- Buni Returns in Yobe, Yahaya Wins in Gombe, Namadi Emerges Gov-Elect in Jigawa
- Voter Apathy, Electoral Fraud, Violence Mar Exercise
- 25 Killed in A’Ibom, Benue, C’River, Delta, Lagos, Niger, Osun, Rivers
By AMOS ESELE, with AYO ESAN, AYO ESAN, UKANDI ODEY, SAMPSON UHUEGBU, DAVID OWEI and SUNDAY OGBU
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Sunday, declared governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State; Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State and Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, winners of the governorship election held on Saturday, March 18, in their respective states with Pastor Eno Umo winning the race in Akwa Ibom State.
Prince Abiodun scored 276,298 to defeat his closest rival, Mr Ladi Adebutu of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who polled 262,383 votes. Makinde polled 563,756 votes to defeat his closest rival, Folarin of the All Progressives Congress, APC, who scored 256,685 votes.
In Kwara State, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of the APC was declared winner of Saturday, March 18, 2023 governorship election, having won in all the 16 local governments areas of the state in the election results declared by INEC Returning officer, Professor Isaac Itodo.
In Akwa Ibom, Umo Bassey Eno of the PDP, won the governorship race with 354, 357 over his closest rivals, Senator Bassey Akpan of Young Peoples Party, YPP, who polled 135, 724 votes and Akanimo Udofia of the APC, who scored 129,604.having satisfied the requirements of the law. The Governor-Elect of Akwa Ibom State garnered the highest votes cast and won in 30 out of 31 local governments in the state.
Also on Sunday, INEC declared the incumbent Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, as the winner of the March 18th governorship election in the State.
Announcing the result at the INEC headquarters in Damaturu, the State Returning Officer, Prof Umar Pate, said Mai Buni of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 317,113 to defeat his closest rival, Sheriff Abdullahi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 104,259.
While accredited voters were 459,492, valid votes cast and total votes cast were 444,567 and 457,781 respectively.
Buni, a former caretaker chairman of the APC, is returning as the Governor of the North-East State for the second time under the APC.
INEC also declared Inuwa Yahaya, APC candidate, as the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Gombe state.
Declaring the winner on Sunday, the Returning Officer for the election and the Vice Chancellor of Federal University Gashua, Yobe State, Professor Maimuna Waziri, said Inuwa scored a total of 342,821 votes to get re-elected as Governor of the State.
His closest rival, Mohammed Jibrin Barde of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 233,131 votes.
Ahmed Mailantarki of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) came third with 19,861 votes while Keftin Amuga of the Labour Party (LP) scored 1,753.
INEC also declared Umar Namadi, candidate of the APC as the winner of the March 18 governorship election, in Jigawa State.
INEC Collation Officer for the governorship election in Jigawa, Zaiyanu Umar, announced the results on Sunday evening, in Dutse, the State capital.
Namadi won in 26 of the 27 Local Government Areas in the State, with a total of 618,449 votes to defeat his closest rivals, Mustafa Lamido of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 368,726 and Aminu Ringim of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), who got 37,156 votes.
The Deputy Governor and former Commissioner of Finance will replace the incumbent, Abubakar Badaru of the APC, whose two-term of eight years ends on May 29, 2023.
Election monitoring groups in their preliminary reports on the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections were uncomplimentary.
Although they commended INEC for early arrival of materials at most of the 176,846 polling units across the country, the local observers agreed that the “final outcome may not reflect the wishes of the people.”
Ms Ene Obi, Country Director of Action Aid Nigeria, the Convener of Civil Society Situation Room, YIAGA Africa and Centre for Democracy and Development were united in their views that vote buying, voter suppression, thuggery/ violence and apathy hallmarked the polls.
Voters and police officers were shot dead in states like Akwa-Ibom, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Lagos, Niger, Osun and Rivers.
“Voters were harassed, electoral materials destroyed, vote-buying was higher in state elections compared to what was applicable in the presidential election, and voters accredited without the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS),” noted Mr Ezenwa Nwagwu, board member of YIAGA Africa, which deployed 1,547 observers in 28 states where the governorship poll held.
