POLITICS
Why Elections Will Not Hold In 240 Polling Units – INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that election will not hold in 240 polling units across the country, barely 12 days to the general election,
The nation’s electoral body noted that the 240 polling units, which are without registered voters, cut across 28 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this at a meeting with Political Parties in Abuja on Monday, explained that no new registrant chose the polling units and no voter indicated interest to transfer their registration to them during the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), mainly for security reasons.
According to him, “There are 240 polling units without registered voters spread across 28 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“They range from one polling unit to 12 polling units in each State and the FCT, except Taraba and Imo States with 34 and 38 polling units respectively.
“No new registrants chose the polling units and no voters indicated interest to transfer to them during the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), mainly for security reasons. This means that no elections will hold in these polling units.”
He recalled that in 2021, with the support of parties and other critical stakeholders, the Commission successfully expanded voter access to polling units 25 years after the last delimitation exercise in 1996.
Buying PVCs Won’t Help Any Politician – INEC
Consequently, he said the number of polling units increased from 119,973 to the current figure of 176,846.
“At previous meetings, we also briefed you on our efforts to redistribute voters to the polling units to avoid the congestion that made voting cumbersome in many of them nationwide.
“This requires the redistribution of voters to new polling units in proximate locations. Where they are separated by distance, this must be done after consultation with the voters. This has been done by our State offices nationwide,” he said.
He said in its avowed commitment to transparency, the Commission was making available to Nigerians a comprehensive list of the polling units by name, code number, and their locations by State, Local Government and Registration Area.
With this development, he said the number of polling units where elections will hold nationwide on 25th February 2023 and 11th March 2023 is now 176,606.
“Hard copies of the list are included in your folders for this meeting. Above all, Nigerians deserve the right to know the locations of these polling units. Accordingly, the soft copy of the list has been uploaded to our website and social media platforms for public information and guidance.
“Closely related to the distribution of voters is the identification of polling units. From the feedback we received from our officials and accredited observers following the recent nationwide mock accreditation using the BVAS, it is clear that some voters could not easily identify their polling units.
“This should not happen on election day. Consequently, the Commission is advising voters to confirm the locations of their polling units through a dedicated portal on our website. In addition, all voters who have been assigned to new polling units will receive text messages from the Commission indicating their polling units.
“We have also compiled the register of such voters and our State offices will give it wide publicity, especially for those who may not have provided their telephone numbers during voter registration or those whose numbers may have changed,” he added.
Speaking further, he said voters can locate and confirm their polling units before election day by sending a regular text or WhatsApp message to a dedicated telephone number.
He said details of the simple procedure will be uploaded to INEC social media platforms shortly.
“As you are already aware, we have less than two weeks to the 2023 General Election. The Commission is finalising the issuance of 1,642,386 identification tags for the Polling and Collation Agents nominated by the 18 political parties made up of 1,574,301 Polling Agents and 68,085 Collation Agents.
“I urge the Chairmen and leaders of political parties to ensure that only agents accredited by the Commission and wearing the correct identification tags appear at polling units and collation centres during elections.
“A situation where two or more agents claim to represent a political party, resulting in commotion at polling units or collation centres, is unacceptable. Only Identification tags issued by the Commission will be recognised on election day and violators are liable to arrest and prosecution for impersonation.
“Turning to the ongoing electioneering campaigns, the Commission is concerned about violent attacks on supporters of political parties across the board, resulting in the loss of life in some cases. Let me once again appeal to Chairman and leaders of political parties to continue to call your candidates and supporters to order,” he said.
On his part, IPAC national chairman, Engr. Yabagi Yusuf Sani, reiterated the continued commitment of IPAC to the long-standing cooperation and mutually beneficial relationship between the IPAC and INEC.
He also reaffirmed the confidence of IPAC in the leadership of INEC for its consistent demonstration of diligence, uncommon zeal, and patriotism in the pursuit of the agency’s statutory mandate.
