27th August, 2015.
By: Amir
Abdulazeez
A
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bout two
weeks ago or so, someone called me a suicide bomber, simply because I decided
to comment on a Social Media thread in which the politics of Rivers State in
relation to the credibility or otherwise of the 2015 General Elections is being
discussed. The person presumes that since I am from the North, then I must be a
suicide bomber; he never cared to wonder how I am a suicide bomber and still
alive at the same time. If he cared, he would’ve made a more reasonable and
perhaps intelligent accusation.
I didn’t
reply him just like it’s never worthy to reply such kind of people on the Social
Media or anywhere else. The person who made the original post that generated
the thread quickly cautioned my accuser on his kind of language. In his
justification for what he did, the guy who accused me of being a suicide bomber
said that he was only expressing his annoyance over why a person from the North
will be talking while ‘imminent’ Rivers State people are discussing what supposed
to be a matter ‘exclusive’ (my emphasis) to them. Why according to him will I
be discussing electoral violence and malpractice in Rivers State instead of discussing
the ‘widespread’ underage voting and the mobilization of cows, goats and sheep
to vote in Kano in the last elections? He concluded by making another dangerous
allegation in which he said, a mob was mobilized in Kano to burn down the Residential
Electoral Commissioner (REC)’s home while he was inside with his family in
order to eliminate him and cover up the aforementioned ‘crimes’. Now, these did
not only prompted this piece, it also served as an opportunity to break my long
silence on the accusation of underage voting in Kano State and to some extent
the North in general.
The level
of misinformation of especially young Nigerians on Social Media is not only
worrisome but dangerous. On the day of the Presidential Elections, a picture
went viral on social and some online news media. The picture showed some young
boys apparently under the age of 18 waiting on the queue to cast their votes.
The date, location and authenticity of the source of the picture are still uncertain.
Some claimed the picture was from Taraba, other claimed it was from Kano. In
fact, almost all the 19 Northern states were at one time or the other credited with
the picture’s location. It was based on this picture that many gullible Social
Media folks claim that the large percentage of votes scored by Buhari and APC
in the North came from underage voters. Since Jonathan and PDP also got votes
from the North, infact he won three states in the North and had 25% or more in
about 6 other states, is it not only reasonable that we say both candidates
benefitted from underage voting, but may be in different proportions?
At least
that viral picture served as some weak evidence, those who claim that cows and
sheep voted are yet to provide any shred of evidence. On the other hand, the
monumental electoral fraud that took place in the South-South and South-East in
2015 and has also been taking place since 2003 is not only well documented, it
is well publicised and in many cases glaring for even the blind man to see. The
most unfortunate thing is the on-going attempt to ethicise electoral
malpractice instead of collectively rising against it. As Nigerians, we must be
willing to fight electoral rigging irrespective of where it occurs.
No one is
saying there is no rigging in the North, but what we are saying is that it
occurs on an industrial and insulting scale in the South-South and South-East.
PDP have been rigging almost everywhere in Nigeria since 2003, but as at 2015,
South-South and South-East remain the only rigging zones and if people from
these zones continue to tolerate that because of some fictitious underage
voting allegations in the North, then we are sorry for them. The South-West and
almost the entire North has since cleansed themselves of the 2003 and 2007
frauds called elections and people in these zones are proud that at least their
votes can count.
On the
day of the presidential elections, I virtually spent the whole day in my
polling unit. I didn’t see a single underage voter on the queue either during
accreditation or during voting, neither did I see a single cow or goat being
accredited or given ballot paper to vote. Let’s assume since I am human, I can’t
notice everything within the polling area, but if underage voting was as half
as rampant as it is being exaggerated, there was no way I wouldn’t have seen at
least 2 or 3 cases in a queue of more than 700 people. Likewise, let’s assume
that those accusing Kano and the North of using cows and goats to vote do not
literally mean so, may be they mean vote’s inflation. It is quite surprising to
think of votes inflation in Kano and the North while the whole world have
certified there have been practically no proper election had taken place in the
South-South and South-East since after 1999.
