BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Politics
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Security agencies and Independent National Electoral Commission give conflicting testimonies at the Rivers State Election Tribunal
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Sep 28, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE 2015 governorship election may have come and gone but the election in Rivers State is still being hotly contested at the tribunal. Witnesses for the Peoples Democratic party, PDP and All Progressives Congress, APC, have been appearing before the tribunal, but the one attracting attention across the country is the revelations of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the military and the Nigeria police.
INEC on Tuesday, September 15, testified that only 293, 072 voters were electronically accredited for the governorship election in Rivers State on April 11, 2015. Abimbola Oladunjoye, assistant director, ICT department, INEC, told the tribunal that the figure represented the total number of electorate captured by the card reader machines used for the poll. Oladunjoye, who is in charge of the commission’s database, admitted that some electorate in the state could have been accredited manually, especially in areas where the card reader machines failed.
She told the Justice Mohammed Ambrosa-led tribunal that information concerning the number of accredited voters for the election was transferred from the card reader machines to a central server created by INEC. According to her, the commission stopped uploading data from the machines to its server, six weeks after the election was held. She said in some instances, the unavailability of network inhibited the upload of data from the card reader machines.
“If the card reader is damaged before there was an attempt to upload data, it cannot be uploaded to the server. It is also important for me to emphasise that the card reader was designed to capture only electronic accreditation,” the witness stated. Asked if she could state with certainty that the figure was a true reflection of the total number of electorate that participated in the Rivers governorship poll, the witness said: “My lords, I really do not have any document from the ICT department of INEC in Rivers to the effect that all the data were uploaded before the six weeks cut off date elapsed.”
On its part, the Nigeria Police Force told the tribunal that the governorship election in Rivers State was marred by violence and widespread rigging. Sequel to a subpoena issued on Solomon Arase, Inspector General of Police, IGP, by the tribunal, three police officers, appeared and testified as witnesses for the petitioners.
In his testimony, Garba Michael, one of the police officers, told the court that his team arrested over 70 persons thumb-printing ballot papers at the Secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, at Sime in Tai Local Government Area of Rivers State. He said: “I was detailed to move materials from INEC office to Korokoro. I was sitting down at INEC office when my squadron commander at about 12:45p.m got a distress call from Sime area.
“I was immediately asked to move there with my team. At the PDP secretariat, we met people with election materials and arrested them. I called my squadron commander and told him about the development. He came down with a lorry and we evacuated the people and materials to our base in Tai Local Government Area. We arrested over 70 people including security men. Others were Youth Corps members serving as ad-hoc INEC staff and PDP agents. What we recovered on the scene included card readers, thumb-printed ballot papers, inks and pad, vests, electoral boxes and result sheets. I took some snap-shots with my phone and transferred it to a flash drive.”
Also, the Nigerian Army had told the tribunal that the Rivers State governorship election was aborted by the hijacking of electoral materials and sporadic shootings in four local government areas in the state. Four officers, who appeared before the tribunal on the strength of the subpoena served on Tukur Buratai, chief of army staff, said they led separate army patrol troops in Abua/Odual, Ikwerre, Gokana and Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Areas of the state.
The witnesses, who testified before the Justice Mohammed Ambrosa-led tribunal painted pictures of tense environment ignited by sporadic shootings with the poll aborted by widespread hijacking of electoral materials before accreditation of voters could commence in most of the polling units in their areas.
Some Nigerians believed that these revelations by government agencies saddled with the responsibilities of monitoring and supervising the elections in Rivers State shows that the APC-led government is desperate to upturn the governorship election in the state. Those who spoke to Realnews said it was an indictment on the part of the government agents that testified before the court.
Ebongabasi Ekpe-Juda, security expert, said it was an indictment for the military to testify that the governorship election in Rivers State was hijacked by sporadic shootings. He said the military and police were deployed to ensure peace and prevent incessant hijacking of election materials. “It is an indictment on the military, even the police to testify about hijacking of the election they were sent to monitor and protect. But don’t forget that whether security or quasi-security, they are responsive to the government of the day. So they did everything to protect the government of the day and for them to come out now to say that such a thing happened is understandable.
“I think that the election in Rivers State was more or less a do or die affair for PDP. They needed to win that state to be sure that they are still in existence, so they did all they could to ensure victory. Because of this the government in power now want to securitise that election and get to the root of it. My thinking is that the election is going to be upturned based on the point that the number of people who voted outnumbered the number of people who were accredited. But beyond this I think the government in power is trying to use the security agents to prove that the election was poorly conducted,” he said.
Also, Vince Ayogu, lawyer, says INEC is indicting itself by giving contradicting figures on election it conducted. He says that INEC has questionable motive by presenting new figures before the tribunal. “INEC cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time because INEC was the one that declared the results. INEC actually conducted the election, collated the results and declared the results, so if they go to tribunal now and testify something contrary to what they had announced during the elections, it will amount to approbating and reprobating,” he said.
“Be that as it may, it is still left for the tribunal to decide based on the evidence before it not just about what INEC has come to testify. It will put into considerations the surrounding circumstances which include the votes actually cast, the number of accreditation, and the results declared by INEC. So the tribunal will have to dispassionately consider all the evidence before arriving at its conclusion,” he said.
According to Ayogu, the tribunal has the right to summon the military and the police to testify before it, but they can only testify based on what they did during the elections. He said that a court of competent jurisdiction had declared that the military were not allowed to be at the pulling booth because they have no business being at the pulling booth. He noted that even if some of them found their way to the pulling booth, on the face of law they cannot testify to have been there, so by and large, they can only testify to what they did, which was to monitor road blocks and provide external security within the state.
With the revelations so far and end of witness appearances before the tribunal, Nigerians are waiting anxiously for the outcome of the tribunal. Whether it will upturn the election based on the latest testimonies or uphold the election is yet to be seen.
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