Nigeria Content Online

Many Lagos
politicians believe the chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission, Attahiru Jega, did not tell Nigerians the whole truth
surrounding the cancellation of last Saturday’s National Assembly
election.

Fake register

“When Jega said the
cancellation was because materials were not available, I like you to
understand that it goes beyond that,” said Ganiyu Solomon, Action
Congress of Nigeria’s candidate for the Lagos West Senatorial District,
who was shocked that his name was not on the register brought to his
polling unit in Ilupeju. “He said he will tell Nigerians the truth; no,
he has not told us the entire truth, because in my polling units for
instance my name was not there. I am a candidate, and my name, in a
place where I have registered since I turned 18, now suddenly
disappeared. We had about 500 registered voters but INEC came with a
register containing only 153 names.”

He said such “grave
error,” having happened before to Chris Ngige of Anambra State, should
not even happen again, if the electoral commission is actually learning
from history. “This thing is avoidable if the verification exercise had
been done faithfully by INEC,” he said. “Jega requested for money and
more money, he was given. He requested for more time, he was also
given. He requested that the constitution be amended, it was done. He
asked us to send students home during registration, we did that.
Everything he asked for, he was given.”

The chaos

In many polling
units, the number of accredited voters was not up to half of number of
registered voters. In Governor Babatunde Fashola’s ward, 273 voters
were accredited out of 870 registered voters. In another polling unit
in Ikeja, 200 voters were accredited out of 828 registered voters. Many
voters claimed they could not find their names on the register.

Electoral materials
meant for Imo State were reportedly found in Badagary. In Lagos Central
Senatorial District and Ikorodu, Labour Party was also missing on the
ballot papers, National Conscience Party’s name was also omitted in
Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area. Tunde Agunbiade, the state chairman
of the National Conscience Party, said the voting that took place in
Lagos not only exposed the electoral commission’s ill- preparedness,
but also revealed a high level of irregularity. “If the election had
run as scheduled, the level of disenfranchisement and irregularity
would have been worse than 2007 elections,” he said.

Mr Solomon
complained that there were not enough vehicles to convey electoral
officials to polling units. “Why provide three vehicles to officers
manning about 300 polling units spread across a particular local
government and you expect them to reach there at 8am?,” he said. “So
they will be dropping from the vehicle as if they are in Molue buses.”

Mr Agunbiade wanted
“INEC to be completely independent by also providing needed furniture
for electoral officials” because the officials will “likely be
favourably disposed to whoever provides ancillary support and this may
be a source of rigging.”

More fears

Emmanuel Fadele,
the Executive Director of Justice, Development, and Peace Commission,
the largest indigenous electoral observer group, wants to know how the
commission will replace the used ballot papers. “We are worried
particularly over the security of the issued electoral materials in the
hands of various electoral officials who may collude with mischievous
politicians to perpetrate electoral fraud,” he said. “We are equally
disturbed by the fact that this can discourage the teeming electorates,
who trooped out [on Saturday], from coming out to vote during the rest
of the voting exercise.”