Late
President ‘Yar’adua is a Northerner, but I must confess that he never scored
one-third of the votes recorded in his favour in South-South and South-East during
the 2007 Presidential Elections. It was in South-South Rivers State that
Obasanjo claimed to have scored about 2 million votes in 2003-an election where
even dead people voted. Jonathan used the same tactics in 2011 where he recorded
an average of a million votes and above in every South-South and South-East
States in the 2011 elections- an election popular for its low voter turnout
across the country. It
is only in the South-South and South-East and some very few other states
elsewhere that you find states that have ever escaped the grip of PDP primarily
because of rigging and some people are trying to defend that because of a
flimsy imaginary underage voting excuse elsewhere.
In
a report published by African Check in 2013 titled: “Is the Nigeria’s oil rich South-South, or Niger Delta Region, the Epicenter
of Vote-Rigging in Nigeria?”, it was written that: in its report of the 2007 elections, the European Union Election
Observer Mission noted that “the high turnout rates for the Niger Delta region
– Akwa-Ibom State 83%, Bayelsa State 96%, Delta State 76%, Rivers State 80%–
are highly implausible, particularly given the credible reports of low voter
turnout from those states”. In the 2011 elections, generally said to be to be
much fairer than those of 2007, the South-South along with the South-East
produced the highest rates of voter turnout in the country, well above the
national average of 51.95%.
Let me
make it clear that underage voting is everywhere in Nigeria and while I
advocate for its total eradication, I don’t think it occurs at any significant
scale to affect the elections; it is grossly exaggerated. I was on election
duty in Iwo Local Government Area of Osun State in 2010, specifically as a Voters
Registration Officer. The community tried to persuade me and occasionally even
forced me to register underage voters which I refused. They told me that most
of the people I refused to register were registered in other centres and it was
a normal practice in all previous elections. They argued that most of the children
will turn 18 in the next 1 to 3 years. I still refused and at the end I knew
some of them will accuse me of many things including being tribalistic. Who can
swear that children of ages 15 to 17 are not being registered to vote across
all Nigeria with only little variations from community to community?
Two weeks
after the 2015 presidential elections, I was on the queue again for the
governorship polls and out of about 300 people on the line at about 9:00 am, I
noticed one underage voter. I simply called the attention of some people and
eventually we asked the boy to leave. My assumption was that the boy took
advantage of the relatively low turnout of the governorship elections to come
and vote. In all other polling units within trekking distance that I visited
that day, I didn’t see a single underage voter on the queue, at least not while
I was there. Yes, it’s not enough to use the cases of some few polling units to
generalize for a whole state or region, but at least it gives us an insight on
what to expect in other polling units.
Now, for
those exaggerating the issue of this underage voting to look as if 30-40% of
votes coming from the North are from underage voters, they must know that even
if it occurs it is less than likely to be more than 0.5%-1.5%, that is about 1
or 3 in every 100 voters. Elections in the North are taken very seriously;
discipline and respect are given topmost priority, there is no way small
children would be allowed to join the queue with matured adults especially in
community polling units (it could happen in market polling centres); it’s a
sign of disrespect. During the 2012 governorship re-run elections in Sokoto, I
was there as an unofficial observer and underage voting was never an issue as
far as I was concerned. The issues there were thuggery and vote buying. So, we
should please stop using one case or two to make generalizations.
If you
seriously think there was over voting in Kano State in the 2015 elections you
need to remember that Kano state has a population of over 11 million people. About 5.7 million people
registered to vote; about 4.9 million (87% of registered voters) collected
their PVCs, about 2.3 million were accredited to vote but only about 2.15
million (44% of PVC collection) voted on Election Day. The reason why voter
turnout is usually low as compared to the number of registered voters is
because, voters’ registration and PVC collection takes place for days and even
weeks while voting takes place in one day. 35-45% voter turnout is the most
popular across the country since 2003, except in South-South
and South-East
where through PDP ‘magic’,
it reaches between 60-98%.
Since
1999, it has been adjudged by many local and international observers that Kano and
Lagos have had some of the freest and fairest elections in Nigeria. As for how the
Kano Residential Electoral Commissioner died, any neutral will tell you that he
died with his family from an inferno and unless we have authentic evidence to counter
that, we have every reason to believe that he was not killed. If anyone has any
evidence that proves otherwise, it’s better he takes it up with the justice
system.
Mallam Amir is on Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez
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