Attahiru Jega is not the angel many thought he was. Rather than light we have just seen darkness. The process that led to the Delta State rerun election and the ‘result’ it threw up is dubitable. Jega’s insensitivity to the silly happenings that led to this ridiculous rerun election leaves much to be desired. If this is to give us an idea of what to expect in the forthcoming general elections then we have some apology to render Maurice Iwu.
The way INEC foist Ovie Omo-Agege on the electorate as a candidate messed up all common sense, smashed every logic and sound reason, crushed all rules and tore all legality. We spoke and wrote. Jega won’t just listen. And we began to imagine the possible role of another Omo-Agege, a director in INEC in all of this.
Many asked that the election date be pushed a little further to allow for proper register for the conduct of the rerun election. Jega won’t listen. Then, you thought the old voters register would be displayed at least five days before the rerun election to allow for its improvement. Voices went on air to argue for this. Well meaning men wrote too. Jega won’t listen. He continued this silent and snobbish game till the rerun election date. And so, before the rerun we did not only sense deeply that something silly was fishing, we already knew there was surreptitious game plan or agenda to rubbish the people’s mandate.
And then the bogus figures came! Dr. Gabriel Ada was the man appointed to do that. The ‘results’ came as if Ada was talking about Kazakhstan not well known to some of us. You wouldn’t believe he was referring to very familiar terrains. Great Ogboru was quick to tell all of us that this is Delta State, and spoke in clear and verifiable terms about the total rubbish and shame that was the rerun. In an interview at the INEC office, he said:
“In Ethiope West, particularly in Oghara, there was so much shooting that we have to inform our agents to pull out of those areas. As at 2-3 pm, election had not taken place, so we were surprised that results were coming out. If you go to Koko as we are speaking now, you cannot find 5,000 people. So where are the 37,000 voters coming from? … Look at places like Ughelli, Udu, Effurun, all of which are thickly populated, bringing out votes of fewer than 5,000, 10,000. If Sapele is bringing out a vote of about 8,000, how can Koko that is at least ten times less populated than Sapele bring out 37, 000.” Somebody will sure answer that. Koko is home of Uduaghan.
There were, Ogboru noted, sporadic shootings into the air to scare and chase people all over the place, and “in one instance, our agents who were going to Ogbe Ijoh, Warri South West Council were arrested and detained so that PDP agents will take away the materials. They took away those materials and kept our agents there. We have to call the naval officer before they were released. At that time, the materials had gone and those materials didn’t come until this morning”, that is, day the said election ‘results’ were announced.
Continuing, he said that what happened yesterday showed that nothing has changed. He said while election took place in most of Delta North and Delta Central that was not the case in the Delta South, asserting that other than Isoko, there were no elections in practically the whole of the South. He drew attention to the fact that while voting was taking place in Ughelli North Attahiru Jega witnessed a minor incidence and instantly annulled the result on the basis of that. Ughelli North is a very big constituency with big towns like Agbarho, Agbarha Otor, Orogun which are very far apart. And he asked: How could the skirmish that is taking place in a place affect another that is some 20 km away? “It was a very erratic and irresponsible decision by the INEC Chairman to have annulled the election there”, Ogboru concluded rightly. Jega won’t listen.
Nothing happens without brains, without catalysts. The perpetrators of this heinous stolen mandate are visible as the sun. And Ogboru represented that when he said that “Deltans must be steadfast. I know that this injustice will not be allowed to stand. I am accusing the candidate of the PDP, the security officers who were on duty in the constituencies I mentioned above. I am also accusing INEC officials who were in those constituencies. They all work in cohort, in concert to disenfranchise Deltans”.
Why all this rigging? In his ‘‘A-Z Delta State Sorry Story’’, a 32page document published online barely a month ago by nigeriansinamerica.com, this author wrote inter alia: “Be it as it may, the next re-run election is the hope of all Deltans. Not to say that there is no frantic effort and do-or-die game plan on the part of the looters of our commonwealth to see that Uduaghan must be sworn in as governor, since they dread what could be their end with Uduaghan out and Ibori and family drowning deeper and deeper each day. They don’t want to account for stolen monies. This is the reason for the frantic effort they are putting up. EFCC MUST TAKE NOTE! AND INEC TOO!” And Jega won’t listen. But this is the reason for the bloated figures from some constituencies. Jega didn’t listen.
Ogboru has said that there should be a forensic analysis of those results from those areas he has alleged frauds before finally announcing the results. Jega won’t listen. The ‘results’ were announced. We cannot but agree with Ogboru that it is high time we got away from the era where people just sit down and thumb print ballot papers and come to announce them.
This game of rigging may be well thought out and hatched in secret. But we sensed it and alerted. Jega won’t listen. Then it played out. But they misfired. So desperate they were reason was thrown to the winds altogether. That was why, for instance, three local governments alone, and that riverine local governments and actually the most sparsely populated part of Delta State, have the same voter strength as all the other twenty something local governments of the state put together. There is so much the opposition can go to court with .And so, those who think the ides of March is come and gone may well be dreaming.
