BEVERLY HILLS, February 27, (THEWILL) – Matters arising from the rerun federal legislative elections in Rivers State have triggered doubts about the possible conduct of free, fair and violence-free elections in Nigeria.
As the 2019 general elections draw closer, it becomes expedient that lessons learnt from the staggered elections so far held since 2015 are put into good use by the authorities to prevail over the shenanigan of politicians bent on winning the polls at all costs.
If allegation by the police that the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike bribed officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, with N360million is anything to go by, then other allegations surrounding the polls particularly actors from the other parties, should also be probed.
The alleged bribe, according to the police, was to compromise electoral officials into rigging the rerun election in favour of the ruling party in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
The IGP had raised an investigative panel on December 22, 2016, to unravel circumstances that led to the monumental violence and malpractices that characterized the election. The violence was so much that a Deputy Superintendent of the Police and his driver were beheaded.
At the end, the police panel submitted in its report that 23 INEC officials were caught with N111million cash, which was openly displayed before newsmen as evidence.
THEWILL condemns all forms of violence and fraud perpetrated during elections and urges the Federal Government to restore sanity to the nation’s electoral process such that it would cease to be a battlefield.
A report by an INEC panel shows that beyond the one-way indictment of PDP officials, the police also played some ignoble roles that compromised the integrity of the elections. Some unnamed politicians in the All Progressives Congress, APC, are believed to be culpable in the electoral fraud and violence in Rivers, which the police was silent about in its report.
The INEC administrative panel pointed out that the massive deployment of security agents to the election obstructed free and fair polls, noting that such huge deployment violated the framework of Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, ICCES.
The conflicting reports calls for an independent reassessment and action plan.
On the alleged collection of N111million bribe, THEWILL urges the police to use the planned arraignment of the INEC officials to prove that they actually collected the bribe and that it was given by the Governor. With the indictment of security agencies, they can no longer be trusted to work towards free and fair polls in the country, hence should purge themselves of such unethical and unprofessional conduct.
An observation contained in the report that: “many of the security agents showed profound political partisanship” is one that should verily be addressed in the planned electoral reforms as well as the “reported cases of willful obstruction of the process by security operatives, including snatching of materials and intimidation of voters. In other cases, they refused to accompany and protect men and materials for the elections”.
Unless urgent steps are taken, the voting public would lose confidence in a system where officials are reported to have “displayed partisanship according to their loyalty to the two major political parties”. This partisanship, the report added, included their “routine leakage of confidential documents to political parties”.
While noting that the police have faulted the INEC report, we urge the force to use the court to prove that the dismissal of six policemen for their roles in the elections was not because of their loyalty to Governor Wike.
THEWILL calls on INEC and the police to use these sordid revelations to overhaul their operations in preparation for future elections. Unless these allegations are found to be untrue, it would be concluded that similar accusations that had been raised against the commission and security agencies in past elections were true afterwards.
We support stakeholders’ plea that the police use this opportunity to put their house in order and also reveal other parties’ involvement in the electoral offences.
Without prejudice to the matters in court, a revisit of these areas would clear the foggy atmosphere surrounding the incessant changes of commissioners of police in Rivers State shortly before the polls.
THEWILL would want the electoral reform committee to drive the electoral reforms with these revelations to enable the public to restore a waning confidence in the country’s electoral system.
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