Enemies of the ballot

They come in different shades, but to the same negative effect. They are merchants of electoral violence, and their ultimate objective is to obstruct free expression of the voters’ will through the ballot box. And they aren’t just enemies of free democratic expression, but also of the good of the Nigerian state. With the 2023 general election under 100 days away – the national elections into the Presidency and National Assembly chambers on 25th February, 2023 and the state elections into the governorships and houses of assembly on 11th March – they constitute a pressing danger the country must earnestly deal with.

It was violence at its crudest wrought against the ballot box with the arson attacks, penultimate Thursday, on offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ogun and Osun states. Arsonists lit into the commission’s Abeokuta South council area office in the Ogun capital at about 1:15am on 10th November and incinerated the premises and movable assets on site. Besides total damage to the main building and its furnishings, assets lost to the attack, according to INEC, include 904 ballot boxes, 29 voting cubicles, 30 megaphones, 57 election bags, eight electric power generators and 65,699 Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) awaiting collection by registered voters. Few hours after the Abeokuta attack, arsonists struck at the commission’s office in Ede South council area of Osun State and set the premises ablaze. But they didn’t achieve their apparent aim, as swift response by security and fire service personnel limited the damage.

In his overview of the attacks at an emergency meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) early last week, INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu said: “While the damage in the attack in Ede South was minimal, that of Abeokuta South was extensive… The Commission is taking urgent steps to repair the damage to the building and replace the facilities in the Ede South Local Government Area so that the office becomes functional again immediately. For Abeokuta South Local Government Area office (however), the destruction was total. Consequently, the commission is relocating our staff to the old state office, also known as INEC Office Annex, in Oke-Ilewo area of Abeokuta.” According to him, activities involving the 15 registration areas (wards) and 445 polling units in Abeokuta South council area will henceforth be coordinated from the new location. He added: “The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Ogun State has been directed to compile the Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) of all the 65,699 PVCs lost in the attack from our database and submit the record for immediate reprint. We want to assure affected registered voters in Abeokuta South that no one will be disenfranchised as a result of this dastardly act.”

Other than the arson attacks, issues of concern to INEC and the security establishment constituting ICCES at last week’s emergency parley were incidents of physical attacks on political actors in the course of ongoing electioneering period, and the plagues of hate speech and fake news ruling the airwaves. The electoral body said it had so far tracked 50 incidents of physical attacks during political campaigns across 21 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with Professor Yakubu noting that “these unhappy occurrences are coming just a little over one month into the election campaign which is scheduled to last for about five months from 28th September, 2022 to 23rd February, 2023 for national elections and from 12th October, 2022 to 11th March, 2023 for state elections.” He said INEC was worried that if urgent and decisive steps weren’t taken, “the attacks will intensify as we approach the election date.” National Security Adviser (NSA) Maj-General Babagana Monguno (rtd.), who co-chairs ICCES with the INEC boss, corroborated the statistics of violent attacks that said he described as “a bad signal.”

“2023: It is very obvious…pollical gladiators aren’t keeping to the peace accord they signed.”

Arsonists targeting INEC facilities are typically agents of political actors aiming to obstruct free expression of voters’ will. So also are hoodlums who stage violent attacks against political supporters from partisan affiliations different from their own. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Usman Baba Alkali has also called out some state governors whom he accused of intolerance by sponsoring attacks against opponents and denying space for plurality of political views as could enable voters to make intelligent choices. A more subtle, but no less deadly assault on the ballot box is the phenomenon of hate speech. These are all weapons deployed by politicians too desperate for power to submit to the free will of voters. And it is the same people who enlist media outlets to traffic in fake news injurious to political opponents. 

Not that these tendencies are new in Nigerian political culture, but there have been efforts plied in recent history to rein them in. Non-governmental National Peace Committee (NPC) led by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar has been at the vanguard of these efforts. For every election since 2015, this committee has made political parties featuring in respective election to sign a peace accord they are expected to be bound by. For the 2023 poll, it has committed the 18 political parties that will be on the ballot to two peace accords. In a communique dated 22nd September, 2022, the committee had stated: “2023 is more than an election. It is an opportunity to serve Nigeria, to defend Nigeria and to uphold her unity and progress… Nigerians should avoid the spread of fake news and uphold the principles of tolerance, respect, civility and decency in all public and private conversations and engagements about election and the progress of Nigeria.” 

It is very obvious, however, that pollical gladiators aren’t keeping to the peace accord they signed. And the challenge we have is that the peace committee only has the power of moral suasion, while the peace accord it midwifes is only a moral document for which there aren’t sanctions when violated. It would require the security agencies and INEC, in principle, to enforce the provisions of law against electoral offences such as are itemised in Sections 114 to 129 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2022. But INEC has made its constraints clear. Besides that the challenge is huge and heavily overbears on its core responsibility of election management, the commission is not vested with power to arrest and investigate electoral offenders, which is why it has always canvassed an Electoral Offences Commission to take up the task. Under the circumstance, therefore, the onus falls on security agencies – the Nigeria Police in particular – to take on electoral offenders. This should be done by relentlessly tracking down and arresting culprits of offences and delivering them inevitably to justice, such that anyone planning to take after them would be strongly dissuaded.

The tragedy, however, is that this is the very thing lacking in how we deal with electoral offences in this country. Take the fresh arson attacks against INEC offices, for instance: no suspects were arrested, and it is doubtful any will ever be. Before now, the last arson attack INEC suffered was on 03rd July, 2022 at its Igboeze North council area office in Enugu State, which resulted in the destruction of no fewer than 748 ballot boxes and 240 voting cubicles besides office equipment and furniture. INEC National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said at the time that the commission was working to ascertain the status of voter registration machines for ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) and uncollected PVCs that were locked up in a fireproof cabinet, while the incident had been reported to the Nigeria Police for investigation and further action. As we speak, there’s been no update on arrest of suspects. Among many other incidents previously, gunmen had on 23rd May, 2021, stormed INEC’s office at Igboeze South council area and set the place ablaze. And that was after attacks on the commission’s Udenu council area office on 13th May, and its state head office in Enugu on 16th May, 2021. For none of those incidents has suspects been reported arrested to the best of my knowledge.

With the importance of its mandate and unruliness of some pollical actors, INEC’s offices deserve all-round security protection. But given that the commission has offices in all state capitals, the 774 council areas and facilities in the 8,809 wards nationwide, it is obvious there’s no enough security manpower to police all the sites. The best that can be done in the circumstance is to deter attacks by making arsonists know they won’t go scot free if they dare their ill-adventure.