One notorious feature that characterised the 2019 general election is “inconclusive” which took toll mostly on the March 9, 2019 governorship elections.
Governorship election was declared inconclusive in six states- Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Sokoto and Plateau. In all of these states, the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was leading except in Plateau State where the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was leading.
In all instances, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officers justified their decisions according to Section 53 of the regulations and guidelines for 2019 general election.
According to section 53 (e): “Where the margin of lead between the two leading candidates in an election is NOT in excess of the total number of voters registered in Polling Units where elections are not held or voided in line with sections 26 and 53 of the Electoral Act, the returning officer shall decline to make a return until polls have taken place in the affected Polling Units and the results collated into the relevant forms for Declaration and Return”.
To be specific, the major reason INEC declared the 2019 governorship election in the six states inconclusive is because the votes cancelled in each of the six states is more than the margin between the leading candidates and the runner-up.
Results of polls in these states showed that in Adamawa, PDP scored 367, 471 while APC got 334, 995 votes with PDP leading by 32, 476 votes less than 40, 988 cancelled votes.
In Bauchi, PDP got 469, 512 votes higher than APC with 465, 453 but the margin of lead was 4, 059 less than 45,313 cancelled votes.
For Benue, PDP was winning with 410, 576 votes against APC with 329, 022 while the cancelled votes were 121, 011 higher than the lead margin of 81, 554.
Coming to Kano, PDP had led with 1, 014, 474 votes against APC with 987, 819 votes. However, the margin of lead was 26, 655 less than the cancelled votes of 141, 694.
On the other hand, APC was leading in Plateau State with 583, 255 votes over PDP votes of 538, 326 but the margin of lead stood at 44, 929 votes less than the cancelled votes of 49, 377.
In Sokoto, PDP had led with 489, 558 against APC which recorded 486, 145 votes but the difference was 3, 413 votes less than 75, 403 cancelled votes.
INEC has rescheduled and conducted elections in these states on Saturday, March 23, 2019.
Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and Publicity who announced the decision of the Commission said, “the Returning Officers in Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto States declared the Governorship elections inconclusive. Consequently the Commission will conduct supplementary elections on Saturday 23rd March 2019 to conclude the process.
“Supplementary elections will also hold in polling units in all states where State Assembly elections were declared inconclusive and winners could not be declared.
“The elections were declared inconclusive for a combination of reasons, mainly the discontinuation of use of the Smart Card Readers midway into the elections or the failure to deploy them, over-voting and widespread disruption in many polling units.
“In compliance with the Margin of Lead Principle derived from Sections 26 and 53 of the Electoral Act mm (as amended) and paragraph 41(e) and 43(b) of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections, the outcome of these elections could not be determined without conducting polls in the affected polling units. Hence, the Commission’s decision to conduct supplementary elections in line with this principle.
As convincing as INEC may sound, the most pressing unanswered question is that: why elections were declared inconclusive mostly in five out of six states that were being won by the PDP?
The politics behind the inconclusive polls became manifest as the sitting APC governors affected ran to the Presidency to definitely find help while others resort to court where the President reportedly showed no sign of coming to their rescue.
For instance, the rescheduled collation of results in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of
Bauchi State last Tuesday was quashed by a court order procured by Governor Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi State.
Also, in Adamawa State, the Adamawa State High court issued an injunction restraining INEC from proceeding with the supplementary election following the application by the Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD), a registered political party which did not take part in the main election.
This has consequently raised serious concerns as first expressed by the victim of this unpleasant circumstance, the PDP, with leaders accusing the electoral umpire of bias.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan accused INEC of being “overtly partisan” and surrendering its independence to the ruling APC by “declaring governorship elections in states where the PDP was in clear lead as inconclusive”.
“More worrisome is the resolution which arose from a meeting between some governors of the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari, where the PDP has been informed that a decision was taken to seize Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Plateau, Sokoto and Kano states in the March 23, scheduled supplementary election.
