The Edo State governorship election has come and gone but the echoes of what transpired on Wednesday September 28 may continue to reverberate for a long time to come.
Though the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Godwin Obaseki, was declared winner of the poll, it is still a subject of controversy and potential legal battle.
With the Ondo state governorship election is around the corner, it is pertinent to point out areas where the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, needs to learn a thing or two if the nation’s electoral process would witness any drastic improvement.
1. Though the security agencies have been commended for providing water tight security during the election, the truth is that the people of Edo State were practically intimidated into submission.
Benin, the state capital, was practically under siege between Tuesday and Friday morning, as residents lived in a state of fear, not of violence. People must be allowed to make their choices in an atmosphere devoid of fear and intimidation.
2. Politicians and their proxies could seen, and even filmed openly distributing money at the polling centre’s for votes.
Aside from corrupting the process, it is also a flagrant violation of the rules which frowns at canvassing for votes at the polling centre. This naturally should come with a sanction and until INEC demostrate the will to enforce the law and come hard on perpetrators and their parties, this will continue to occur.
3. Despite the ‘water tight’ security provided for the election, the issue of electoral violence reared its ugly head again, leading to cancellation of votes in several polling centres.
Particularly worrisome is the allegation by a collation officer, Prof Atere of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, that the deputy governorship candidate of the APC, now deputy governor-elect, Philip Shuaibu, invaded the local government collation centre with 10 gunmen and threatened to kill him and two others.
The accusation, made on live television, though later denied by Shuaibu, calls to question the results from that local government area.
It should also draw the attention of the electoral umpire to the need to adequately ensure the safety of officials on electoral duties, as such intimidation would cajole an officer to do the bidding of instigator to ensure their safety.
Read also: #EdoDecides: All the intrigues that brought Obaseki to power
4. The 2016 governorship election in Edo State would have qualified as a model if the leadership of INEC did not commit a tactical error that will continue to cast doubts on the entire process and its outcome by postponing the announcement of final results.
The postponement of the collation of results at the Ikpoba Hill INEC office in Benin City from 7pm to 9pm before it was again shifted to the following morning, despite the availability of results from virtually every local government, cased doubts on the process.
The question for the leadership of INEC is what necessitated the shift and most importantly, what transpired in the intervening hours?
5. Two major defects in the Nigerian electoral process which should have been eliminated with the introduction of simultaneous accreditation and voting: Over voting, and the huge number of the difference between accredited voters and actual votes cast, are things that are worrisome.
It is interesting that more than 50,000 votes were cancelled because of over voting when a voter comes, gets accredited in the full glare of everybody present and he goes ahead to vote.
Only two things are possible, ballot stuffing or a deliberate cancellation to hurt the chances of one of the parties.
These things don’t add up and INEC needs to find a way of guiding against these lapses before the Ondo governorship election in November if it must witness any improvement.
By Timothy Enietan-Matthews…
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