He said at it has always been in the past, IPAC and INEC will be coming away from the meeting more prepared to face the onerous historical challenge of conducting credible, transparent, and acceptable elections in 2023.
“On the basis of our evaluation that INEC has been well on track, the leadership of IPAC additionally wishes to use this occasion to commend, the efforts of INEC in confronting the extraordinary environmental challenges occasioned by naira redesign and fuel scarcity through Mr. Chairman’s visit to the relevant agencies
“Usually, Siamese twins needed to be in constant agreement to enable them to live together harmoniously. Also, it is said that a case that is discussed does not usually cause trouble.
“It is on this philosophical note that I want to thank INEC and her Commissioners for constantly calling us to rub minds together because of the Nigerian political project.
“By what we hear and read in the news, your mock accreditation exercise was a success. That is very encouraging. As we know, a mock examination cannot be taken to be the real examination whose coverage is wider and complex.
“So far, the BVAS that were used were reported to have performed perfectly. We are encouraged by this and also wish to appreciate INEC while expecting them to keep the flag of perfection flying,” he stated.
Similarly, he said the Electoral Institute conducted a train-the-trainer workshop for polling agents/collation officers recently.
He said the move is commendable but the Parties are trying to meet the challenges of lean resources to cascade the training down to other critical levels.
“The 2023 general elections seemingly will be a watershed in the history of elections in Nigeria. Today, the tide has changed, because an unknown Party could pull a surprise to the greatest chagrin of all. From this point of view, it is necessary to advise INEC to keep its date with history which must not be wasted.
“INEC should create a golden niche for herself especially the Chairman who has become the child of history, Nigerians are watching, the international community is watching and the Parties are palpitating: I, therefore call on all Nigerians of good conscience to take credible results of the election the way it is.
“At worse. Parties should resort to the law court for adjudication Today it is an abhorrence and crudity if not savagery to see States Governors denying campaign venues to political parties other than their own. This is crude, primitive, and uncivilized.”
He also admonished party leaders that have observed that the elections are conducted free, fair, and credible, the result should be accepted for the love of our country.
“Mr. Chairman, under no circumstances should this election be postponed! Having noted this, I wish to congratulate all the Parties for patting up the healthy campaigns while thanking INEC with great expectations to deliver a credible election,” he added
By Khalid Ibn Abubakar
Political power play, power game as well as high political interests aggregation, are normal variables that define partisan politics. However, when these correlates are stretched beyond certain limits, there may be the likelihood of ushering in very dangerous instinctual reactions that have huge capacity for destabilizing the polity.
For all followers of the politics of Kano, Northwest Nigeria, particularly between May 29, 1999, to May 29, 2007, there is a tie-back to the historical precedence of the joint electoral victory between Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso as then governor-elect and Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, PhD, as deputy governor-elect, respectively.
These two gentlemen were members of the same political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party {PDP}, but they had definitely passed through varying and divergent socialization processes. Even as it is a known fact that all deputy governors in Nigeria are hardly allowed to exercise full political authority, the duo of Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje managed to work together in harmony during their first tenure.
For Alhaji Kwankwaso to consider the inclusion of Ganduje as running mate for the second term, however, it was a tug-of-war. Elders of the party, eminent citizens and significant others, intervened, persuaded and eventually prevailed on Kwankwaso to restore Ganduje to the joint gubernatorial ticket as running mate. They expectedly won the elections. So, they worked together for eight years.
Ganduje was to succeed Kwankwaso as governor, perhaps against the wishes of his former political principal and leader who, after his tenure as governor, was rewarded with a high end political portfolio as Nigeria’s minister of defence by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Over time, Ganduje has achieved a solid political stature which tended to overshadow his former principal. The result is that Kano has been split between the two tendencies. The particular human behavioural trait at play here is none other than the human Ego. As a student of the Freudian tradition, one is quick to point out that the major behavioural set back that any political leadership, must avoid in his or her political career, is by avoiding a negative inter-play of the different roles of the three major clinical psychology properties that regulate the impulse of all human, namely, Id, Ego and Superego, respectively.
