Again, Need For Peaceful Polls

After months of anxiety, Nigerians, on February 25, turned out to elect a new set of leaders to steer the
affairs of the country, particularly the President and the federal lawmakers. In the final results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the early hours of Wednesday, March 1, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), was declared the winner of the presidential election. He defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the polls with a total of 8,794,726 votes.
Last Saturday’s election was particularly characterised by the deferred start of the voting exercise at many voting centres, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System’s (BVAS) failure to upload results, violence in parts of the country, intimidation of voters, corruption and incompetence, ballot box-snatching, and impunity conflated with security failures which prevented a smooth exercise nationwide.
INEC, despite having everything it requested for from the Federal Government to prosecute the polls, extremely disappointed Nigerians in several areas. This is very arduous because the elections came at a time of deep economic and social adversity, severe cash crunch, and a general resolve by the 82.7 million voters who collected their permanent voter cards to perform their civic duty.
The chief culprits are the politicians. Sadly, many believe that a free, fair, and credible election in Nigeria entirely depends on INEC. They have the erroneous notion that the commission has all it takes to conduct a hitch-free election, and so, heap all the blame on the electoral body, if anything goes wrong, be it violence orchestrated by political thugs, or low voter turnout. While we do not dispute that much depends on the electoral umpire to deliver a credible election, we do not subscribe to the notion that all depends on it.
To put things in their proper perspectives; a free, fair, and credible election is one in which the electorate is free to make their choices through the ballot without fear, inducement, threat, or intimidation from anyone. In a fair election, all contestants are given a level playing field to compete, without anyone enjoying an undue advantage over the others. And a credible election is one in which the process is steep in transparency, with the result devoid of manipulation, and underhand dealing by critical stakeholders, including INEC.
Despite efforts by the commission and the Federal Government to right past missteps and use technology, daytime curfews, massive deployments of the police and the military, and cash shortages to prevent them from tapping into their stash of billions of naira to sway votes, politicians still managed to undermine votes in some places, compelling INEC to extend voting and collation to Sunday and even Monday.
Local and international observers fear that unless these blunders are corrected to the satisfaction of Nigerians, the outcome could be controversial; further polarising an already marginalised population and adding to the appalling problems the new government will inherit. In many states, the election was raucous despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge to keep the vote free. Hooligans also disrupted voting in some places.
The delay in uploading the election results with the BVAS frustrated many voters, who have taken to social media to express their anger. While many have urged INEC to upload the results to the IRev as quickly as possible, reports reveal that most results of several polling units across the country were not uploaded more than 24 hours later. Regardless of INEC’s claim that the results would not be sabotaged, many speculated that the delay could be a means to tamper with the results.
Security agencies did not help matters. Widespread insecurity across the country threatened the safe conduct of the general elections. The threats from thugs, ballot box snatchers, vote-buyers, and VIPs deploying their aides and security details to suppress voters and subvert the process was observed. To overcome election rigging and violence in Nigeria, there should be more focus on the security agencies than the political parties.
Copious challenges continue to threaten electoral credibility in Nigeria, including internal remonstrances affecting INEC operations and management, as well as numerous external factors such as party primary processes, rampant vote-buying, electoral violence, and the investigation of electoral offences. Consequently, the electoral commission should perfect its IT platform and system.
The commission needs to get its logistics right for the governorship and state legislative houses polls that come up on March 11. Late arrival of personnel and materials, failure of BVAS, and transmission of results should not recur. Voters should not be disenfranchised. Violence should be eschewed and grievances should be channeled to the appropriate authorities such as the law court. Security agencies should be professional in the discharge of their duties.
Security agents must do better this time around. They need to focus heavily on intelligence and preventive measures; identify, track, and pre-emptively neutralise criminals before they can strike. There can be no end to electoral violence as long as the politicians that hire and arm thugs are not arrested, exposed, and prosecuted. Also, Nigerians should also not term anywhere they failed to win to be rigged or manipulated. Afterall, it is secret ballot and the beauty of the system, is that every voter is guaranteed the secrecy of his or her choice. It is only the electoral umpire that is authorized to announce the results after aggregating the individual choices. We only demand that the process should be transparent. Saturday’s outing was below par; Nigerians deserve better performance going forward.
There is every need for peaceful polls in our country. Nigerians should approach elections with devotion, dedication, an open mind and selflessness by ensuring that the nation’s peace and unity are not jeopardised as voters exercise their franchise and pursue their political dreams and aspirations. This way, we can deepen citizens’ faith in our democratic process and minimise the likelihood of electoral violence or fraud. We should be mindful that Nigeria is the only country we have. Therefore, we must play our parts in sustaining peace, unity, and progress.