By Waziri Mahdi Isa
It is said that Nigeria is a democratic state, where government and executive power is under the direct or representative rule of the people. At least that is what we have been taught in school.
In a democratic state, government, from local to federal level, is meant to be formed by the people through elections, which ought to be conducted in a free and fair manner without manipulation, provocation, and segregation whatsoever, by either election officials, party representatives, or members of opposition parties.
However, I don’t know if Nigeria’s democracy has its own peculiarities and exceptions, which make it different from other democracies we know across the globe. Or perhaps, in Nigeria, local governments are not formed by election or people’s vote but rather by appointment and selection by the state government!
Unless that is the case, the just-concluded local government elections that took place across Nigeria were baffling and surprising, at least to me, for whom it was the first time to monitor and follow the local government electoral process.
As a bonafide citizen, it was astonishing to hear the election results of Kaduna state being announced with the total vote of all polling units intact, whereas I knew of several polling units from several wards under several local government areas where election officials and materials did not show up till late evening (around Maghreb time), making it impossible for almost all qualified voters to be present and cast their votes at the time. And no sooner had they arrived than they gathered their materials and left.
In other polling units, the election officials came earlier but without result sheets and other necessary election materials, making people’s votes easy to manipulate. In the polling units of the incumbent governor of Kaduna state, people were seen hanging around, waiting for the election officials to finish preparing things for the commencement of the election for a long time, but the irony was that as soon as the governor came, he was able to go forward and cast his vote, leaving people in bewilderment, as if the election officials were waiting only for him to come and vote. No sooner had he cast his ballot than they started preparing to pack up and leave.
Yes, with the way the local government elections took place, it was not surprising that the ruling party APC won the 23 chairmanship and 255 councillorship seats in Kaduna state. In Kano, the ruling party NNPP cleared all 44 chairmanship seats and 484 councillorship positions. In Adamawa, where PDP is the ruling party, all 21 chairmanship seats and 225 out of 226 councillorship seats were overwhelmingly won by the PDP.
According to the Chairman of the Adamawa electoral body, KANSIEC, Prof. Sani Malumfashi, “the peaceful conduct of the exercise was undoubtedly a manifestation of public acceptance regarding its credibility, fairness, and decency.”
While I cannot say if the overwhelming success of the ruling parties in Kano and Adamawa depicts the democratic will and choice of the people, I can unequivocally say that in Kaduna, the success of APC in the local government election was facilitated by utter manipulation and denial of people’s right to vote. Thus, it does not, in any way, depict people’s choice.
If this is how local government elections are, then I think it’s better for them to be like ministerial appointment, where the governor appoints Chairmen, and perhaps the Chairmen appoint Councillors; then the list should be forwarded to the state assembly for approval or otherwise. With that, people will not waste their time and energy going to their polling units to cast ‘nothing’.
My take; I stand to be corrected!
Waziri Mahdi Isa