Osun State Gubernatorial Election: An Observer's Report

Preambles:

Finally the people of Osun State decided to go to the polls to elect their next head of state and chief executive of the executive branch called Governor. Expectations were high, fears of violence and intimidations had already been built up before this date and all different stakeholders had made pronouncements of decisive process (short of proclaiming the famous “do or die”). 

Outside the state, media moguls who wanted to make money through news of horror circulated scare news about the state being under security siege. They informed everyone outside Osun that on the appointed date, it was safer to be anywhere else outside Osun State and people believed them. Actually the medaia moguls were the only one speaking and in the absence of actual available water, people will trust and drink the mirage in the desert.

Nevertheless, the people concerned felt they were ready to go for the elections and indeed they were.

The Osun State gubernatorial elections were held on the 9^th of August and as a member of the election monitoring team for “ReclaimNaija”, an organisation set up to rebuild confidence and competence in the demoralised Nigeria, I was involved in the verification of claims that the elections would be free and fair.

Because of the huge size of Osun State and the huge number of polling booths, it was impossible to cover all parts, so we focused on Oshogbo south and covered every polling station in Ede LGA.

The Elections: Accreditation of Electorates

What I witnessed in the election was that from the wee hours of the morning, voters started trouping out and walking towards where their polling stations were so as to arrive early for the mandatory accreditation process which preceded the elections. The fear of danger and violence already created by the media did not deter voters; they trooped out and walked the distance to their stations.

Each polling station visited recorded more than fair number of turnouts. Electorates arrived early and were completely orderly as they conducted themselves according to the suggestions by the INEC crew (which included INEC returning officers, police force, civil defence forces and the distant watching arming who carried guns) on each station. The accreditations were tedious because of the turnout but the Crew did their best and helped smoothened the processes managing the electorate’s expectations with their own competences.

At some centres, the accreditation was so smooth they completed the processes early and returning officers started to sleep while waiting for the allotted hours of elections proper. This is a pure indication that electorates were peaceful, the processes were orderly and indeed the logistics for free and fair elections complemented one another.

At the hours of elections, all polling booths visited commenced casting early and smoothly. Even though most of the electorates who wanted to be the first to cast confused the lines of numbering made during accreditations which resulted into fresh accreditations before casting, still, the huge crowd understood the confusion and respected the need for order. Climate was hugely favourable and complementary. Had climate been unkind, it would have created tension and the crowd would have been uncontrollable and the perfect arrangement of the processes would have been grossly compromised.

The Election: Casting of Ballots

Elections went very well and orderly in all the polling booths visited. After casting of ballot, most of the electorates hanged around for counting to commence and where we waited to experience counting, we witnessed evidence of competent and highly trained INEC polling officer. The INEC polling officer in charge, herself an NYSC person, conducted the processes purely by the book and in a very admirable fashion. She appeared thoroughly trained and one of those who added initiatives to her education. Every political party representative on ground was shown what she would do and why she would do such. She sought their agreement at every stage before proceeding and when she was done, she faced the growing crowed and asked them to assist her in her selections of what ballot paper belonged to what party and where they felt she was wrong, she explained her reasons and even the crowd cheered and applauded her. Counting was kindergarten style; anxious electorates were encouraged to join in the counting of each ballot paper loudly and jovially which made results known to all before she declared them. This made every process transparent and purely acceptable without any controversies.

This was the style and mode of counting in all the other polling centres visited before the close of the day.

The Elections: What went well

What went well with this Osun State election were the followings

1. Electorates were highly motivated and interested in voting
2. Expectations were high amongst all stakeholders; electorates, political parties, contestants, interested observers from inside and outside the State, media moguls, Federal Government of Nigeria and a huge array of other nameless stakeholders
3. INEC, for the first time in many decades, finally got it right. The logistic arrangements were excellently coordinated and delivered. The staff were well trained and coordinated, the early arrival of all ballot related materials and the complements of the armed forces were very matured and helpful and there was perfect coordination of everyone and every logistic for the successful conduct.

4.   The conduct of the armed forces also requires special and dedicated mention. They conducted themselves with utmost professional competences. They assisted the polling officers where necessary and they stayed apart and watched where that was all they could do. In some areas also, they assisted in calming anxious crowd and used flattery technics to deal with vocal and over excited voters so as not to aggravate the crowd.

The Elections: What did not go well

There were few things noticed that did not go well. These were so minimal that this observer will prefer to mention them as recommendation for the future conduct of elections

This Elections: Recommendations for future conduct

In future, perhaps INEC might want to

a.   Consider having a data base of Youth Corpers who were trained, used and gave a remarkable initiative at the polling station with the view to using them in future election which will require minimal training to some degree, greater assurance of competences than relying on fresh graduate. Such database can be recalled and since it is just a weekend exercise, availability of these experienced human resources might not be too much of a challenge for them. At least, one will be sure that on an election period, where INEC’s logistic competences and attention are spread between 36 states plus Abuja, to a certain appreciative degree, these ones will provide and require minimum supervisions.

b.   The military officers kept at border points of cities, towns and states were seen hungry and without food for days. They were the ones allowed with guns to come near polling booths and the first and last line of defence when ballot papers are rigged. We did not observe any logistic arrangements that targeted providing succour in terms of food and drinks to these ones. The army is a force that rely heavily on logistic, and we saw a lack in this logistic. This observation in Osun means someone might be playing with the fate of these officers. A hungry officer is very susceptible to compromises and abuse. He could be paid to look the other way where he should have raised alarm and justify the reasons for the check points. Perhaps INEC might want to consider a separate arm of its operation aimed at providing food logistic to everyone involved in its elections. Just as INEC had provided room for election observers and had perfected this provision over the years, it might also want to consider this important complement to credible elections and it is strong enough to mar the perfectly planned process

c.     Still on the military presence at elections, there is need for us to begin to play down on militarisation of elections. We have come to believe that elections are only secured and or credible when there is massive presence of military forces on the ground with helicopters roving in the air. The recently conducted Anambra State Elections hardly needed any military presence. Ekiti State Election (2014) had shown us that this is not necessary. Osun State Election rendered the men in Khaki useless and sleeping on duty because they were absolutely unnecessary and bored. With these three instances, there is need for policy makers to review the speed at which they unleash the ruthless dog of military into civilian polity during elections and turn a democratic process into militarised election.

d.   Perhaps this is an individual officer’s behaviour but INEC might want to add to its training manual, the fact that police or any law enforcement officers need to move far away from the voters’ stands when ballot castings are going on. We noticed overzealous officers sitting so uncomfortably close to a voter. This is internationally regarded as “might provide” a sense of intimidation of the voter. Conscious training in this direction might make everyone involved in the electoral processes to be aware of any form of intimidation that could mar the processes.

e.  Similar to the above, we observe journalists, observers moving too dangerously close to the casting podium. These elections were meant to be secret ballot style. What is secret when my cast is broadcast on television and or seen by an observer who is meant to report that I had my election in absolute secrecy according to the spirits and provision of the law.

 

Once again, this observer’s conclusion is that the elections that took place in Osun was largely free and fair and can be seen as a model and a good indication that INEC as electoral body has stepped up beyond the conduct of similarly elections in recent times.