IN SPITE OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY ELECTORAL MALPRACTICES DOMINATED EKITI GUBER ELECTIONS!


The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), developed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) celebrated its best outing at the just concluded Ekiti Governorship elections on Saturday 18th June 2022 and as a result, collation/counting was accelerated to produce an All Progressives Congress (APC) winner in the early hours of the following day!

Prior to Ekiti, the electoral body had deployed BVAS to Delta and Anambra States in the year 2021 and also to Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in February 2022 in conduct of their constituency, gubernatorial and the Area Council elections respectively. Although the machines performed optimally, complaints from the electorate revealed that some voters experienced delays through malfunctioning. However the Ekiti performance surpassed all expectations.

Thanks to the landmark Presidential assent of the Electoral Amendment Bill of 24th February 2022 which gave more powers to INEC to carry out professional innovations that will improve the electoral process in Nigeria with technology. In time past the legislative arm had brazenly encroached to usurp the CONSTITUTIONAL powers of the Commission in respect of Electoral Time Table and also the Electronic Transmission of Election Results from Wards to INEC Servers at the various State Headquarters!

The coming on board of the Electoral Act 2022 was a divine Intervention which has removed all short comings and discrepancies of the former 2010 Electoral Act!
CLAUSE 3 (3) OF THE ACT PROVIDES THAT ALL FUNDING REQUIRED FOR A GENERAL ELECTION IS RELEASED NOT LATER THAN ONE YEAR BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTIONS IN ORDER TO PREPARE THE ELECTORAL BODY TO WORK ON LOGISTICS WELL IN ADVANCE OF SUCH ELECTIONS!

The Executive arm of government which had always played the role of the Piper will henceforth through the new Electoral Act relinquished its financial power of appropriation of funds to INEC and place the Commission on FIRST LINE CHARGE in order that it may collect approved funds as at when due without delay to advance preparations of elections.

This year 2022, INEC presented a budget of ₦GN305 billion naira for the 2023 General Elections to the National Assembly out of which it has collected and advance of ₦GN140 billion. BIVAS which now replaces the Smart Card Readers is a transition from the analogue Incident Forms to technology-driven voting process, elimination of multiple voting and ballot box snatching as it ensures speedy electronic transmission of election results from Wards to Local Government Areas and eventually to INEC Servers at the State Headquarters.

Article 50 of the Electoral Act also granted INEC the authority to decide whether election results were transmitted electronically or manually as an independent body.

VOTERS APATHY WAS NOT NOTICED AT EKITI ELECTION.
Political commentators anticipated that there could be voter apathy in the Ekiti election due to the mass shootings of 5th June, 2022, which occurred at a Catholic Church in the city of Owo, Ondo State, which share common boundary with Ekiti State. In the attack, not less than 22 people were killed and about 18 injured during the Sunday worship service!

The election witnessed not less than 75% of voters turnout and the success was adduced to assurance of the safety for participants by the out-going Governor and law enforcement agencies through the deployment of 17,000 security operatives including the EFCC and the Electoral Umpire which promised free, fair, credible, crime-free and peaceful elections. However agents of parties that lost the election claimed that designated polling centres were turned into vote-buying centres and true to that allegation, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), operatives were reported to have arrested some people including five women who were caught in the act of selling their votes.

ASIWAJU AHMED TINUBU ENCOURAGED VOTE-BUYING IN EKITI WHEN HE SAID IN YORUBA: (“TOO BA TEKA, WAA TOWO”) MEANING: EACH THUMB PRINT FOR APC WOULD ATTRACT INSTANT CASH BENEFIT!
Agents of the All Progressives Congress (APC), allegedly bought votes at ₦GN 10,000 naira while Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), paid ₦GN5, 000, and Social Democratic Party (SDP), paid NGN3000!
SERAP CONFIRMS VOTE-BUYING ALLEGATIONS AT EKITI GOVERNORSHIP ELECTIONS AND THREATENS TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION IF INEC DOES NOT TAKE MEASURES TO PROSECUTE THOSE ARRESTED WITHIN SEVEN DAYS (20-26 June 2022)!
It is now in public domain that Vote buying actually took place during the just concluded Ekiti Governorship election according to Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a credible social critic organisation that has engaged government at both federal and state levels over fraudulent practices and has won several cases in court over the years.

