October 17, (THEWILL) – Lack of contest and unprecedented voter apathy leading to a low turnout ensured that last week’s local government election in Plateau State was at best a walkover and a critical miscarriage of democracy, writes UKANDI ODEY
It was, indeed, the morning after and a typical day after an intriguing night of long knives. While for some it was a long road to a home so near, it was a winding and cursive course of booby traps for others, for whom everything about the ‘elections’ was democracy deferred and still a long road to justice.
Reacting to the outcome of the ‘elections’ last Monday, the Plateau State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party described the exercise as “the worst local government elections in the history of Nigeria.” On the same day, during the inauguration of the ‘elected’ chairmen in Government House, Rayfield, Governor Simon Lalong said, “We have every reason to thank God for the successful transition from one local government tenure to another, after the successful elections that took place on October 9.”
Lalong also used the occasion to commend “the people of Plateau State for their exemplary conduct, resilience, and patriotism throughout the exercise” and joined the Plateau State Electoral Commission (PLASIEC) in the commendation “for conducting one of the best elections in the history of the State.”
However, the governor, whose speech during the inauguration of local government chairmen has been criticised as full of lies, faulty suppositions and contraptions of logic, more than agreed with his critics that the ‘elections’ and their process were haunted by odds and oddities when he told a delegation from the British High Commission that “the heavens did not fall” after the ‘elections’ were conducted.
PLASIEC was dutiful in the ‘collation’ and announcement of the results, this time less than 24 hours after voting ended (in 2018 it had announced results and declared winners while voting was still going on!). The ‘results’ were announced at about 8 am Sunday, with the winners of 17 chairmanship seats and 325 councilors declared before a sparse media representation. The results, as announced by the PLASIEC chairman, Fabian Ntung Ari, showed the ‘winners’, both chairmen and councilors, posting high numbers of votes scored, in sharp contrast with the low turnout due to voter apathy and citizens’ anger that the Simon Lalong Administration had thoroughly skewed the process and used the PLASIEC to orchestrate the elimination of vibrant opposition from participating in the election.
Although the PLASIEC claimed that six political parties participated in the exercise, most of them were unable to purchase forms for the chairmanship position, except in Barkin Ladi and Pankshin LGAs where acrimony and dissatisfaction with the disputed All Progressives Congress congresses saw to the emergence of a strong opposition and contenders on the platform of the Youth Progressive Party ( YPP).
From Bassa and Jos North LGAs at the northernmost tip of Plateau North, to Wase Qua’an Pan in Southern Plateau, it was a miserable turnout of voters. Analysts say this was due to a background of checkered issues that include, fundamentally and sentimentally, the exclusion of the PDP, which is the most acceptable political party among Plateau people, from the exercise. In all the 17 local government areas of the state, only Kanke in Plateau Central and Jos North in Plateau North could boast of a summary turnout of between 5,000 and 10,000 voters, respectively.
In some polling units visited, there was no voter anywhere, while some officials waited for election materials. According to the results announced by PLASIEC, in Jos North and Jos South LGAs, both of them in Plateau North Senatorial District, the APC ‘won’ by 161, 857 and 51,342 votes, respectively; while in Kanam and Mangu LGAs in Plateau Central Senatorial District, the ‘winners’ polled 78,768 and 119,467, respectively.
In Plateau South Senatorial District, the ‘winner’ in Lalong’s home local government of Shendam polled 93, 865 votes, while in Langtang North, Lalong’s former commissioner, who is facing a case of double jeopardy, ‘emerged’ with 49,290 votes and was returned ‘elected’.
The ballot summary indicates that 1, 098, 742 votes were scored, well above the total votes polled by the PDP and the APC combined in the 2019 gubernatorial election. Critics accuse PLASIEC of allocating votes and rigging the election to create a false impression that the APC is well entrenched as a political party in Plateau.
In Jos North for instance, the usual enthusiasm and long queues were absent. Rather, in areas like Rukuba Road, Jenta, Dogon Agogo, Tafawa Balewa, Masalacci Juma’a, Ali Kazaure, Angwa Rogo, Dilimi and Gangare, youths, who expressed outright disgust with the process and the absence of options in the exercise, waited around polling units menacingly to deal with anyone who would dare to queue up to cast votes. Thus, most of the polling units in Jos North, Jos South, Bassa, Riyom, and Barkin Ladi LGAs recorded massive boycotts.
The election did not fail only as a result of the exclusion of the PDP, PLASIEC was haunted by its own bad and biased conscience to the effect that it did not carry out sufficient enlightenment and mass mobilisation to enlist the support, cooperation and participation of the electorate. For instance, on the eve of the elections, the commission could not as much as brief the press on its preparedness and deployment of logistics. A state-wide broadcast by Governor Lalong on Thursday, October 7, only succeeded in worsening the atmosphere of suspicion and anger of the citizens, especially as the broadcast proceeded insensitively to declare Friday, October 8, the eve of the ‘election’, as a work-free day. Not many agreed with the governor that the holiday was necessary to enable people travel to their respective local government areas to cast their votes the next day. The holiday was popularly received and viewed as a desperate enactment conceived to frustrate a menacing and determined opposition that looked good to possibly secure injunction from the Appeal Court on that Friday and stop the ‘elections’ from proceeding as scheduled.
At the Court of Appeal, it was like the unstoppable had come face to face with the irrepressible in a seeming handshake of a lion with a tiger. Lalong’s ‘public holiday’ could not stop the Court from sitting, meaning danger was more prolonged than averted. The PDP legal team led by Edward G Pwajok, SAN, was in full gloves against the PLASIEC legal team spear-headed by Garba Pwul, SAN. News of the Appeal Court hearing application for injunction against the election spread like spirit fire, with many becoming interested in what the court would dispense at the end of the day.
As the court session dragged, uncertainty percolated and loomed over the prospect of the exercise. After three stand-downs, the longest court session and grueling legal exercise in the recent history of advocacy came to a close at about 11pm. Verdict: Elections will go ahead!
However, too little, quite late – the court sitting had taken a toll on the psyche of the electorate and their willingness to participate waned irredeemably.
In Langtang North, shared apathy and general disgust was worsened by the outcry against an injustice and a peculiarity. The tenure of the elected chairman on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party was brutishly truncated with a year to go for the APC to take over. With a radio station being established and launched into operation by the same ousted chairman, with Langtang North making history as the first local government area to own a frequency modulated radio station in the country, conducting last week’s ‘election’ in the area did not really excite the people or impress on them as moving to the next level of development and welfare.
What many have not given sufficient review as responsible for the voter apathy and protest is the lack of internal democracy, injustice, anger, bitterness, disillusionment and factions threatening the soul and inner workings of the APC in Plateau. The party congresses that produced candidates for the exercise under review threw up more problems than ensuring internal cohesion and the way forward. One, the power play and clash of interests, which brought the tenure of Letep Dabang as the state chairman of the party to a turbulent end, has cracked and unsettled the party’s original chassis. Secondly, there are litigations arising from the Congresses that are still subsisting with both potential and propensity to grate on the Party’s electoral amiability as the tapes roll on the footages of 2023.
For many reasons, the grounds are uncertain, the coin is spinning, anything can happen, for what took place was a farce and a farcical exercise imbued possibly with the fate of futility.
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