When elections work is signing one’s death warrant

Professor Wahira, a lecturer in the University of Port Harcourt returned from the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to find his wife and kids on their knees. Since it was lent, daytime devotion is expected and welcome. The no-nonsense Professor of Biochemistry had gone to reassure the Resident Electoral Commissioner of […]

Professor Wahira, a lecturer in the University of Port Harcourt returned from the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to find his wife and kids on their knees. Since it was lent, daytime devotion is expected and welcome. The no-nonsense Professor of Biochemistry had gone to reassure the Resident Electoral Commissioner of his commitment to serve as a returning officer in the Rivers State rerun elections despite threats and intimidation from different quarters. On closer contact with his wife and kids, he discovered this was no prayer session. Instead, his family members were kneeling, beseeching God and his ancestors to beg him to refrain from partaking in the elections. Crying their eyes out, they begged him not to die for a country that cares little for its citizens. Of course, Professor Wahira heeded his family’s plea and declined participating as a returning officer.
Wahira was just one out of several election personnel who received verbal or written threats, intimidation ahead of the rerun. In fact, some staffers of University of Port Harcourt recruited as election personnel declined participating in the election following a reckless statement attributed to a top government official in the state.
To foster accountability, INEC published the list of about 277 lecturers chosen from UNIPORT to serve as returning and collation officers. The People’s Democratic Party objected to 85 on the list without calling adequate evidence, some of the reasons proffered ranged from previous membership of government board or committee constituted by previous administration and such notations were made against only five names on the list. Virtually all the lecturers recruited as ad hoc staff for the elections became exposed persons trailed around the state and threatened.
The Rivers rerun introduces a new narrative in harking to national services, simply put it is serve your country and sign your death warrant.  The charade and electoral heist witnessed during the March 19th national and state assembly rerun elections confirm the fears expressed by family members of election officials and other stakeholders. Several reasons can be adduced for this ugly situation. One is the zero sum nature of politics in Nigeria.
Under this prevailing circumstance, there is no way INEC as an unbiased umpire could successfully conduct elections in an unsafe and hostile atmosphere. In Rivers, the environment failed the both the umpire and voters. Secondly, the rerun brings to fore not just the failure of the state to properly secure its citizens especially election officials and materials but systemic impunity in prosecuting electoral offenses in the country. This electoral impunity cut short the life of Samuel Dumebi Okonta, a serving National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member. He was murdered by gunmen believed to be supporters of one of the parties in Ahoada West Local government of Rivers state. The Late Dumebi, a graduate of Political Science from the Ambrose Ali University, Edo State was reported to have been trailed by the gunmen from the INEC local government office where he submitted the election results.
The incident that led to Dumebi’s death is similar to the death of the 11 NYSC members killed in the 2011 post-elections violence. Often, election officials are intimidated and even murdered because of their refusal to compromise the credibility of elections. In every election, desperate politicians deploy tactics and shenanigans to compromise election officials so elections can be rigged in their favour. Party agents and thugs greet any resistance by an election official to corrupt overtures of desperate politicians with vicious intimidation and death threats. This no doubt, presents another compelling need why citizens should think twice before participating as election officials in any election.
The Rivers rerun is not only a national embarrassment but also a testament that we have a long walk to political freedom. The level of impunity exhibited by the two major contending forces in the state is unacceptable and should be sanctioned by the State. The lawlessness exhibited in the last Rivers and Bayelsa states elections are unprecedented and opening another vista in elections. In several local governments in these states, election personnel were abducted, beaten up and forced to write election results even where voting didn’t take place. Just to take few examples in the rivers rerun, in Degema, the electoral officer was chained like a dog for 13 hours for refusing to declare fake election results.
As a nation, there is no way we can argue that the force of these lawless thugs are mightier than that of the state. How do we, for instance, explain the deployment of 6,000 police officers and 8 additional mobile policemen? Yet the thugs held sway in the Rivers election. Has the state become so powerless that law and order cannot be guaranteed, or this is a classic case of complicity on the part of the state? No doubt there’s a political economy around elections.
It must be mentioned that elections in between the electoral cycle have become farms for corrupt electoral officials who use the opportunity to amass wealth. This category of officials worry less about the number of times elections are declared inconclusive. After all, inconclusive elections serve their selfish interest. Therefore, they conspire with politicians to create scenarios for elections to be declared inconclusive. The alleged cases of complicity on the part of INEC officials in the Rivers rerun should be thoroughly investigated and defaulters should be openly prosecuted. This will potentially boost the confidence of stakeholders in the neutrality of the electoral commission. While acknowledging the burden of prosecuting electoral offenses placed on INEC is onerous, the commission must make efforts at prosecuting offenders to serve as deterrence to election offenders.
It is not enough for President Buhari to admit he failed in curtailing the violence experienced in the Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers elections as expressed during his address to the All Progressive Congress National Executive Council meeting on March 24th 2016 in Abuja. The president cannot remain aloof while unscrupulous mischief-makers terrorize the state or a section of it and even kill citizens. This is a republic bound by laws and Rivers State remains part of it, therefore the president must rise to the occasion as Commander in Chief to immediately caution the gladiators in Rivers State to sheathe their swords and allow peace to reign. There can be no democracy without people. In the same vein, there can be no elections without Dying in the course of managing elections cannot – and should not – be the new way of dying for Nigeria’s democracy. 
Itodo wrote in from Abuja.