Approaches, strategies in election forensics investigations – Part 6

Continued from last week

The belief was that two elections were regulated and moderated by both colonialists and disengaging military who were regarded as an unbiased umpire, (NIPSS Report 1983:3) cited in Ibrahim and Aturu (2000:34).

This report by NIPSS is inaccurate as there were a lot of “systematic rigging” associated with the 1979 elections starting from voters’ registration and of political parties. Were those who wrote the NIPSS reports had access to some information, they could not have praised 1979 elections.

The elections were full of irregularities and the disengaging military was not neutral. The military wanted a friendly successor in Alhaji Shehu Shagari. The twelve two-thirds historic judgement was a testimony and still part of the electoral fraud. Aside from the twelve two-thirds crisis, the registration of voters was accompanied by a lot of questionable figures. T

The juxtaposition of the voters’ registration and the 1963 population used as a baseline and the comments on the personal experiences of some people regarding the 1963 census and voters registration Nigeria will convince doubting Thomases that the voters’ registration adopted for the 1979 election were full of dead men and women, living, travelled, concocted, not born/expected babies in the families across the nation. All these “voted” at the elections.

The registered voter’s figures were spurious for at least two reasons. It is either the population figures were exaggerated or the voters’ register was loaded with fictitious figures. Secondly, in a population where procreation was unrestricted at that time because of the relatively boom economy, hence children below the registerable age of 18 years were expectedly to be in the majority. How therefore can we explain the narrow margin between the population figures and registered voters in 1979?

To further buttress the facts that the 1979 general elections cannot be given a clean bill of health, there is a need to compare the registered voters’ with those that actually voted at the election, using the 1979 presidential election as the baseline.

Though an impression was being created at that time by FEDECO, the electoral umpire that handled the 1979 elections that voters apathy accounted for the low voter’s turnout at the election, this could not be taken seriously as observed by Oyediran and Arowolo1982: 133

It should be obvious from the arguments presented here that misconceptions about the seeming apathy of the electorate during the 1979 elections arising from demographic misinformation. FEDECO accepted the results of the voters’ registration exercise without performing any critical evaluation. If the voters’ list were correct, then we must accept that Nigeria now has over 96 million population but if the official estimates of the population which are considered plausible are to be accepted then the observed apathy is ecstasy conceded by poor statistics. Again, this type of issue raises the important point about the need for an accurate population census in Nigeria.

According to the duo, we need an adequate population as a panacea for accurate voters’ registration. They said that this is capable of providing a yardstick by which to measure the accuracy of the registration figures. This according to them means that the inflated figures were to the benefit of politicians and their corrupt supporters who want to have favourable results at the expense of the other at the elections. Adamu and Ogunsanwo (1982:28) confirmed the inflation of the voter’s registration in these words:

FEDECO declared the whole exercise a huge success. In our view, the only statement that is correct to make about the 1979 registration figures is that FEDECO issued out voters cards totalling 48,633,782 and NOT that Nigerians of 18 years and above were registered to the tune of the number. It could not have been so. Several people, including one of the authors, were counted at least twice in their home towns where they did not reside and also in their normal place of residence.

As for the 1979 voters’ registration exercise, one of the authors of this paper also claimed to have witnessed a situation where his late great grandmother who died in 1965 was registered and “voted” at the election. This was aside several fictitious names supplied to the registration officer who issued the cards, without verification. Again, the same author of the paper was also forced to vote 12 times even as Polling Clerk in the election. Other electoral malpractices experienced in the 1979 elections as recorded by Adamu and Ogunsanwo were presented on these tables as documented by them.

Doubting the authenticity of the voters’ figures, Diamond (2002) stated that these were registration across group of states controlled by both the opposition and the ruling parties. His observation was that each party tried to inflate the figures in its area of domination and control to the exclusive of the other parties. He stated further “NPN controlled states reported the most implausible figures and the fraud was most extensive in those states. But it should be noted that the NPP- and UPN- controlled states also presented totals that were beyond credibility.

Other forms of electoral fraud associated with the conduct of 1983 general elections as documented by various sources were, denial of party agents of access to polling booths and denied the result, oppositions party agents were disallowed from the collation centres, multiple voting and counting some were said to have voted more than ten times, the announcement of fictitious results are figures, careless checking of voters cards with a view to perpetrating fraud; not using indelible ink by polling officers to allow for several voting opportunities, bribing of FEDECO officials to aid and abet malpractices, ballot box stuffing before the election day, alteration of election results among other electoral misdemeanours. Many Nigerians were of the opinion that the monumental electoral fraud witnessed in 1983 in the country culminated into the military take-over of government on December 31, 1983.

There was no election in Nigeria until 1991 when the two-party system -Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) was introduced into Nigeria’s body politic. The period also witnessed the introduction of the Open Ballot System and Modified Open Ballot System. This was with a view to guarding against inflation of voters registers as witnessed in the conduct of previous elections. The option almost worked magic as credible election results were witnessed. But for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election, both the Open and Modified Open Ballot had impacted the credibility of the electoral process in Nigeria. The annulment orchestrated the military taking over of the government in 1993 and the nation never witnessed a full-blown democracy until 1998.

In the 1991 and 1993 general elections in Nigeria, there were few cases of electoral fraud because of two reasons. The adoption of Open Ballot and Modified Open Ballot System minimized the desperation of the politicians and their cohorts to inflate figures with a view to achieving the hallmark of democracy-the majority rule fraudulently. The problems of secrecy, which is essential in a democracy, the essence of causing disaffection among others led to the modifications of the Open Ballot System. However, the system was about to curb all forms of previous electoral malpractices.

1999 elections were also almost electoral malpractices free because the disengaging military was an impartial arbiter coupled with only two presidential candidates who were almost equally matched.

The above relatively malpractice free 1999 general elections could not be said of the 2003 general elections. The election was characterized by a series of electoral malpractices. In the first instance, the number of differences between the 1999 and 2003 presidential elections was unbelievable and defied all demographic logic and explanations. In the 1999 presidential election, the total votes cast were 29,484,044 and within four years, when there were 20 presidential candidates, the votes cast were 42,018,735. In spite of complaints of nonperformance against the PDP, Federal Government, Obasanjo’s had 24,109,157 votes. This was 61.80 percent of the total vote cast. The party also increased the states under its control from 21 to 28.

Garba (2005) captured some of the irregularities witnessed in the election to include: falsification of results, intimidation of opposition party at polling units, disenfranchisement of qualified voters, abuse of incumbency powers, bribery of voters and electoral officers, ballot stiffing, snatching of the electoral materials among some electoral misdemeanour.

To be continued tomorrow
Professor Ogundipe
Toyin60@yahoo.com
Barrister Akinade
bayoakinade@yahoo.co.uk