Surprise, stalemate, squeaker

No one expected supplementary elections arising from six inconclusive governorship elections to pass without drama. In the event, we got more than that. Two of the supplementary elections were concluded at the weekend without too much drama. In Plateau State, APC’s Governor Simon Bako Lalong was re-elected after defeating PDP’s high-profile candidate Lt General Jeremiah […]

No one expected supplementary elections arising from six inconclusive governorship elections to pass without drama. In the event, we got more than that. Two of the supplementary elections were concluded at the weekend without too much drama. In Plateau State, APC’s Governor Simon Bako Lalong was re-elected after defeating PDP’s high-profile candidate Lt General Jeremiah Useni by 595,582 votes to 546,813. Lalong’s 45,000 vote lead in the March 9 election slightly increased after the supplementary election. The two parties are almost evenly matched in Plateau State, PDP having won the February 23 presidential poll. Governor Lalong must be glancing over his political shoulder.

Benue State’s governorship race was also concluded yesterday without too much ado. Governor Samuel Ortom of PDP, who defected from APC two years ago, won a second term with 434,473 votes after Saturday’s supplementary election to APC candidate Emmanuel Jime’s 345,155. It was always an uphill task for Jime to catch up with Ortom, who had an 81,000-vote lead from the first election. In fact, APC’s showing in Benue was quite impressive given the poisonous political atmosphere occasioned by the farmers/herders’ clashes. Ortom, whose first years in office were beset with political and labour troubles, saw an opportunity, banned open air cattle grazing, defected to PDP and rode on that issue to victory.

Two of the six governorship elections are still stalemated. In Adamawa, INEC could not proceed with the supplementary poll because the non-descript Movement of Restoration for Defence of Democracy [MRPD] obtained a court order to stop it. It said its logo was altered on the March 9 election ballot paper. The court order was a much-needed breather for APC’s Governor Muhammed Jibrilla Bindow, who has an uphill task closing the gap of 32,000 between himself and PDP’s Ahmadu Umar Fintiri among only 40,000 cancelled votes. Whether the courts will void the whole election on account of MRPD’s logo or allow the supplementary poll to go ahead, remains to be seen.

Bauchi’s case was even more convoluted. On March 9, PDP’s candidate Abdulkadir Bala Mohammed led APC’s Governor Mohamed Abubakar by 26,000 votes. That was even after the Returning Officer rejected results from Tafawa Balewa Local Government, which the LGA’s collation officer said were genuine but were presented on an alternate piece of paper because thugs snatched and tore the original result sheets. After it sent a team to investigate the matter, INEC later reversed the decision and ordered Tafawa Balewa results to be collated. This would have increased Bala Mohammed’s margin by 11,000 votes, so Abubakar got a court order to suspend the collation. Meanwhile, supplementary elections in the non- affected areas went ahead last Saturday in 36 polling units in 15 LGAs. As it happened, PDP won those polls with 6,376 votes against APC’s 5,117 but until the Tafawa Balewa LG results are either collated or there is a rerun, no winner can be declared.

In Sokoto meanwhile, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of PDP won the election by the slimmest of margins. Though he lost the supplementary election by 3,000 votes to APC’s Ahmed Aliyu, his former deputy, Tambuwal’s 3,400 margin from March 9 enabled him to win by 341 votes, a squeaker if ever there is one. Though it was a very tough contest between Tambuwal and his former mentor Senator Aliyu Wamakko, there was almost no violence or other untoward events, only a little drama when it was said the governor relocated to Kuchi village in Kebbe Local Government, the clincher LGA.

Kano State, however, was something else. No one expected the supplementary election in Kano to be a dinner party, to borrow from Chairman Mao’s old phrase. However, the sum total of frantic newspaper stories coming out of Kano last Saturday, dazed radio reports, horrific television pictures, bloody videos on the social media, damning reports by election observers and reports that reporters were chased away and cameras were smashed all suggested that something untoward happened. It was anywhere between incredulous and outrageous. Hundreds of thugs armed with clubs, knives and cudgels were said to have taken over polling stations especially in the all-important Gama Ward of Nasarawa Local Government, which had one third of the supplementary election voters. Remarkably, the police stood akimbo even though a Deputy Inspector General came in and swept aside the Police Commissioner. Allegations of Trump/Russia-type collusion soon filled the airwaves.

The declared results from the polling units strongly suggest that there was vote suppression. Only two weeks earlier, Kano had the most competitive election in Nigeria where there was a gap of only 26,000 votes between the two top parties in two million votes cast. On the other hand, results of the supplementary poll were some of the most skewed I have ever seen. PDP’s candidate Abba Kabir Yusuf scored paltry votes in most polling units whereas Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje scored high figures. The 45,876 votes Ganduje got in the supplementary election, versus Abba Yusuf’s 10,239, neatly erased the latter’s 26,000 lead and ensured Ganduje’s victory. This is not impossible in politics, except that nothing happened in the state’s politics in two weeks to account for the drastic change in perceptions. Unfortunately, allegations that thugs ruled the polling units and efficiently delivered on vote suppression appeared to be buttressed by the final results.

I would be personally unhappy if this event, together with the pictures and videos, come to define the 2019 elections. I would also be unhappy if it changes another given in Nigerian politics. Up until last Saturday, Kano and Lagos were always thought to conduct the most credible elections in Nigeria, most probably because of their highly cosmopolitan character. Even in 1983, when NPN was thought to have railroaded its way all over the place, Kano election results were quite credible. President Shehu Shagari managed to get 33% of the vote in Kano, behind PRP’s emergency presidential candidate Khalifa Hassan Yusuf who got 38%. NPP candidate Dr. Azikiwe, who was backed by Abubakar Rimi’s PRP Santsi faction, got 22% of the vote. What amazed me at the time was that in the governorship election, Alhaji Sabo Bakin Zuwo’s vote and Abubakar Rimi’s together nearly equaled the united PRP’s vote in the state in 1979.

Kano again caused political amazement in 1991 when, despite SDP’s sweeping win of the 1990 local government elections, it elected the NRC candidate Kabiru Gaya as governor, most likely due to a split in SDP’s ranks. It didn’t end there; in 2003 when PDP was throwing out opposition parties’ governors in Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi and Gombe, its governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso was defeated in Kano by ANPP’s Malam Ibrahim Shekarau. Kano State also taught others the art of political turn around when, in 2011, it overwhelmingly voted against PDP’s presidential candidate President Goodluck Jonathan, only to turn around a week later and elect the PDP candidate Kwankwaso as governor. Which was why what Kano did earlier this year was not a novelty for it, voting heavily for Buhari on February 23 and for PDP on March 9.

Lagos State might have exited the club already. In the March 9 governorship elections, it was noticeable that PDP’s votes shrunk by two thirds from the presidential election while APC’s votes held steady. Maybe there are better explanations but I read some pundits saying Lagos Igbos refrained from voting because thugs loyal to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu attacked their quarters after the presidential election and warned them not to meddle in the state’s choice of its governor.

The two-member League of Rig-Proof States might now be declared vacant if indeed Kanexit occurred at the weekend. The task at hand is for INEC to speedily and transparently conclude the Bauchi and Adamawa governorship polls so that we will put the 2019 election experience behind us, with its combined sweet and sour taste in the liberal democratic mouth.