Bayelsa guber: How stakeholders’ meeting ended in crisis

A stakeholders meeting organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Bayelsa State ended abruptly on Wednesday following a comment by the chairman of the Bayelsa Elders Forum, Dr. Francis Doukpolagha,  a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Doukpolagha had said, “We are busy talking about the 2015 elections and we forgot that we […]

A stakeholders meeting organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Bayelsa State ended abruptly on Wednesday following a comment by the chairman of the Bayelsa Elders Forum, Dr. Francis Doukpolagha,  a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Doukpolagha had said, “We are busy talking about the 2015 elections and we forgot that we had elections in 2019. The presidential and National Assembly elections in the state were one of the worst organised by the INEC.

“Because of the elections, part of a community is living in an internally displaced persons’ camp because they do not belong to a particular party. And the INEC has not done anything about it. I am talking of the people of Nembe Bassambiri.”

Doukpolagha was still talking when Dr. Dennis Otiotio, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) shouted him down, saying the PDP chieftain was lying. Others joined him in saying that elders like him were destroying the state by not playing a neutral role.

This led to commotion despite the presence of the combined team of security operatives, and subsequently, the meeting ended and the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu and other dignitaries, including heads of security agencies, hurriedly left the venue of the programme.

Commenting on the incident, the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, said that despite the disruption, the meeting was successful and achieved its aims.

“As you can see, all the other activities were successful. It was during the last item on the agenda that the disagreement broke out,” Oyekanmi said.

Police deploy 30,000 personnel

Before the disruption, the police said it would deploy over 30,000 policemen for the November 16 election in Bayelsa.

Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu, represented by DIG Operations, Abdulmajid Ali said, “We have made adequate deployment for the election. We are deploying no less than 30,000 policemen, including other security agencies. It is our responsibility to protect the people, INEC officials and election materials.”

He warned politicians against utterances that could lead to a breach of peace during the electioneering period.

“Campaigns must be done according to rules and regulations. We will provide an enabling environment for all the aspirants. We are also aware that some people are planning to wear police uniforms. I can tell you that it will be met with strict resistance,” he said.

Speaking earlier, the INEC chairman warned that the commission would no longer tolerate attacks on its officials.

“We want to remind candidates and their supporters that attacks on officials of the commission will this time attract severe sanctions. It has happened before where we refused candidates who attacked our staff their Certificates of Return.

“In one of such cases, the court ordered that we give the candidate his Certificate of Return, and as a respecter of court orders, we did.  But we are determined to follow the matter to the Supreme Court to ensure that the matter is decided once and for all,” Yakubu said.

A day earlier, the INEC chairman had visited some local governments and held interactive sessions with members of the Bayelsa Traditional Rulers Council. It was part of a series of activities to ensure the success of the November 16 election.

According to him, in addition to the governorship election, the INEC would be concluding the Brass II state constituency election on the same day.

He said, “We are going to engage over 10,000 young Nigerians in all local governments. We are concerned about the mobilisation of armed persons to the voting and collation centres as we experienced in previous elections.”

Yakubu commended traditional rulers for their continuous support to the INEC, including the mobilisation of their subjects to register and collect their permanent voter cards, as well as advocacy for peaceful elections. He urged them to continue with the advocacy for peaceful elections.

He also assured that the commission would maintain its neutrality in the electoral process.

“The INEC is not a political party. It doesn’t have any candidate in the governorship election. The choice of who becomes the next governor rests entirely in the hands of the people of Bayelsa. We have delivered all the non-sensitive election materials in Bayelsa.

“We have made funds available to the Resident Electoral Commissioner for the administration of the election. We have no problem whatsoever with that. We will deploy straight from our office in Yenagoa to registration areas to make it faster for us to open polling units at 8 am.”

Speaking earlier, the chairman of traditional rulers in the state, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, said they would continue to support the INEC.

He also expressed concern about the deployment of huge military officers for elections and urged the security agency to control its men.

Meanwhile, political parties participating in the November 16 governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa have been given a November 2 deadline to submit names of their polling agents.

The INEC chairman said the law required political parties to submit their list of polling agents two weeks before the election, at their local government offices.

“We received complaints in previous elections that security agents turned away their agents from the polling units and collation centres. This is simply because you did not submit their list and we did not accredit them,” Yakubu said.

In another meeting with its members of staff, INEC warned electoral officers in Bayelsa State against shortchanging ad hoc staff, saying they should be transparent in paying their entitlements.

“We have received several complaints, not necessarily on Bayelsa but in several places, about ad hoc staff being shortchanged. We know exactly what each ad hoc staff at every level is entitled to.

“We have decided that each ad hoc staff will get a letter of appointment, stating the details of the functions, entitlements and a procedure for complaint. In that way, everybody will know what he or she is entitled to.

“What that means is that electoral officers and others who have to pay ad hoc staff must be transparent because they know what they are entitled to. What will be embarrassing is for us to complete the election and hear in the news that ad hoc staff are demonstrating about their pay,” an INEC national commissioner, Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, said.

Speaking further he said, “The commission has decided that the voter registry would be prepared for every collation centre, the number of registered voters. It is going to come in the form of a table. It is from that table that he or she will extract the number of registered voters for each polling unit. The same thing will happen at the local government level, and so on.’’

He said this was critical because if there’s an error in compiling the voter register, it would be aggregated until it gets to the state level, which the commission wants to avoid.

He, therefore, called for effective collaboration among members of staff to ensure the success of the election.