These three, when negatively influenced, can bring about the downfall of anybody who is somebody, irrespective of his or her social stratification in the larger society.
It is therefore imperative to point out within this medium that the ongoing struggle for political power, relevance and advantage between a former political principal, Alhaji Kwankwaso, and his “junior” associate, Dr. Ganduje — who by way of chronological and mental age is much more senior and better educated than his erstwhile political boss— can all be traced to politics. That is why there is a desperate plot by Kwankwaso and his group to oust Dr. Ganduje as the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Part of the plot is the sinister scheme to destabilize the Tinubu administration using veiled propaganda, campaign of calumny and allied methods to tarnish APC and its leadership with the hope that such a distraction will add to the political fortunes of Kwankwaso and his NPP in Kano. The calculation is that once Ganduje is out of the way, Kwankwaso and his acolytes can have the whole of Kano to themselves.
Not surprisingly, the whole machinery of the Kano State Government has been deployed to achieve this end.
Dr. Ganduje in his eight years as governor of Kano State produced a very credible democratic scorecard, whose sectoral achievements are cogent and verifiable by any interested member of the public. Apparently not getting adequate results from all the failed plots so far executed by him and his lackeys, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso does not seem to have any iota of respect for seniority and civilized order.
Devoting and ploughing all his energies towards clandestine schemes aimed at pulling down the personality of Alhaji Ganduje who had paid his dues in society by Allah SWT’s divine blessings, is akin to trying the patience of the Almighty ALLAH SWT. The bitter jealousy of Kwankwaso and his men can be further understood when one considers the fact that Ganduje is an urbane intellectual who obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree {PhD} at the famous University of Ibadan, in 1993, following his first degree in 1975, when Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso had not dreamt of enrolling in any Higher School Certificate program.
The conditioned behaviour, which had always propelled Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who has an affinity for wanting to show political dominance over every citizen from Kano State as an infallible dictator, was what made eminent personalities like Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau and Distinguished Senator Jibrin Barau, just to mention a few, not stay in the same political camp with him.
In Kwankwaso’s world, his word is law. He cannot tolerate democratic tenets. He cannot work with intellectually endowed people. For him, getting Dr. Ganduje out of his current position as the National Chairman of the APC is his greatest headache. He is probably calculating that Ganduje’s ouster will enable him (Kwankwaso) grab a ministerial position as a pre-electoral bargaining condition and convince President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that he has the entire Kano State in his pocket and that his NNPP is waiting in the wings to play ball.
The NNPP gang is full of hypocrites. They demand integrity from others while lacking it themselves. An example: Governor Abba Kabiru Yusuf has appointed Kwankwaso’s son as a member of the Kano State Executive Council. It’s payback time. They are sharing the spoils as all the other parties do. There is no difference between the way they are carrying on and the way Ganduje ran the government. If anything, Ganduje was better. Time will tell.
When Governor Yusuf eventually finds out that he is not allowed to have a mind of his own and that Kwankwaso is supposed to be all-knowing, the current cosy relationship between them will disappear. Owing to the fact that Kwankwaso would always want every eminent political citizen in Kano State to submit to his overbearing and dictatorial tendencies, all who flock around him must play the dummy to be considered loyal.
In their desperation to pull down Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, NNPP hirelings have embarked on senseless moves to procure fake “APC Executive Members”, at the ward and state levels, who are their sidekicks. They’ve tried impersonation, blackmail, open threats and all sorts of sabotage to no avail.
From the grapevine, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s most pressing need now is how best he can penetrate the APC federal administration to get a plum ministerial appointment when the president rejigs his cabinet as expected. To achieve this, he is persuaded that he has to destroy Dr Ganduje. But, if history is anything to go by, all their schemes will fail. For, history teaches us that those who plot the destruction of others often fall on their own sword.
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