Tales of a veteran voter

The first election I knew in Nigeria was the first-ever election to elect local government chairmen and councillors on a non-party basis in 1976. This followed that year’s local government reforms that replaced traditional rulers as heads of Native Authorities. I was locked in my secondary school student hostel on that day but stories kept […]

The first election I knew in Nigeria was the first-ever election to elect local government chairmen and councillors on a non-party basis in 1976. This followed that year’s local government reforms that replaced traditional rulers as heads of Native Authorities. I was locked in my secondary school student hostel on that day but stories kept filtering into our dormitories. Among the big upsets in that election was the defeat of First Republic Defence Minister Alhaji Inuwa Wada in a councillorship race in Kano.
I voted for the first time in Nigerian elections in 1979 even though I was just short of the voting age. When the Federal Electoral Commission [FEDECO] was doing the registration of voters in 1978 it said even if you are not 18 but will be 18 by the time of the election you should register, so I registered. At that time no one knew the election date so it was not my fault that they fixed a date before I turned 18.
The 1979 general elections were heralded by saturation voter education. FEDECO’s hyper-efficient Federal Commissioner for Information was the great journalist Alhaji Alade Odunewu, alias Allah-de. He made maximum use of the radio, television and the newspaper. Even without Odunewu the five registered political parties of the Second Republic were the most efficient mobilisers even seen in Nigeria. One academic at the time accused them of “over-mobilising” Nigerians. There was almost no one in Nigeria who didn’t support a party. There were endless stories of husbands divorcing wives, fathers-in-law taking away their daughters, landlords ejecting tenants, employers firing employees and customers no longer buying from traders all because of party differences.
 There were five elections in 1979 for Senate [July 7], House o Representatives [July 14], State Assemblies [July 21], Governors [July 28] and Presidential [August 11]. On each of those days I went to the makeshift polling station at Abuja Road in Sokoto, showed my voter’s card to the presiding officer, was given a ballot paper to go inside a small room and vote, then came out and dropped the ballot paper in a wooden box. In most cases people voted strictly along party lines; most voters did not know who the senatorial, Reps or state assembly candidates were. The only real upset in 1979 was PRP’s Balarabe Musa winning the governorship of Kaduna State even though NPN won the other four elections in the state.
Things were different in 1983. Unlike in 1979 when a neutral military government supervised the elections, NPN controlled the Federal Government in 1983 and FEDECO then headed by Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey was widely seen to be doing NPN’s bidding. For example FEDECO refused to register the Progressive Peoples Party [PPP], a merger of UPN, GNPP and PRP factions. Instead it registered Dr. Tunji Braithwaite’s tiny Nigeria Advance Party [NAP] because NPN hoped it will take away some Lagos votes from UPN.  FEDECO also forced opposition governors Abubakar Rimi and Abubakar Barde to resign their governorships for decamping to other parties. The police, then  headed by Inspector General Sunday Adewusi was openly partisan; Borno State Police Commissioner Tahiru Jidda refused to allow Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe to hold a rally in Maiduguri. Anyway, when I went to the polls in 1983 I found that a vote had already been cast in my name though the presiding officer gave me a ballot paper with someone else’s name.
In 1987 the Babangida regime held non-party local council elections. The National Electoral Commission [NEC] was then headed by Professor Eme Awa. I voted in that election at the Low Cost Housing Estate in Sokoto but the man I voted for finished third. The next local government election took place in December 1990, this time under the parties NRC and SDP. By then NEC under Prof Humphrey Nwosu had introduced the controversial open ballot method of voting. Citizen magazine even did a cover story, “Open ballot, open trouble.”
As a reporter for Citizen I observed the party primaries in Kaduna town. It was chaotic; voters queued up behind agents of candidates. The main election followed a similar pattern with voters queuing up behind party agents. Later that evening I witnessed a fight in a compound in Badarawa, Kaduna when an NRC agent went to collect her money back from a woman who received N50 and soap to vote for NRC but was seen in the SDP queue.
