20 reasons why this may not be the best elections-----Intersociety
(Nigeria) As Nigeria, Nigerians and the international
community await the official results of the referenced crucial polls in
Nigeria, the leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties and the
Rule of Law in Southeast Nigeria, being the rights based organisation in
Nigeria that had earliest entry into the 2015 general polls’ advocacy in the
country including the just held segments; and having made our position,
observations and reservations publicly known; has resolved to take a critical
look at the socio-cultural consequences (negative) of the polls’ management and
conducts under the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, headed by
Prof Attahiru Jega.
The grand aim is geared towards making them an eternal
reference point in contemporary election industry in Nigeria and beyond as well
as to ensure their proper remedies to avoid transforming into widespread post
election violence and wanton calamities. We also wish to ensure that they are
not repeated in the country or any part thereof in subsequent polls.
Highlighted failures of
the referenced polls’ management under INEC:
1. Perceived introduction of ethnicity and religion by INEC
and other key electoral actors into the National Register of Voters
particularly as it concerns registration of voters and distribution of
permanent voters’ cards
2. Gross lopsidedness
in the distribution of PVCs, which optimally captured the two dominant tribes
of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba and minimally captured the Igbo tribe and ethnic
minorities particularly those originated from or resided in the former’s home
areas.
3. Existence of informal policies in the country’s election
management that ensure uneven and discriminatory electoral demographic
congregation and aggregation of citizens of voting age as registered voters
instead of formal policies that will ensure non discrimination on the basis of
sex, tribe, religion or place of origin. These informal policies also encourage
and ensure voters’ suppression and cleansing particularly among Igbo and ethnic
minorities of southern and northern extractions. This is in addition to failure
by INEC to take into account the pluralistic and multi ethno-religious
composition of the country and need to ensure multi ethno-religious electoral
policies and actions.
4. Manifest
desperation by some electoral top shots to appropriate the presidency to the
north at all costs using ethnically cleansed national register of voters and
lopsided appropriation of permanent voters’ cards as well as adamant refusal to
allow the use of temporary voters’ cards, which would have leveled up the
referenced gross lopsidedness between north and south with over eight million
northern PVCs advantage over the south.
5. Historic introduction of electronic poll manipulation
into the national register of voters using segregated electronic voters’ cards
and card readers.
6. Creation of special polling units for the northeast
Muslim IDPs without recourse to amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act.
7. Segregation and denial of voting rights to over three
million registered voters of northeast, northwest and north-central origin and
residency displaced by Boko Haram and Fulani jihadist insurgencies.
8. Systematic and politically conceived uprooting and pogrom
targeted and carried out against minority Christian populations in the
northeast and the north-central zones using the instruments of Boko Haram and
Fulani Jihadist insurgencies for the purpose of forceful religious conversion
and cleansing as well as political enslavement.
9. Displacement and psycho-physical eviction of over three
million Igbo natives particularly traders in the northeast, the northwest and
the north-central zones using ethno-religious group violence including
religious fundamentalist insurgency; for the purpose of ethno-religious
cleansing and political enslavement.
10. Use of majoritarian political suppression to contest and
wrestle power off other federating partners perceived to have lesser
populations with the incumbent headship of Nigeria’s presidency as the target;
thereby questioning, threatening and
undermining their socio-ethnic existence
and identities.
11. Reversion to and resurrection in 2015 polls of old
political slaves and political masters governing style in Nigeria; a political
deal of the old Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba power equation; designed to make other
federating partners in Nigeria political
slaves to the former.
12. Rejection and cancellation by leading political actors of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba
extractions of fair and equitable rotational presidency among the six geo-
political zones and preference by the referenced of rotational presidency
between north and south for the purpose of ensuring exchange of presidential
power between the two at the expense of other federating partners in Nigeria.
13. Manifest
partisanship of the CSOs with dominance in the Southwest leading to their
leprous attachment with a leading opposition party in Nigeria and their
defensive and protective relationship with INEC.
14. Clear shift in the public opinion whereby INEC in
Nigeria is no longer accused of hobnobbing with the ruling federal party but
with the leading opposition federal party.
15. Disenfranchisement of and denial of voting rights to
12.4 million registered voters majorly of Igbo and minority extractions in
Nigeria.
16. Inability and somehow deliberate refusal for political
reasons to capture at least five million citizens of voting age belonging to
pastoral and sedentary Igbo natives in Nigeria; likewise hundreds of thousands
of minorities of voting age during voters’ registration exercises in Nigeria.
17. High incidence of under-age voting and registration of
hundreds of thousands of under-age voters in the north as registered voters for
the purpose of shoring up the northern voting population and maintenance of the
age-long officially hyped population superiority of the north over the south.
18. Introduction and monumental failure of the electronic
card reader technology in the 2015 polls in Nigeria.
19. Official promotion of primordialism and clannishness in
Nigeria’s 2015 general polls leading to political campaigns and voting centered
along ethno-religious lines.
20. General failures on the part of INEC in the 2015 general
elections’ management starting from voters’ registration and revalidation
including voter’s card transfer, printing, use and issuance of permanent
voters’ cards, refusal to allow temporary voters’ cards for the purpose of
voting, safety and theft of permanent voters’ cards, perceived introduction of
ethnicity and religion in the PVC distribution, procurement, use and management
of electronic card readers, woeful failure of the card readers in polling
stations, inadequate dissemination of public information, pride and inferiority
complex on the part of some INEC’s top tops leading to failure in electoral
policies and actions of the Commission, non-neutrality, rushing and mastication
of ICT and rustication of manual or alternative technology, non admission of
faults and mistakes on the part of INEC’s top management, disenfranchisement of 12.4 million registered
voters without reasonable, excusable and legal grounds, among others.
By Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman, International Society for
Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law.
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