Bayelsa is boiling; election has become full-blown war again! Kogi’s silence is like that of a grave yard; what should have been a simple, straightforward affair turned into an intricate web of intrigues and subterfuge. The South-East is on the verge of becoming another north-east. The first steps in that frightful outcome have already taken place before our very eyes with the splintering and subsequent radicalization of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the fool-hardy response of the security forces to meet force with force. Elsewhere, the putrefying revelations oozing out of arms deal probe are as mind-boggling as they are ludicrously entertaining. At first, the deal was said to be worth US$2 billion; since then, however, the figure has kept climbing. Former CBN governor now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, added a new dimension when he said he suspected not less than US$1billion was lost by the country monthly under the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Some figures said erstwhile Petroleum Minister, Deziani Allison-Madueke, alone must have frittered US$6 billion in shady oil deals. If the Western media begin to describe Nigeria as Looters’ Paradise or Corruption Incorporated, we should understand why.
The election in Bayelsa is war by another means. That should be understandable, that state being home to ex-militants. After the amnesty deal brokered by the late President Musa Yar’Adua with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) for the militants to lay down their arms and embrace peace for an offering, sources had warned that was laid down were disused and unserviceable weaponry. The billions of dollars that poured into the region, and more so to ex-warlords, provided added muscle for those already used to the staccato of firearms to better rearm and fortify themselves. Therefore, it is not surprising that the region is awash with arms or that in the absence of open rebellion to engage in, the next available theatre of war becomes elections. Sources have also hinted that the commando-like armed robberies that have whacked the coastline states in recent times, especially Lagos and Ogun states, with the assailants coming through the creeks and the high sea and escaping same direction after their bloody operations, may be another outcome of the avalanche of small arms in the Niger Delta area.
Who wins the election in Bayelsa is a question of six and half a dozen. The incumbent governor, Seriake Dickson, torpedoed the erstwhile governor, Timipre Sylva, when the then powers-that-be, President Jonathan and his influential First Lady, Dame Patience, denied the latter the opportunity of re-election. Dickson himself would probably have been out n the cold by now had the Jonathans won their own re-election. But of what value has the tenure of either been to the average Bayelsans? Governance here hardly benefits the populace; even the president’s or governor’s hamlet seldom has dividends of democracy to savour. Those who benefit mostly from government are fawning bootlickers and Man Fridays whose selfish interests tally with those of the big men and women in power, regardless of ethnicity or religion. The revelations from Raymond Dokpesi, as shocking as they are, speak volumes about how government is run here. Funds meant for the arming of soldiers ended up as election campaign slush funds even while Boko Haram made mince-meat of our soldiers on the battlefield. Still, we bullied the hapless troops to fight insurgents armed to the teeth with bare hands. Those who ran were court-marshalled and sentenced. When Boko Haram carted away our girls and other women and kids who they later turned into suicide bombers, we pretended not to know what had happened! Yet, I have it on authority from insiders who should know that the crime for which the erstwhile National Security Adviser, Dasuki Sambo, is being held had been the norm in that office for a long time. While this information, if true, may not necessarily exonerate Dasuki, it simply implies that if we dig deeper, we may find that this mess has deeper roots.
The Kogi supplementary election has conclusively proven the case of those who said there was no need for any supplementary election in the first place. The main election had actually produced a clear winner before the erstwhile APC governorship candidate, Abubakar Audu, died suddenly and mysteriously. Audu led his nearest challenger and incumbent governor, PDP’s Idris Wada, by over 41,000 votes. To declare the election inconclusive, INEC said there were close to 49,000 voters in areas where elections were cancelled. Since the number of those who still had to exercise their franchise was more than Audu’s majority of votes over Wada, INEC reckoned that no clear winner could be declared at that stage. The argument against the INEC reasoning, however, was that the actual figure that should have been brought to bear was the number of registered voters with Permanent Voters Card (PVC) since only those with PVC could lawfully vote in the election. That being the case, the registered voters with PVC were said to be less than 30,000 voters, which is far less than the margin with which Audu had led his closest rival, Wada. As it turned out in the supplementary election, the total number of those who voted was less than 15,000. APC only marginally increased its lead over PDP by another 1000 votes. In other words, even if all the votes cast in the supplementary election were allotted to PDP\Wada, they would still not have been able to overtake APC\Audu. Therefore, the Abubakar Audu\James Abiodun Faleke APC ticket had won the election fair and square on the first ballot on November 21st. The December 5 supplementary election was, at best, mere rigmarole and, at the worst, contrived and concocted cockatrice to rob Peter to pay Paul and pervert the course of justice. Two people were thus robbed: Audu and Faleke in that order. For Audu especially, who was denied of his hard-earned victory of being declared Governor-elect, the injustice he suffered is akin to that meted out to MKO Abiola, whose clear-cut victory in the June 12, 1993 presidential election was annulled by military fiat.