In a letter to INEC, SERAP urged the Electoral Umpire to probe/prosecute allegations of financial inducement by the three Parties mentioned earlier, including criminal acts of intimidation and ballot box snatching without delay and bring to justice anyone who sponsored, aided and abated them. The group also said that wealthy candidates and their sponsors should not be allowed to profit from their crimes through impunity as it is widely believed in Nigeria that crime perpetrators were rarely brought to justice! SERAP also disclosed that negotiations for prices and payments as well as bags of food stuff shared after the votes were cast happened under the watch of INEC adding that it was time to end the buying of democracy by wealthy politicians and their sponsors.
The letter also claimed other electoral malpractices as follows:
“Agents of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), were reportedly involved in buying votes across the state.”
“According to reports agents of three parties in Ward 007, PU 001, Ado LGA offered voters as high as ₦GN10,000 in exchange for their votes” “There are also several reports of ballot box snatching including in polling units with codes 13/05/06/005 and 007 in Ilawe Ward IV, near Saint Patrick's School.”
INEC was reminded that bribery and other offences undermined its ability to discharge its responsibilities under Section 153 of the 1999 Constitution as amended and the Electoral Act 2022.

WILL INEC PASS THE LITMUS TEST?
It is on record that in March 2017, lNEC issued 202 queries to his staff members in connection with election malpractices in response to the interim EFCC report covering election in 16 States! According to INEC Chairman those who were charged Court for such were interdicted and placed on half salary until proven innocent.

In March 2021 a High Court in Akwa Ibom State sentenced a Nigerian Professor Peter Ogbani to three years in prison for election fraud. The court which found the Professor of Soil Science, University of Calabar and a returning officer in the 2019 general elections in Akwa Ibom north-west district, also found him guilty of fraudulent manipulation of election results publishing and announcing of false results to pay 100,000 Naira fine.

Another Professor Ignatius Uduk of Human Kinetics in the Department of Physical and Health Education University of Uyo was also charged for election fraud in Akwa Ibom State in 2019 and also for lying under oath.
IT WAS THE FIRST TIME INEC PROSECUTED PROFESSORS FOR ELECTORAL FRAUD! WILL THE CHAIRMAN PROSECUTE THE EKITI SUSPECTS AS DEMANDED BY SERAP?
Time will definitely tell as Nigerian citizens and the electorate are watching the activities of this electoral umpire with keen interest as we look forward to THE UNICAMERAL PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUTION with which INEC will conduct the 2023 General Elections to ELECT A PRIME MINISTER AND NOT A PRESIDENT FOR NIGERIA!

The true INDEPENDENT dividends gained by the Electoral Commission through the 2022 Electoral Act should be utilised to conduct flawless Governorship Election in Osun State (16th July 2022), and the entire country in 2023 and beyond!


[WATCH OUT FOR A NIGERIAN PRIME MINISTER – NOT A PRESIDENT IN 2023!]



I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon, 08130669886, 08080243066. g-mail-dvdolufon@gmail.

No malpractice cos the new tech was deployed worked perfectly. If you had said a lot of them sold out their conscience I'd have agreed with you

Funny!

We are progressing malpractice is better than total rigging,no one is talking of rigging at ekiti polls only vote buying now , I think now it still for the electroate to decide to sell or not.

If only the citizens of this country can now read in-between the line and see that the power to choose a leader is now truly in their hands. The only thing, they urgently need to do is to stop selling their votes and vote consciously for a candidate of their choice. Rigging by dubiously writing results regardless of who truly won the election is gradually facing out. What is coming onboard is rigging by vote buying and the solution to this, is the function of the electorates and not the contestants.

Ekiti State had more than 900,000 registered voters while 300,000+ were accredited and we are told by the writer that we had 75% voter turn out.

Junk reporting as usual.

The election witnessed not less than 75% of voters turnout and the success was adduced to assurance of the safety for participants by the out-going Governor and law enforcement agencies through the deployment of 17,000 security operatives including the EFCC and the Electoral Umpire which promised free, fair, credible, crime-free and peaceful elections