak, chanted Sylva’s slogan and before we knew what was happening, they brought out brand new matchetes and sticks and attacked us.” He remarked that he was lucky that at their first strike, “I was able to put up my hand because the assailant aimed at my head, I jumped into the river and swam.” He disclosed that unfortunately, the special adviser to the governor on Students’ Affairs, his personal assistant and the other two young men were trapped “and they matcheted them as if they were killing an animal.”
   
Adigio said he went to the King’s palace where he luckily took refuge. “I was given the number of Commander of NNS Cape Vermosa, who sent troops that rescued me,” he stated adding that while all those things were happening, the same group of persons went to the community communication system and announced brazenly that all those that would not vote APC, should quietly leave the town.  “Our greatest surprise was that the previous night, in company of the JTF at the brass terminal they got innocent people and frog jumped them giving them stern warning that they should not vote PDP”.  He regretted that the JTF compromised, “they wanted to murder us but for the saving grace of God.”
     
Mr. Promise Abe, an APC chieftain in SILGA said the PDP was the ones that started violence, contending that Governor Dickson was used to rigging of election. “This time manipulation would not be welcome. The governor is shouting, because there is a parable that a man that carries cutlass to cut people’s head does not want anybody with cutlass to get towards his back”. Mr. Abe noted, however, that if the PDP with an incumbent was shouting it showed nobody had power to manipulate the election.
 
INEC’s Last Minute Innovation

The only genuine input that INEC developed in the Bayelsa election was the provision that accreditation and voting should take place simultaneously. That was a very good response to the culture of ballot box snatching where hoodlums awaited accreditation before bolting with the boxes to stuff them with thumb printed ballots. Moreover, by allowing accreditation and voting to go on side by side, ample time was saved thus ensuring that voting did not proceed into darkness to provide cover for manipulation. With the novel introduction of the card reader, which was first applied by Ghana’s electoral body; observers noted that what INEC should do, going forward, to firm up the innovation is ensuring timely distribution of sensitive materials and taking proper custody of the machines. What happened in Ekeremo would have been averted had the card reader changed hands immediately after data contained in them had been uploaded in the INEC mainframe.

Kogi: Dispute Over Methodology