SECURITY AGENCIES AND RIVERS RERUN ELECTIONS

Security agencies need to shore up their professional role in the conduct of elections, writes Simeon Nwakaudu

If you are not ashamed over the sad complicity of the nation’s security agencies in the desperate attempt of the All Progressives Congress to rig the December 10, 2016 rerun elections, I am. When it emerged online on the websites of leading Nigerian Newspapers on Tuesday night (February 21, 2017) that an Independent National Electoral Commission Panel had indicted security agencies of gross electoral fraud and crime against the Rivers people, I was pleasantly surprised. Pleasantly surprised because we still have responsible gentlemen who will never be intimidated by the police and administrative threats.

After the initial surprise, I waited for several hours to see if the report would be celebrated on the pro-All Progressives Congress television house domiciled in Lagos or whether our ‘I beg you sir’ national television would mention this landmark report. Expectedly, none of them had the courage to broadcast this credible report. Recall that they made headlines of the Inspector General Police Panel report for days. That report favoured their paymasters.

The administrative inquiry into the December 10, 2016 Rivers State Rerun Elections Report prepared by the INEC Panel with Prof. Okechukwu Ibeanu, INEC National Commissioner as Chairman has exposed the top echelon of the security force for who they are: a threat to Nigeria’s democracy.

If they think their illegal actions would be swept under the carpet, then they are sadly mistaken.

I have consistently said that Nigeria cannot afford another Rivers Rerun where security agencies are deployed to kill, maim and steal the mandate of the people on behalf of the ruling APC. The country needs to shore up the integrity of the police and other security agencies as regards their roles in the conduct of elections. Ibrahim Idris men have fallen short of all acceptable standards as they used the nation’s security infrastructure to rig polls for the ruling party.

From the reports published in several national dailies, the IGP Panel is yet to send its report to INEC. Aside the sensational snippets of the report released by the panel, nothing has been made public for Nigerians to assess the methodology used by the panel to arrive at its predetermined position. The entire exercise is shrouded in secrecy and under-the-table actions for the purpose of diverting attention from the innocent Rivers blood spilled by the police and other security agencies during the Rivers Rerun of December 10, 2016.

The pointed indictment of security agencies for the fraud and violence during the rerun legislative elections by the INEC Panel confirms what has been in the public domain before, during and after the elections. All through this sad period, the police as the lead security agency, played unlawful part in the fraud.

It is necessary that I quote a section of the INEC Report. “But, the most mind-boggling were cases of hostage-taking, hijack of materials and physical attacks on INEC officials perpetrated by security operatives …But, for the intervention of National Commissioners, we suspect that he would have put our staff in harm’s way. When he failed in his initial bid, he stalked the INEC officials to the collation centre in Port Harcourt and physically assaulted Dr. C. Odekpe and Mrs. Mary Tunkayo. In fact, Dr. Odekpe ended up with a gash on his head and both spent days at the Air Force hospital in Port Harcourt.”

How can security agents metamorphose into kidnappers and killers, simply because they were instructed to deliver the APC? Why would a constituted security authority assume the position of political thugs just because they want to protect the political interest of a minister who failed as Governor in Rivers State?

Why on earth would the security agencies agree to lose their integrity because of billions of naira released from an interventionist agency for them to rig elections? But the most heartrending question would be: why would the federal government allow itself to become the source of political violence against a federating unit?

Beyond the fact that Governor Nyesom Wike, a defender of Nigeria’s Democracy, has been vindicated, is the urgent need to reform the security agencies and the electoral process.

As presently structured, the electoral system has been kidnapped, its processes held hostage and democracy relentlessly and repeatedly raped. The ongoing wave of defections at the national level is the fallout of loss of confidence in the electoral process. Feeble hearted politicians have seen the penchant of the system to rig for the ruling party, hence they want to be accommodated in the rigging agenda backed by the police and other security agencies.

Nigerians fought for democracy. They struggled to send the military back to the barracks. The military never wanted to go. Therefore, Nigerians must rise up to defend her democracy. These anti-democratic elements and their associates in the civil society, media and other arms of government will continue to deploy propaganda, falsehood, violence, deaths and bribery to defend a rejected a political party. Nigerians must stand up to resist them.

I shudder when I imagine what would have happened if Governor Wike did not sensitise the Rivers people to resist these criminals in uniforms. Despite the resolute stand of the people, these security agencies succeeded in manipulating elections in one senatorial district where results were written in the home of a senator.

The APC controls the tools of online and traditional propaganda. They can change any narrative with the injection of huge resources. But the issue at stake has gone beyond the proven APC propaganda machine. The issue at stake is about the integrity of our security agencies. It is about the survival of our democracy. It is about the lives of innocent Rivers people wasted by security operatives simply because they were instructed to rig for APC.