Rivers’ abracadabra and INEC’s deafening
silence
APRIL

That the results of the presidential election were
allegedly manipulated in Rivers State was not
completely a surprise to many. What were
surprising was the clinical scale of the act and the
stupendous audacity of its perpetrators. I was
there and saw things for myself. It happened as
though it was a well-planned, well-funded and
rehearsed endeavour. I wonder why other political
parties like the All Progressives Congress did not
see them coming.
Now let me say that the President might have won
the majority of votes in many South-South states
including Rivers if the elections in these states
were free and fair. I would have been surprised if
he did not. He was quite popular down there due to
the sentiments that he is “our brother.” Many of
the pre-election opinion polls that I saw said so
too. However, everyone knowledgeable about the
politics of the state knows that he could not have
got 1.4 million votes and for Muhammadu Buhari to
have scored less than 20,000 votes. The votes
were simply not there. The almost two million
votes were not there in 2011 and with the card
readers, one would have expected far less. Even if
one assumes that only registered members of the
APC will vote for their presidential candidate, then
the number of votes should have been at least up
to 400,000. Even those who allegedly manipulated
the election did not take that into consideration.
I had the opportunity to move around Rivers State
observing many polling units and also received
feedback from other areas where I could not visit
personally. I must say that what happened in
Rivers State on April 28 was a clear mockery of
the electoral process. This is a view shared by
many journalists and observers who visited the
state. Granted, it may not be a sufficient basis to
nullify the overall results, however, other positions
in the National Assembly were equally affected.
That election was a referendum on the desperation
of the President and his ruling Peoples Democratic
Party. How is it possible that the APC could lose all
the three Senate seats, 13 slots for House of
Representatives in the state?
For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that I
observed four layers of the manipulation. The first
is the deliberate denial of security for the staff of
INEC carrying sensitive electoral materials. The
second is the unavailability, late arrival and
diversion of electoral materials especially the
result sheets. The third is the dysfunctionality of
the card reading machines. The fourth is the
seamless cooperation of electoral officers in all the
local governments in the state.
In many of the local governments in the state,
there was scanty security for the INEC officers.
That made them vulnerable to attacks by hoodlums
who freely attacked them and took away their
materials. Many of them were attacked and
hapless voters were killed in Tai and Omoku. In
many riverine local governments, some of the
INEC officials refused to go to their duty posts
because the police declined to provide them
security. I was at St. Martins’ Primary School
Omagwa where I met electoral officials who were
attacked at Ward 11 at Ozuoha in Ikwerre Local
Government. Before the attack, they were being
escorted by just one unarmed civil defence
personnel. It was easy to overpower him and beat
him up. The security personnel reported that the
hoodlums forced them back, claiming that the
elections had already held.
In many polling stations, there was general
unavailability of result sheets. Now there is an
argument out there that the elections can go on
even if the materials are not complete. This is a
point that only INEC can clarify. The suspicion that
many of the result sheets were allegedly diverted
to the houses of prominent politicians might have
triggered the boycott of the elections by other
political parties in the state apart from the PDP.
Many people have come out to criticise the boycott
but my position is that for the sake of
transparency, all electoral materials ought to have
been displayed at the polling units before all the
party agents before resuming the accreditation.
Many informed commentators argue that there is
no reason to keep away any of the electoral
materials except to facilitate manipulation.
Now for the widespread failure of the card readers,
my feeling is that it was more due to calculated
sabotage than technology failure. Many of the card
readers were neither charged nor configured for
use. Some of them were removed before they
could arrive the designated polling units. Part of the
plot was to ensure that accreditation was done
manually so that cooking of the outcome could be a
lot easier.
The fourth aspect of the observed manipulation
was the use of card carrying members of a political
party as majority of INEC ad hoc staff and the
alleged bribery of the officials. What I saw is that
many of the INEC officials on the ground were
surprisingly helpless and cooperative with those
who came to spoil their work. I went away with an
ugly impression about INEC and I was shocked
that the results of the state were accepted without
thoroughly investigating these allegations. I make
no conclusions here but all the issues I raised here
are easy to verify. INEC has a burden to do so and
make its findings known. It should do so fast
enough so that precautionary measures can be
taken in the April 11 governorship election.

As if any party is better than the other. Let APC swear that they also did not do wuruwuru. Shior, this is a dance between two leppers. No one holly pass.