PRESS STATEMENT
The Socialist
Party of Nigeria (SPN) considers latest report of the European Union Election
Observation Mission on the recently conducted 2019 general elections as a major
indictment on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its
officials.
With this report
which shows that INEC, security agencies and “leading parties” (APC, PDP, etc) manipulated
the 2019 general elections, we insist that INEC or any other agency for that
matter has no moral authority to seek the deregistration of any political party
under the flimsy excuse of winning no seat at local government, state or federal
government level. For INEC or any agency to have the right and authority to
wield this kind of power, it must have been seen to have provided a
level-playing field for political parties to vie for peoples votes without
vote-buying, intimidation, violence, manipulations and other factors that
marred the 2019 general elections. As the SPN has said before, the 2019 general
elections were an expensively packaged charade and INEC, security agencies and
the pro-rich political parties especially the APC and PDP have to be blamed for
this.
After studying
the conduct of the 2019 elections, the EU came to the following conclusion: “Overall,
the EU EOM concluded the 2019 elections were marked by severe operational and
transparency shortcomings, electoral security problems and low turnout”. The EU
laid the blame for this outcome on INEC, security agencies and “Leading parties”
which it said “were at fault in not reining in acts of violence and
intimidation by their supporters, and abuse of incumbency at federal and state
levels.”
In the haughty
and arrogant manner which has become typical of President Buhari’s officials, the
Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari,
Mr Garba Shehu immediately reacted in manner that dismisses all the key
negative aspects of the EU report. According to a statement issued by Garba
Shehu, the EU reported “improvements” in the conduct of the elections, adding that,
in spite of the setbacks recorded in some states, the overall results showed
that the Independent National Electoral Commission did well” (Punch 16/6/2019).
The statement went on to promise to implement the recommendation of the EU
concerning the elections.
Not wishing to
be outdone, spokesman for the Buhari Presidential Campaign Organisation, Mr
Festus Keyamo simply countered the integrity of the whole report. According to
him, “The results of the election reflected the overall wishes of Nigerians. That
was the report of many observers. If you are an observer, you should come to a
definite conclusion … We have 120,000 polling units across the country. In all,
I don’t think they discuss more than 500 polling units in the report. If you
observe anomalies in those units, how does that substantially affect results
coming from 120,000 polling units? It is not enough for the EU to discuss the
anomalies, they must discuss overall results of the country, whether it
reflects the wishes of the people… After all, there were problems in the US
elections. There were problems in Europe, and even in UK recently” (Punch
16/6/2019).
As far as the
SPN is concerned, this kind of superficial and face-saving response to what are
weighty allegations that indict INEC, security agencies and “leading parties” already
shows that the Buhari government is not serious about improving the conduct of
elections either now or in the foreseeable future. Otherwise the starting point
ought to be to identify officials of INEC, security agencies and “leading” political
parties that the report claimed to have compromised the integrity of the 2019
elections through their actions and seek to investigate and prosecute them with
a view to ensure deterrent. INEC itself need to be asked to justify how it
utilized the huge billions of naira voted to it over the past four years to
prepare for the 2019 general elections if at the end of the day, the exercise
is found to suffer “severe operational and transparency shortcomings”. At the
moment, there are nothing less than 799 cases at the election petition tribunals.
As a key
participant in the election, we are very sure from our experience that none of
the manipulations that occurred in the 2019 general election could have taken
place without the connivance of INEC officials and security agencies especially
those at the top echelons. But so far, no top member of INEC, the Police or
army is under investigation or being prosecuted for their roles in manipulating
the elections. The EU report also found that at least 150 people were killed
during the elections. This itself shows that what took place across the country
on February 23rd and March 9 2019 were brutal struggles between different factions
of the capitalist ruling elite for political power and not a democratic
exercise.
In the report, “The
EU observed 94 collation centres. In almost all, the results forms and smart
card readers were not packed in tamper-evident envelopes as required… Numerical
discrepancies and anomalies on polling unit results forms were identified and
were mostly corrected by collation officers on the spot, but without a clear
system of record-keeping” (Punch 16/6/2019). This confirms our experience in
the SPN during the 2019 general elections. In some places where the SPN candidates
contested, fictitious votes were recorded against our party by INEC staff in connivance
with “leading parties”.
Particularly in
Ogun State where our party presented candidates for House of Assembly elections
in Ogun State, INEC engaged in ridiculous vote manipulation in a conspiracy
with the capitalist ruling elite to ridicule our mission to build a viable
pro-working class socialist alternative to the prevailing anti-people
capitalist parties. Two examples would suffice here. In one instance, in form
EC 8E which was released to our party after about 2 months following the March
9 election, INEC recorded only seven (7) votes for our candidate in Ifo
constituency II, Comrade Hassan Taiwo Soweto. This means, in INEC’s wisdom,
that only seven (7) people in a voting population of over 20, 000 and over 140
polling units responded positively to the very active campaign we ran for over
6 months. Considering the level of infrastructural collapse in Ifo LGA due to
the failure of all the leading political parties of APM, APC, PDP, ADC and co
over the years, this cannot but be a barefaced lie and outright manipulation of
the true votes of our party. But what now fully exposes INEC is the fact that
in his own polling unit, our party’s candidate had a modest vote of fifteen
(15). Now, we are still waiting for INEC to explain to our party how our
candidate’s total vote in over 140 polling unit is lower than his number of
vote in a single polling unit. The second example concerns our party’s
candidate for Ogun State House of Assembly election in Odogbolu, Comrade Oluwatimilehin
Ajayi no single vote was recorded for
him. This, in INEC’s wisdom, means that our candidate despite having a PVC did
not vote for himself, his family and party members also did not vote for him.
Given this kind
of ridiculous manipulation that marred the 2019 general elections, the SPN
would be prepared to initiate a mass campaign combining legal challenge and
political mobilisations in collaboration with trade unions and civil society
should INEC or the National Assembly dare to seek deregistration of any
political party. We insist that without manipulations, vote buying and outright
rigging committed by the pro-rich parties (APC, PDP, APM etc) and their
accomplices in INEC and security agencies, a party like the Socialist Party of
Nigeria (SPN) stood a chance of performing better than it did.
The reality is
that as beneficiaries of a shambolic election and given their support for
capitalism, President Buhari and the ruling APC cannot be trusted to ensure any
genuine electoral reforms. Except some symbolic changes, the likely development
is that so far the inequitable capitalist system exist, elections in Nigeria
will continue to be expensively-packaged shambolic exercises which are neither
free nor fair and continue to produce APC, PDP or another anti-poor capitalist
party . This is why the SPN combines
fielding of candidates in election with intervention in the struggle of
workers, farmers, students, youth, artisans and the oppressed majority with a
view to build a movement for socialist revolution.
Abiodun Bamigboye Chinedu
Bosah
Acting National Chairperson National
Secretary
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