Grandiose Parlor

This blog has been covering the post-election tribunal activities in Nigeria, particularly in Ondo state. The focus on Ondo is obvious, not only because it’s my root, but I’m also appalled by the extent of the electoral malpractices orchestrated by the PDP machinery in the state.

In the last two weeks, the two tribunals in the state have made several pronouncements annulling the some of those elections. Even one three-term senator got “whacked”: Senator Gbenga Ogunniya, the sitting Chairman of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs.

I’m not proud to reveal that Ondo state now has the national record of the most annulments in a single election year! By my count, apart from the senatorial seat mentioned above, the annulments cost the PDP six members of the State House of Assembly including the speaker, and five members of House of Representatives. And two more cases are still pending: One is the much-awaited gubernatorial petition and the other for an assembly seat.

I believe it is time to start slapping violators of the electoral laws with felony charges. Unfortunately at present, the electoral laws of Nigeria do not make any provisions for such, and this accounted for some of the ease and extent of malpractices seen during the 2007 elections. Since the tribunals started hearing, the enormity of those malpractices have been revealed. “Ondo: Harvest of Election Nullifications“, a ThisDay newspaper report captures some of the atrocities in the state. Here are some excerpts:

The tribunals based their judgments on proven cases of irregularities, corrupt practices, inflation of results in favour of the respondents, signing of election results by political office holders and use of unauthorised stamps like those of defunct NECON, FEDECO and NEC contrary to the provision of Electoral Acts 2006. There were cases of over voting, multiple registrations while cases of multiple thumbprinting were established thorough scientific method with the aid of finger print expert.

In all cases, the tribunal held that the number of votes declared in many poling units were more than the number of registered voters as revealed by the ballot recount exercise ordered by the panels while in many cases the figures in the INEC result sheets were far more than even the number of ballot papers supplied by the commission just as votes were allocated to political parties that did not contest election at all….

In the determined cases, the actions and inactions of the officials of the INEC were exposed while the collusion of some law enforcement agents was found to negate their callings. The tribunal berated an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Chris Oloyede, who signed election results as the PDP agent during the House of Representative Election in Ese Odo Federal Constituency. Justice Yargatha Nimpa, who read the judgment, said “it was incomprehensible that a public officer in the rank of an Assistant Commissioner of Police could act as party agent.”

Even the presiding Justices at the tribunals are concerned. A Justice stated in his ruling that “the incidence of excesses of public office holders who use their positions to circumvent the electoral rights of the people must be firmly checked”. But this is not possible with the way the electoral laws are written; annulments aren’t enough deterrent. To bring some sanity to electoral process in Nigeria, violations must carry jail terms, and even felony charges where applicable.