According to CDD executive director, Idayat Hassan, who presented a report on the electoral process in six geo-political zones of the country, “This might be a reflection of the heightened political environment around governorship polls, the importance of local personalities in state-level politics, and the shortages of fuel and Naira.”
As earlier projected by THEWILL, local interests, power play and alliances contributed greatly in determining the fate of many governorship candidates in spite of the rampant thuggery, violence, voter intimidation and bribery.
COALITION AND POWER PLAY AT WORK
A perfect example of how these factors played out took place in Oyo, Nasarawa and Lagos States where incumbent Governors Seyi Makinde, Abdullahi Sule and Babajide-Sanwo-Olu, were seeking re-election and in Kaduna State where the ticket was open as Governor Nasir el-Rufai had served his two-terms.
In Oyo where Governor Makinde was up against a formidable opposition from the reformed All Progressives Congress, APC and its candidate, Teslim Folarin, after a spectacular performance at the presidential and national assembly polls, during which they clinched the three senatorial seats and eight out of the 11 representative seats, President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had to intervene.
According to dependable sources, Tinubu had to put a phone call to APC chieftains in the state to work for Makinde’s victory, a favour he had to return for the beleaguered governor’s assistance in the presidential election, which the APC won in Oyo State.
Tinubu was said to have released, “a huge sum of money to his party chieftains to calm frayed nerves and even went as far as appealing to the candidate of the Accord Party, Adebayo Adelabu, urging him to bid his time till 2027 when Makinde would have done his statutory terms,” said the source.
In Kaduna State, the elite who felt offended by the machinations of Governor el-Rufai, particularly his religious bigotry, which fuelled his decision to continue the Muslim-Muslim ticket for the governorship that in turn sharpened the ethnic tension and increased arson and killings, worked together to unseat him. The PDP, which won all three senatorial seats and 10 out of 16 seats in the House of Representatives, looked good to clinch the governorship but the APC is putting up a great resistance to turn the tide. As at the time of this report, the APC candidate was in the lead.
In a moment of reality check, el-Rufai and the APC governorship candidate, Senator Sani Uba, complained about voter intimidation in Kajuru and Zaria Local Government Areas, which the Commissioner of Police, Sunday Babaji, promised to investigate while insisting that the conduct of the election was peaceful.
In Nasarawa State, a helpless Governor Sule had to admit before journalists, after casting his vote at Motor Park 002 Gudi Polling Unit in Akwanga Local Government Area, that “the Labour candidate stepped down for the PDP candidate in the last minute,” when in fact the coalition was mediated two weeks to the polls by a former Minister of Information and Culture, Labaran Maku. The PDP candidate, David Emmanuel Ombugadu, looks good to win, with over half of the results from the election officially declared.
In Lagos State, the coalition between the LP and PDP was consummated “too late and with uncertainty,” few hours to the polls. According to a source who confided in THEWILL, the alliance between both parties, which personal assistant to Phillip Olabode Aivoji, PDP Chairman in the state, Mr Seyi Shodipo, in a Friday, March 17, evening statement, said was agreed to by LP Chairman, Mrs Dayo Ekong for “both parties to work together from constituency levels through their delegated members to campaign and woo voters,” came too late to be of effect.
As it turned out, “Jandor (PDP’s governorship candidate, AbdulAzeez Adediran) resisted the alliance,” confided in the party source. In the end, the alliance was as worthless as the paper it was written on, leaving Governor Sanwo-Olu virtually unchallenged.
DISRUPTIONS THAT MARRED THE POLLS
Party thugs and agents, as well as traditional rulers and complicit security personnel, contributed in rubbishing the election.
Fearing a repeat performance of the presidential election results which the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, won, supporters of the status-quo in Lagos State deployed all antics to have their way.
