Saw this on This Day Website and I think it is worth sharing

I almost cried—or should I say tears came to my eyes—last Sunday in Owerri, Imo State. A former colleague of mine had invited me to have a taste of life in his village at the weekend. On our way from the airport, we ran into a slow-moving traffic caused by a convoy that looked like a campaign train. I noticed an unusual excitement on the part of bystanders each time a particular car passed by them. They would scream, wave and shout: “Eze Igbo!” That must be Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, my friend said.

I couldn’t see Ojukwu clearly from the position I was, but I could tell that his side glass was wound down and he was waving to the bystanders as well. Commercial motorcyclists were so excited they turned back and started “escorting” the convoy. When they started making the “kukuruku” sound of the cock, we concluded it was an APGA convoy. Men and women and children—whose parents had probably not been born when Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra in 1967—were all cheering in ecstasy.

“But the impression we get in Lagos is that nobody loves Ojukwu anymore,” I asked my friend who was also a journalist. He laughed.

“That is the view of the elite. As you can see for yourself, this man is a hero of the masses any day. The people just love him,” he replied.

We were no longer worried about the traffic. I was enjoying the spectacle. The last time I witnessed a political rally in flesh was early 1983, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo, then the presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria, made a brief stop-over in my village. We all abandoned our lecture session and rushed out of the classroom in excitement, shouting “Awoooooooo!” That was the last time I saw the sage. I never saw the Great Zik. I never could have seen Sir Ahmadu Bello who was killed in the 1966 coup. Until last Sunday, I had never seen Ojukwu. So it was a major event for me. As I savoured the scene, the roof of another car popped open and up came a very light-skinned man making a V sign. The crowd went into further ecstasy. “Ochudo!” they started shouting. “Ochudo!! Ochudo!!!”
“Wetin be ‘Ochudo’ again?” I asked.

“It means ‘peace maker’. That is the moniker for Chief Martin Agbaso. He’s the governorship candidate of APGA. He’s extremely popular here. To compound matters, the PDP is confused. Up till now, nobody knows the authentic candidate of the PDP in the Imo. I can bet my life that Agbaso will win the governorship overwhelmingly, but…”

“But what?” I asked. I knew where he was going.

“PDP may rig it. You know our country.”

It was at this point that tears came to my eyes. You mean all these people will show such much enthusiasm, run in the sun and in the rain, and expend so much energy over what may eventually be a fruitless exercise, since we have now conceded that rigging is an essential part of our life? Instantly, I remembered a scene during the voters’ registration exercise. With the deadline very close, I drove round a highbrow area in Lagos. There I saw “big” men and women, with their exotic cars parked by the roadside like a showroom, queuing up under the boiling sun. They were sweating as they waited patiently to be registered. I became very emotional. So people can go to this length to get registered, but some evil people will be sitting somewhere and planning nothing but how to rig the elections and waste the sweat of the people? It is very clear that many Nigerians really believe in this country and really want this democracy to work—but some evil people have decided that this country and this democracy must not work. The beauty of democracy is one person, one vote. The beauty of democracy is for people’s votes to count. The beauty of democracy is for the wishes of the majority of people to be fulfilled. Why should we queue up in the sun and register, run up and down in rallies, queue up in the sun to vote, and then the results are cooked up and sexed up in some dark corners by enemies of democracy?

My friend and I decided, out of curiousity, to follow the train wherever it was going to see things for ourselves. The train ended up at Ahiara Mbaise. We learnt Ojukwu was being sent off, having spent almost a week in Imo campaigning for APGA. “Ahiara is symbolic,” my friend said. “That podium there, under that shed, was where Ojukwu made the declaration of the Republic of Biafra in 1967. So you are part of history today!” Ojukwu mounted the podium to speak. The crowd roared. Obviously, he is not as agile as he used to be. He appeared to be visually challenged, judging by his movement on the podium. He spoke in Igbo, and since my understanding of Igbo has not gone beyond “kedu”, I was not part of the excitement. Agbaso, who also spoke in Igbo, often drifted into English. I heard him say: “Never again are we going to open our eyes and allow the PDP to rig. What happened in 2003 will not repeat itself!”