The following year in December 1991 elections were held for governors and state legislators under NRC and SDP. Again it was open ballot. I did not vote but I monitored those polls for Citizen magazine in Sokoto. The most noticeable aspect of those elections was that except for active politicians, middle and upper class voters generally stayed away from them due to open ballot.
Six months later in June 1992 the Babangida regime organised National Assembly elections. I was living at Kabala Costain, Kaduna at the time and I went to vote. I joined one queue behind a party agent. That election took place soon after the Zangon Kataf massacre. Inter-communal tensions were high and the queues were strictly sectarian. While women in hijabs made up most of the NRC queue, non-Muslims made up the SDP queue.
After that election came the party presidential primaries. The two parties were forced by Nwosu’s NEC to do staggered direct primary elections. Party members all over the country voted; it was more or less like a general election. There were 30 states then and six states voted at a time. It was also open ballot, leading to much fighting. If supporters of a candidate saw that he was losing they started a fight that disrupted the whole exercise. General Shehu Yarádua won the SDP primaries while the NRC race was going into a runoff between Adamu Ciroma and Umaru Shinkafi. At that point IBB struck, cancelled the primaries, sacked the party chairmen [Tom Ikimi and Babagana Kingibe] and banned 23 leading presidential candidates in both parties including Yar’adua, Ciroma, Shinkafi, Olu Falae, Lai Balogun, Olabiyi Durojaiye, Lateef Jakande, Bamanga Tukur, Sola Saraki, Mahmud Waziri and Sarah Jibril.
In early 1993 the parties held new presidential primaries under a new system evolved by Nwosu called Option A4. Each state was required to produce one aspirant through direct primaries who will then go and contest against other states’ “favourite sons” at the national convention. SDP’s was held in Jos and NRC’s was held in Port Harcourt. I reported from the latter for Citizen magazine. The three candidates that emerged after the first round in Port Harcourt were Bashir Tofa, Joe Nwodo and Pere Ajuwa. The latter two withdrew for Tofa before the run off. In Jos Moshood Abiola, Babagana Kingibe and Atiku Abubakar emerged after the first round. Atiku pulled out before the runoff vote and Abiola managed to defeat Kingibe who he then picked as running mate, the so-called “Muslim-Muslim ticket.”
Then came the June 12, 1993 election by modified open ballot which is similar to the system in use today. Because it was no longer open ballot I voted at Kabala. Voting was orderly and the result was declared at every polling unit.  By Monday results of most states had been declared and compiled when Abuja Chief Judge Dahiru Saleh stopped the counting and IBB later annulled the entire election.
The next election after that took place in December 1996 for local government councils. The five registered parties UNCP, DPM, CPC, GDM fielded candidates. I did not bother to vote in that election after Chief Bola Ige described the five parties as “the five fingers of a leprous hand.” Abacha then kept suspending election dates under his transition program but allowed state assembly elections to hold in December 1997. I again refrained from voting. In April 1998 elections were held to elect members of the National Assembly under the five Abacha parties. I did not vote due to lack of confidence in that program. Before governorship primaries could be held, Abacha died and things started from the beginning.
In December 1998 local council elections were held in which three registered parties PDP, APP and AD fielded candidates. I voted at Unguwar Dosa, Kaduna in that election but my candidate lost. The three parties then held gubernatorial primaries in December 1998 followed by governorship and state assembly elections in January 1999. Presidential and national assembly elections were held the following month. I voted in all those elections at Unguwar Dosa. Of all the candidates I voted for, only the governor won.
I also voted in all the general elections of 2003 and 2007 at Maska Road, Kaduna. The latter election had a particularly long ballot paper with many parties that somewhat compromised secrecy. This was because most voters were voting for either PDP or ANPP. ANPP was close to the top of the ballot paper while PDP was close to the bottom; I noticed as I voted that the policeman standing nearby was keen to see whether your hand went towards the top or towards the bottom of the ballot paper.
Finally, I did not vote during the 2011 elections because I registered in Kaduna and could not go there for the election. Will I be voting today? If I make it to Kaduna!