Talking points of Presidential/National Assembly elections 2023

This columnist had wanted to do a write-up on the winner of the just concluded 2023 presidential election, the most keenly observed, on the basis that the electoral commission’s chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, would make the declaration by Monday. As it is, some of the results are still being collated as at the time of writing this piece. So I had to change gear, so to speak, choose another topic and title. Here we go.

INEC’s hyped technology upgrade and other faux pas

The reason there was so much enthusiasm in this year’s general election is because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) stepped up the use of technology. It upgraded from use of card reader to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).  The BVAS was used in the off season governorship elections in Anambra state (2021), Ekiti and Osun states last year, all of which results were acclaimed by independent observers as representative of expressed wishes of the electorate. INEC even conducted a mock election, few weeks to the national elections, a kind of test run and it gave itself a pass mark. 

Thereafter, it stated that it was set to conduct a hitch-free general elections. What is more, the commission gleefully announced it now has a portal wherein results from polling units would be uploaded to its server at the tap of the finger via the BVAS and seen simultaneously by just about anyone from any part of the world, automatically, in real time.  This further boosted people’s confidence in the elections. A record over 46,000 international observers, including some former African presidents, flooded Nigeria. With this technology step up, most people expected that the results would be known by Sunday or Monday. The international observers would have been expecting that they would be jetting back to their various countries by Monday. But here we are as at 4.30 pm on Monday, February 27, when I am writing this piece, INEC has only released complete presidential results from 11 states.

For the umpteenth time, INEC grappled with logistics. Many, many polling units commenced the process well behind INEC’s stipulated time of 8.30 am. In some 70 per cent of the thousands of polling units across the nation, accreditation reportedly started between 10 am and 12 pm. In many places voting continued after sunset and torches were used in some polling centres due to lack of electricity. INEC has conducted several elections after the 2015 general elections. One would have thought that it has gathered sufficient experience over these years and perfected its logistics thereby.  But this problem of late arrival of INEC staff, late arrival of voting materials, arrival of incomplete materials keeps recurring over and over again. Is INEC jinxed with logistics issue?

Labour Party is a disruptor in South-east zone

Notwithstanding that the Labour Party (LP) is not in the reckoning to win the popular votes in the presidential election, it has, nonetheless, disrupted the traditional voting pattern in, especially, the South-east zone. And the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) suffers the collateral damage. This has always been PDP’s stronghold right from inception in 1999. Arising from the fact that their son, former Vice-president Alex Ekwueme, was a founding father of the party, they remained attached to the party. Such was their loyalty to this party that its flag bearers did not stress themselves because they were assured of victory. And that was why elections/selections for its candidates in the various elective positions was a ‘do-or-die’ affair more or less, replete with shenanigans.

The South-east was synonymous with PDP. And they were amply ‘rewarded’ by the PDP as it reserved the position of Nigeria’s number three citizen, the Senate President, for that zone. Thus, we had the likes of Oyi of Oyi Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim and later deputy senate president’s position (Ike Ekweremadu). Later, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) cropped up in Anambra and Imo states with Peter Obi and Rochas Okorocha as their respective governors then. Okorocha soon defected to APC, giving way later, to PDP’s Emeka Ihedioha. Ihedioha sat on the Imo Government House seat for only six months before being sacked by the Supreme Court which declared Hope Uzodinma (APC) as winner of the last gubernatorial election.  In 2021 Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, who was so elected on PDP platform, defected to APC.

Overall, however, the South-east has remained largely PDP’s safe haven as it has always won the presidential election and majority of the National Assembly seats there.  Then for the first time since the second republic in 1979 came someone of Igbo extraction, former Anambra state governor, Peter Obi, vying for Nigeria’s topmost post. This completely altered the voting pattern of the zone. Where PDP used to be the most favoured party, it has been supplanted by LP. PDP is now posting abysmal  figures here. Of course, Obi won handsomely in that zone and notable PDP National Assembly candidates, including incumbent governors (except Umahi) vying for the senate seat lost. It is called the Obi effect.    

Tinubu lost Lagos, Buhari lost Katsina, Arewa holds the ace.

 According to the headlines, Tinubu lost the presidential election in Lagos state to Labour Party’s  Peter Obi by some 10,000 votes. However, depending on the angle from which you are looking at it, you could state that Tinubu lost or won it. Tinubu won 13 of the state’s 20 local government areas while Obi won three. Obi won the popular vote but Tinubu won the local government areas. 

One must commend the APC flag bearer for speaking up to calm frayed nerves in Lagos. He urged the people not to be provoked by the outcome of the election. That is the mark of a good leader, acting as a balm to sooth/lower tension. President Muhammadu Buhari also failed to win his home state of Katsina for his party, APC, in the presidential election. He had always won Katsina state as a presidential candidate.

As it is with previous presidential elections, more so with this one, the North holds the ace and would decide who between Tinubu and Atiku would eventually win the race.  All eyes are on Arewa (North) right now.

Ghost of ‘Orubebe’ attempts to reincarnate

When PDP presidential election agent, Senator Dino Melaye, started protesting against the process at the National Collation Centre where INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, was presiding, most people’s minds flashed back to the 2015 drama when then Minister Orubebe was similarly protesting and uttering the infamous words, ‘we will not take it’ at a same Collation Centre. For a while, it looked like the ghost of ‘Orubebe’ was about to reincarnate in Mr. Melaye. 

Some stakeholders succeeded in calming things down. However, the PDP and Labour Party agents as well as those of some smaller parties later walked out on the INEC chairman. Knowingly or unknowingly, they gave the people an inkling of the direction to which the final presidential result is headed. You do not walk out of an electoral process if you are on the winning side.   

Ikeano writes from Lafia, Nasarawa state via [email protected] 08033077519