“It is instructive to state that the Buhari Presidency has not denied this strong allegation of rigging plans, thus strengthening the reality that the APC is always prepared to benefit from electoral fraud.
“The PDP wishes to state that after our deliberation and interface with stakeholders from the various states where governorship supplementary elections have been scheduled to hold, the party mandates all our members to resist any attempt by anybody to tamper with the will of the people in their states.”
Similarly, the House of Representatives obviously worried by the phenomenon of inconclusive declaration of elections has resolved to set up an ad-hoc committee to amend the Electoral Act to address the problem of inconclusive elections.
The resolution followed a motion sponsored by Sunday Karimi calling on INEC not to subvert the will of the people by resorting to the provisions of its guidelines (relating to inconclusive elections) but to adhere to the Constitution and allow aggrieved parties to proceed to the relevant Election Tribunals in order to ensure peace and security and to promote the credibility of the Electoral Process.
Karimi (Kogi: PDP) remarked that since the November 21st, 2015 Gubernatorial Election in Kogi State, inconclusive elections has become a demon hunting the Nigerian Electoral System, thereby eroding the confidence of the electorate in the electoral system.
He argued that the escalating trend of inconclusive elections has cast a shadow on the neutrality of INEC as an umpire in the electoral process, stressing that the declaration of elections as inconclusive has become a tool to subvert the will of the electorate in the country.
While insisting that INEC should not be allowed to continue to whimsically declare elections inconclusive, Karimi asserted that the combined effect of Section 134, 179, 111 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999(as amended) and 26(1) as well as Section 53(2)&(3) of the Electoral Act shows that inconclusive elections was not envisaged in the country’s law, except where there was over-voting in a polling unit, not where votes already cast were cancelled.
Ali Madaki (Kano: PDP) in his contribution, recalled that the circumstances that led to the declaration of the Kano governorship poll inconclusive was a clear indication that INEC is now a tool in the hands of powerful forces within the ruling All Progressives Congress to subvert the will of the people.
Madaki, who served as the PDP agent in the Kano governorship poll, accused INEC of encouraging thuggery and violence over the ugly trend.
He stated that, “What we went through in the last one month was war. What happened in the last one month is akin to military coup. The section of the Electoral Act that we are talking about, which give INEC the power to declare election inconclusive, that is Section 26 of the Electoral Act. I know for a fact that the constitution of Nigeria is supreme. It is above any other law made by us or made by anybody.
“And the Constitution of Nigeria is very clear about what you need to do to declare a winner in an election but for one reason or the other, but in most cases INEC has shown not to be independent because in states where PDP is winning the elections were declared inconclusive.
“We know for a fact that all the ballot papers used in Kano are still there intact with INEC. Even the original result sheets that were torn; it was the result that were torn, it was the duplicate. We submitted it to them they said it has passed through hands so they cannot use it again. We then told them the professor who collated this result is here, let him look at it, is it his document or has it been tampered with; they said no, they went and declared our election inconclusive.
“We are talking about the integrity of President Muhammdu Buhari – his integrity, if he has any, is being questioned seriously. If he is watching, he has been declared as a winner while the margin of victory is less than the number of canceled votes all over Nigeria, but he has been declared winner and our candidates of PDP in six states of northern Nigerian have been declared as inconclusive and from information available to me, in the next two weeks when we are going for the election, they will use every resources available and declare APC as winners in these elections. Let me sound a note of warning that we will not take it.”
Diri Douye (Bayelsa: PDP) who expressed concern over the development argued that the National Assembly should blame itself for allowing primordial sentiments override that of national interest after President Muhammadu Buhari declined assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill (2018) which would have entrenched the transmission of technology in the transmission of results.
To further buttress the political undertone of the inconclusive polls, Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, had accused INEC of working with Governor Mohammed Abubakar to subvert the will of the people.