Lagos, the commercial nerve of the country, unexpectedly became a ‘war’ zone where known thugs issued warning statement to the Igbo not to vote against APC. On Election Day, thugs paraded areas known to be the strongholds of the opposition, such as Okota, Ojo and Lekki, shouting, “Stay at home if you won’t vote APC. A known Tinubu-supporter and Chairman of Lagos Parks and Garages Management Committee, Musiliu Akinsanya, alias “MC Oluomo, shared a video in which he called on all “Iya Chukwudis (all Igbo), to “Vote APC or stay at home!”
Although the spokesperson of the Lagos State Police Command, Benjamin Hundeyin, said it was a joke, the wrong message had been sent out. Alarmingly, some traditional rulers, particularly Oba Saheed Ademola Elugushi of Ikate Kingdom, issued a notice on the observance of ‘Oro,’ a Yoruba religious ritual on the day of eection, in flagrant disobedience and contravention of the Federal Government directive restricting movements on that day.
In another development in upscale Lekki, white-attired chiefs performed a ritual with a sacrificial goat invoking the gods to favour Governor Sanwo-olu and ruin the chances of his rivals. In most polling units, THEWILL team saw pots of fetish materials placed in corners which voters by-passed to cast their votes. INEC had to shift to Sunday, March 19, voting in 10 polling units at Victoria Garden City, where polling booths were moved by colluding INEC officials to locations considered unsafe by the residents.
In other places, masked thugs invaded polling units and chased voters away.
In other states like Cross River, an exceptional police officer was shot dead at a polling unit. In Rivers State, thugs like their cousins in Lagos, paraded streets warning those, “who would not vote PDP,” to stay away from polling units.
In Enugu State, thugs who wore police and army uniforms out to cast votes for a particular party were arrested by officers of the National Security and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC, at Nsukka, Enugu East, Enugu North and Nkanu West Local Government Areas.
In Plateau State, where voter apathy was pronounced, low voter turn-out became a source of concern to the major parties where the PDP, LP and the governing APC each thought their candidate would emerge victorious.
Ebonyi State also had its fair share of violence. Here, thugs in military uniform hijacked election materials from polling units and destroyed them, especially in Nnewi North and Ezza North Local Government Areas, which are occupied by one of the most populous clans in the state.
To illustrate voter apathy, asked why were playing football during voting hours, some youths in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, said they were not sure the outcome would reflect their wishes, judging by their experience in the presidential and national assembly polls.
Commenting on it, LP presidential candidate, Obi, supported the footballing youths view. Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State also said the same thing. Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, however put it down to what he called the unusually large number of security personnel in the state.
In all, 25 lives were lost in Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Benue, Niger, Osun, just as many people sustained gunshot wounds.
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on election monitoring duty in Kaduna State were not spared, too. They came under attack at School Road, Unguwan Rimi, Kaduna while attempting to arrest a suspected vote buyer.
According to the Head of Media of the Commission, Wilson Uwujaren, the team, working on intelligence on the alleged activities of one Kabiru Musa, who was seen in an amateur video allegedly inducing eligible voters by using his phone to transfer money into their accounts as they cast their votes, had mobilised to the scene to arrest the suspect.
“However, immediately he was accosted by the operatives, Musa became unruly and screamed to attract the attention of his syndicate members, who descended on the operatives, using all manner of weapons that left some of them injured. It took great restraint on the part of the operatives to ignore the unprovoked attack, but they insisted on arresting the suspect.
“As the team drove away with the suspect, their vehicle was pelted with stones and other dangerous objects that damaged the windshield and three operatives suffered varying degrees of injuries in the process.”
Uwujaren however disclosed that the EFCC arrested 65 persons across the 28 states where governorship and state assembly elections were conducted, for alleged voter inducement. These states are Cross River, Gombe Kaduna, Kebbi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Rivers and Sokoto.
He said, “Investigation so far revealed that the major modus operandi of the suspects are to give cash, transfer money, coupons and send recharge cards to eligible voters in order to induce them to vote for their candidates. A search conducted on their persons and phones revealed that most of them had transferred money into the accounts of some voters on the lists recovered from them.
“Some of the items recovered from the suspects include voter cards, cash, a list of the names and account details of voters. Others are recharge cards.
“Upon interrogation, some of the suspects identified themselves as party agents, while some admitted to distributing money to induce voters.”