The Action Congress governorship candidate in Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has also been making a similar promise. No more rigging, he has said again and again. To prove his point, he last week alerted INEC on the posting of a blood relation of one of his opponents to be an electoral officer in his opponent’s area. This is improper, he argued. Is Oshiomhole being hypersensitive or is it just politics? I really cannot say, but reports from Edo State suggest that the former NLC president is very much in the lead and if he is not vigilant enough, he may be outsmarted. Edo State, judging by THISDAY’s reports, is there for the taking by Oshiomhole, but… the same issue again. The PDP machinery, it is being alleged, is hell-bent on installing its own candidate as governor, especially with the involvement of all the “fix it” desperadoes who have described the election as “do or die”. I have never hidden my sympathy for the candidature of Oshiomhole—I believe in him very, very much because he represents a rare species of homo sapiens in this society of ours—but that is beside the point. The issue at stake is: how can we ensure that the wishes of the people are not washed away by the rigging merchants? If the people want the PDP, so be it. But the decision must be that of the thumbprint, not of the ballpoint.

Today, I offer what I consider to be tips on how to curb rigging in the coming elections. My tips are not fool-proof. They are certainly not perfect. But I believe very strongly that they are capable of reducing the incidence of rigging. Some factors are beyond our control, especially the behaviour of security agents. But the measures we—that is, voters, candidates, media and the general public—adopt are capable of addressing the basic issues related to rigging elections. Here we go.

Come Out En Masse to Vote
Rigging is very easy when people do not come out to vote. If 100 voters are registered in a ward and only 10 people come out to vote, it is very easy to “fill in the gap”. So people must show more than a passing interest in the elections. They must come out. Thankfully, INEC has chosen to adopt the modified open-secret ballot system. This means voters will be accredited within a particular time frame. Then voting will be done simultaneously across the country. Voters will wait behind and witness the counting of the votes. Results will be announced on the spot. That means at a particular point in time, everybody has the results in his or her polling centre. This is very good. Caution: voters must make sure their names are in the voters’ register. They must endeavour to check this out when the registers are put on display this week. Names of members of some opposition parties were conspicuously missing in 2003, and they were disenfranchised as a result. That is scientific rigging.

Vigilance: The Kano 2003 Example
In 2003, the people of Kano State were not only ready to vote, they were more than ready to protect their votes. The PDP candidate, Alhaji Musa Rabiu Kwakwanso, had lost to the ANPP candidate, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau. However, as the case was in most parts of the country, the PDP wanted to change the results. INEC kept dragging its feet in order to allow for the alteration of the results. But the people were battle ready. There was fire in their eyes and their words were really clear: rig this election and face the wrath of the dagger and petrol. For once, the ruling party was humiliated as INEC was forced to announce the real results. A similar scenario played out in Lagos. The voters must vote, wait for the vote to be counted and be cocksure that they protect their votes. Caution: no politician is worth dying for; stay alive as much as possible.

The Peter Obi Strategy
Peter Obi won his case at the Election Petition Tribunal through a very simple process. He kept the result sheets, endorsed by all the parties’ agents and INEC officials in all the wards of the state. The results that were announced by INEC were written inside somebody’s bedroom. Obi simply argued that the genuine results were not announced. A handwriting expert came to testify in court that indeed, the result sheets tendered in court by INEC and PDP were forged as the handwritings were very similar. By keeping every result sheet endorsed by every party’s agent at the polling centres, the candidates will have a key evidence to show at the tribunal in the event of rigging. Caution: make sure your agents are trustworthy, loyal and well-motivated so that they will not collaborate with your opponents to sign fake result sheets.

Smile, You’re on Camera
Rigging is very high at collation centres. That is usually where the figures are inflated and deflated. Candidates should work together to get the collation recorded on video. Let the rigging be captured live! Camera phones can come handy. Almost everybody has camera phones nowadays, so it will not be difficult to capture these moments for posterity. At every stage of the electoral process, people must capture the actions on video: announcement of results, collation and so on. Caution: the rigging cliques may make sure INEC does not allow the use of recording devices. I will not be surprised if INEC, after reading this, places a ban on the use of video recorders at the centres.

Whatever the case may be, I wish my dearly beloved Nigeria all the best!

Written By Simon Kolawole http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=74432