Grandiose Parlor

The Mimiko legal team revealed how the voters’ register was manipulated and filled with fictitious names and photos by the ruling party PDP during the gubernatorial election last year.

Some of of the registrants were “Vice President Goodluck Jonathan; the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Legbo Kutugi; the founder of the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola; Maurice Iwu; the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmadu Ali; Gen. Oladipo Diya; Mrs. Cecelia Ibru; Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, and former world boxing champions, Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyson ” according to news paper report. The Vanguard states the pictures were “scanned from newspapers and almanacs“.

This revelation shows how prepared and determined political parties are in defraud the electoral process. Secondly, it’s a revelation that there is no system in place to audit voters’ register during and after registration. Thirdly, the voting process is lax and lacked measures to scrutinize and authenticate information provided by voters on election day. Of course, it can be assumed that the ballot materials used with these fictitious names were hijacked and later stuffed by the agents of the political parties.

As these cases of electoral malpractices are being unfolded nationwide - what steps would be taken to prevent or at the very least, minimize recurrence? Nigerians should have the expectation that these revelations are being noted and strategies will be implemented by electoral commission and law enforcement agencies to eliminate future occurrence. This is one of the logical and actionable steps of minimizing election frauds in Nigeria, well, if Nigeria has the capacity to learn from past mistakes and experiences.

Note: This blog is awaiting the report of Adrian Forty, the forensic expert invited from London to examine the fingerprints of voters during the Ondo State gubernatorial election.