Africa’s biggest democratic exercise marred by sad tales of violence, voter intimidation

“This country is something else, they just burnt our votes, can’t you see, they just burnt our votes.”

Those were all the words a Nigerian voter, female, could utter in a 22 second-long video which showed disturbing scenes of electoral violence in the Lagos suburb of Okota.

The video would end abruptly and her voice faded in the pandemonium as she, along with scores of other voters, hurriedly fled the scene- which was now tainted by smoke from burning ballot papers and other electoral materials. They were running from an angry weapon-wielding mob.

Through out the video, there was no sign of the local police, whose responsibility it was to ensure fair and peaceful elections, as an otherwise largely peaceful election was marred by some cases of violence and voter suppression.

Dozens fell victim to yet another round of decade-old bombings by islamist militants up north in Maiduguri, capital of Bornu state while brutal killings reigned down south in the oil-rich Rivers state, as reports of sporadic violence piled across Nigeria amid Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly polls.

People were killed and in milder cases battered and injured, while election materials were set ablaze by armed bandits and voting delayed for hours in some polling centres mainly in southern Nigeria.

Situation Room, a coalition of more than 70 civic groups monitoring the election process said it observed violent disruptions by political thugs that snatched and burnt ballot boxes and papers. It group reported that sixteen people were killed in electoral violence across eight states. Six of the people from Rivers state alone.

Police spokesman, Nnamdi Omoni, said unknown gunmen shot dead a former local government leader and his brother in the Andoni area of Rivers.

Eye-witness videos recorded by terrified voters and shared on social media platforms showed casualties may have been slightly higher than the 16 reported by Situation Room, with 19 people killed as at the last count.

The electoral body in charge of the voting process, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said it would postpone elections in some parts of the affected states from Rivers to Anambra and Lagos States, where polls could not hold due to the acts of violence.

The Presidential election pits incumbent President and former military dictator, Muhammadu Buhari, 76, against main opposition candidate and billionaire business man, Atiku Abubakar, 72, although some 70 other candidates are also vying for control of Africa’s biggest oil producer and most populous nation.

The candidates had urged peace and non-violence in the weeks leading up to the elections, as they inked several peace accords, but the script go as planned in a country where more civilians were killed in election-related attacks last year than in either Yemen or Afghanistan, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

“It was a step backwards for a country whose democracy many assumed was beginning to mature,” an international observer said of the violent outbreaks in some polling units across the country.

“There were some shocking sights. Instances where voters were beaten up for siding with the minority party in an area where another party was the dominant one,” the person said on condition of anonymity.

The Nigerian government warned the international community to steer clear of “interfering” with the elections, with one of the Northern governors going as far as threatening that foreigners who interfered would leave the country in “body bags.”

Unsure of Nigeria’s definition of ‘interference’, our source pleaded anonymity. No international observer has publicly commented on the reported electoral violence yet.

The YIAGA Africa Watching The Vote group, a civic organisation which deployed nearly 4,000 observers to monitor or watch the election, as their name implies, reported cases of voter abuse mostly in the Northern part of the country.

The group said that security officers in Kaduna and Yobe states had arrested and detained accredited observers apart from many Nigerians were also denied access to some polling units in Yobe state to exercise their franchise.

The group also claimed that their supervisor was arrested and detained in Kafanchan, Kaduna State.

73 million Nigerian voters were cleared to vote on Saturday, although low voter turnout has been a main-stay in Nigerian elections. In 2015, only 41 percent of eligible voters turned up.

The elections are holding after a week-long delay was announced by the electoral body roughly six hours to the election date Feb 16. The initial date was called back due to some “logistic challenges,” according to INEC.

LOLADE AKINMURELE