Dogara lamented that, “It is now clear that Independent National Electoral Commission is working in concert with Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar to rob Bauchi people of their mandate”.
According to the Speaker, who hails from Bauchi, “The facts are as follows: Deliberately delaying the collation of Tafawa Balewa votes by Bauchi Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ibrahim Abdullahi in anticipation of an ex-parte order which was obeyed even before it was enrolled and served on INEC National Chairman in Abuja, the Bauchi REC hastily said he will obey the order that was not served on him.
“Total disregard of the INEC chairman’s directives by Bauchi REC to release details of total PVCs issued and collected in respect of the 29 Registration Areas and 36 Polling Units where cancellation of votes took place and supplementary elections is supposed to hold in Bauchi State on Saturday (yesterday). Our political party wrote to him twice and yet he refused to release the details of total number of PVCs collected. Therefore, the only reason to explain this is that massive fraud is being orchestrated by the REC.”
Dogara further said: “The declaration by Bauchi REC that he will proceed with supplementary elections in some units where elections were cancelled when the main elections is yet to be concluded in Bauchi state in contravention of the provisions of Section 26 (4) and 53 (4) of the Electoral Act and paragraphs 33(a) & (e), 34 (e) of the Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections issued by INEC and sections 26 and 53 of the Electoral Act.
“As long as collation of Tafawa Balewa votes remains outstanding by virtue of the court order, the governorship elections in Bauchi State have not been concluded and therefore, there ought not to have supplementary elections until collation of Tafawa Balewa votes is completed and the margin of lead between the candidates is determined according to law.
“Bauchi REC should tell the whole world whether INEC can order a rerun elections in units where elections were cancelled as a result of over-voting as against those where there were hitches. Cancellation due to over-voting is supposed to be punitive and such units should never be rewarded with the opportunity for supplementary elections as doing so is akin to allowing a student caught cheating in an exam to rewrite the exams.
“The world should know that almost all the units where supplementary elections are ordered by Bauchi REC were cancelled due to over-voting except in only one where election was canceled as a result of violence.
“We have it on good authority that when the Bauchi REC Ibrahim Abdullahi had problems with his former employers, he sought the intervention of Senator Bala Mohammed (then FCT minister) to take up the matter with the President which didn’t yield any result as a result of which he openly boasted to his confidants that he will do whatever it is within his power not to return Senator Bala Mohammed as Governor-elect.
“The world should ask whether his personal squabbles with Bala Mohammed is enough for him to rob Bauchi people of the mandate they have freely given to Senator Bala Mohammed.
“The world must also note that the enemies of Bauchi people have stalled the collation of Tafawa Balewa votes to allow Governor MA Abubakar the opportunity through the illegal Saturday’s supplementary elections to fraudulently raise enough votes to cover the margin between him and Senator Bala Mohammed.
“If he succeeds in this on Saturday (yesterday)- God forbid- then by Monday the world will be told that the ex-parte order granted by the Federal High Court Abuja has been vacated to enable collation of Tafawa Balewa votes which will now pave way for Governor MA to be declared winner with whatever margin he makes from the supplementary elections.
“If on the other hand, Governor MA Abubakar is unable to exceed the margin of lead from the votes he may fraudulently allocate to himself from the supplementary elections then Tafawa Balewa votes will be hotly contested so that he can have another opportunity of rigging his way back to power having been overwhelmingly rejected by the people of Bauchi State.
“So, Bauchi people and indeed the world should know that the chief facilitator of this evil plot is no other person than the Bauchi REC, Ibrahim Abdullahi in collaboration with rogue elements within the security services.
“We also have it on good authority that security personnel have been deployed to all the affected Polling Units with the specific instruction to rig the election for Governor MA Abubakar even if people will be killed.
“The world must also know that Bauchi election is already won and lost. The winner is Senator Bala A. Mohammed (Kauran Bauchi) while the loser is Governor M A Abubakar.
James Kwen, Abuja
