By Abimbola Ogunnaike
Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Bertrand Onuoha, described the off-season governorship elections that took place in Nigeria, especially his state, as a war zone that bore no semblance to what a normal poll should look like.
Onuoha made the statement on Tuesday, 26 March, 2024 at a public presentation on Nigeria’s Election Violence and Education Report of the 2023 governorship polls in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states held in Abuja.
The Police Commissioner lamented that he has never seen the kind of bitterness that was brought into the November 11 poll that produced the All Progressives Congress candidate, Usman Ododo, as the winner.
Ododo polled 446,237 votes to defeat his closest rival, Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by 259,052 and 46,362 votes respectively.
However Ajaka and Melaye both rejected the result over what they termed irregularities that marred the election.
But Onuoha, who bemoaned the absence of internal democracy in Nigerian politics, insisted that the situation could have been worse if some drastic measures were not taken.
He said, “Conducting elections in Nigeria is war. Since the creation of Kogi State in 1991, elections in the state has always been like war. Since I was born, I have never seen the kind of bitterness that was brought into electioneering in the state towards the November 11, 2023 governorship election.
“A lot of things need to be done to co-opt people who are ready to serve their fatherland, not those who take politics as business or as a career.
“If not for the series of meetings we have held with stakeholders, believe you me, if not what we have done (such as) pre-election issues, meetings with stakeholders, I don’t think even election would have held in that state. When you look at the political parties in Nigeria, there is nothing like internal democracy. That is why most of the pre-election violence cropped up from lack of internal democracy, intra-party activities, where you will see bitterness amongst the same family of the same political party.
“The type of election being held in Nigeria now is not sustainable. During off-cycle elections, you can deploy enough personnel that cuts across all the security agencies. Was it possible during the general elections? We have to go back to the grassroots and get it well. The worst scenario is lack of deterrence. Since 1999, how many people have been taken to court because of election violence or malpractice?”
Earlier in her address, Executive Director of Kimpact Development Initiative, Bukola Idowu, told the audience that the data-driven advocacy organization has spent six months monitoring the electioneering campaigns and tracking activities of each actor involved in the Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa off-cycle elections.
Idowu also recommended that the Federal Government and law enforcement agents should go beyond mere arrest to ensure ballot box snatchers and other electoral offenders are prosecuted.
“We have been tracking and monitoring the three states that had off-cycle elections in 2023 such as Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa. We started tracking the environment, actors and possible issue of electoral violence six months before the elections.
“We found out that there are dynamics in each of the three states. We have the politics of identity that fuelled violence in Kogi, cultism that fuelled violence in Bayelsa and in Imo, you have intimidation, segregation and secessionist agitation in that place.
“We recommend that perpetrators of electoral violence who have been going about freely should be brought to book, prosecuted, charged and tried. We are also asking for clarity of legislative framework about who should arrest or prosecute,” she appealed.
