Polls: The day a soldier pointed gun at me

It all began like a child’s play when I was assigned to cover elections in Kwara state. I never realised the challenging task ahead of me because I thought it was going to be like my normal routine news coverage.   Setting out for the election monitoring was the first junction I got a glimpse […]

It all began like a child’s play when I was assigned to cover elections in Kwara state. I never realised the challenging task ahead of me because I thought it was going to be like my normal routine news coverage.

 

Setting out for the election monitoring was the first junction I got a glimpse of things to come because of the difficult terrain in some local governments of the state.

My first assignment was getting to know most of the villages in the state and to get people’s opinion on the election having been postponed twice.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to get people to speak with except for few children playing around the village while the adult were said to have gone to farm.

My findings before the election pointed to something fishy because I discovered that the farther and smaller a village is the higher the number of votes there. Finding explanation for this is like the proverbial abrakadabra; the more you see the less you understand. The more I dug for facts the more confusing it got.

In the course of the coverage, I discovered that most of the political parties had perfected their winning tactics long before Election Day. One of those strategies they used to corner extra votes was during the voter’s registration exercise when, as I gathered, some of them transported eligible voters to villages to register.

These same set of people were transported to those local governments to, not only vote but to as well rig the elections to their favour. One of such people who confided in me disclosed that he voted six times.

In one of my outings to cover the election, I was informed of a plot to use the Fulani people to rig the election. I followed up the information and discovered to my amazement, some vehicles loaded with electorate who were seen escorted by a police van to some villages in the state and each of those vehicles stopped at one village for the people to vote and be conveyed back.

Agents of opposition political parties were harassed, tortured and dealt with by security men. While many of these agents were locked up, some were later released after mission was accomplished. Many fake security men were intercepted. I personally stumbled on a fake security men’s vehicle where they were changing their uniforms while warning each other not to enter into town with it in order not to be detected.

However, all these were child’s play compared to my next experience. I realized how risky this job could get when a security guy pointed a gun at me saying I must surrender my camera or play what I had recorded for him to ascertain or else, he would pull the trigger. Gallantly, I told him to do his worst but he couldn’t. I defiantly challenged him to call whoever gave him the gun and also sent him to work before I could show him what I had recorded.

I also witnessed number of quarrels settled between con party agents and deluded electorate over unfulfilled promises to electorate who ignorantly sold their votes. One of the aggrieved men explained to me thus, “We intended voting for another party but they convinced us to vote for a particular one and promised to give us money but the supervisor ran away with our money after voting,” said spokesperson of the group of swindled electorate in Ogele area of Asa local government. My heart bled because they don’t understand what is at stake.

The most painful of my experiences is observing the way and manner old people were treated. Many of them were forced to do things against their wish because of their low level of education. Many could not identify their party of interest’s logo and relied on someone to thumb print for them.

I moved to where there were arguments on who to assist some aged people to thumb print. Some of them said “I don’t want the person they asked to come and help me to identify the party logo because I know he has collected money from another party and I believe he will mislead me”. He further explained that a woman mistook him for a party agent and thanked him for giving her money to vote saying, “thank you my husband, the little money you gave me will last me for another two days to eat.”

Finally, some of the villagers who had sold their votes thought I can help with my pen and paper and therefore, gave me a message to government. They said they don’t have secondary schools in their villages for their children and pleaded with me to assist in convincing government to build a school for them in their village because they have voted for them.

In my mind I asked if Nigerians are truly ready for a change because the old ways of doing things still remain while orientation and education of electorate is still very low.