Kogi INEC and the Nest of Corruption
Atabor Julius writes about rising concerns over the swirling tale of corruption surrounding the Kogi State Independent National Electoral Commission
When professor Attahiru Jega was appointed in 2010 to take charge of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which was hitherto associated with high profile ineptitude and corruption, the nation heaved a sigh of relief that after all, the augean table will be rid of rot.
It is a fact that past INEC officials both at the state and the national levels were allegedly enmeshed in electoral malfeasance of gargantuan proportions. That era provided ample opportunities for staff to soil their hands with the manipulation of electoral materials and election results to the highest bidders with impunity.
That era equally made the country a caricature in the comity of nations, no wonder that the late president Umaru Musa Ya’Adua had to publicly admit the irregularities of the election that brought him to power. Actions and inaction of the management and staff of the election management body have largely remained unpunished.
With all the electoral atrocities committed by INEC officials and which have significantly reduced the status of the country even as some of those who lost the elections were declared winners after their palms were greased, a manifest of the rot in the INEC was the outcome of the 2011 election of some governorship elections later upturned by the courts in Edo, Ekiti, Osun, Anambra and a lot of the National and state assembly election results.
This was the situation in INEC before Jega was appointed. Ironically, many of the INEC staff had remained with the apron of corruption as usual. The endemic corruption, with the appointment of Jega notwithstanding could not deter the ever corrupt officials of the INEC, who have been calling the bluff of anti-corruption crusade being fought by Jega’s commission to rid its rank and file of predatory activities.
The war against unscrupulous officials of the commission finally caught up with some of those who were saddled with the task of conducting and managing elections in Kogi State in the just conducted rerun election in some parts of the state.
From day one that the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Alhaji Haliru Pai was posted to Kogi State, some analysts observed that he would not have the capacity to handle the endemic corruption in the commission. No wonder, that there is discordant tune with the way elections into some state constituencies were declared inconclusive. Some local government areas, whose elections were declared inconclusive, had as low as six polling units which would have been so insignificant to warrant a rerun under an incorruptible leadership.
For example, Igalamela/Odolu LGA, the total registered voters in the disputed polling units wouldn’t have substantially affected the outcome of the final result ditto for Ajaoukuta, Ofu, Lokoja 11 and Dekina 1 but INEC went ahead to declare them inconclusive. The motive of the officials for not cancelling those disputed polling units, according to analysts was suspect.
And true to people’s fear, the rerun election into the seven disputed polling units in Ajaokuta LGA had exposed their underhand dealings.
That day, Saturday April 25, all were set for the rerun, according to INEC officials. The electorate in their hundreds trooped out to the polling units to exercise their franchise.
The officials had decoy their readiness ushering voters as early as 8am to queue for the commencement of the accreditation. Unknown to the people, the vital materials had been diverted. However, the accreditations in all the seven polling units went smoothly until it was time for the actual voting that the truth came out. The ballot papers and result sheets could not be found with the officials in all the units.
These actions of the officials heightened the electorate’s suspicion that something beyond the ordinary was playing out. And it happened. The pressure in form of protest mounted by the angry electorate led to the arrest of some of the INEC officials who allegedly yielded the materials to some politicians were subsequently arrested by the police.
The arrest of the officials, THISDAY learnt, has opened the can of warms in the Kogi State office of INEC of which, if probed further could reveal a lot believed to be going on there.
What the people are now saying is that until the perpetrators the fraud are brought to justice and punished to serve as deterrent to others, ugly situations like this will continue to subvert the peoples’ choice in subsequent elections in the state.