Attributing Governor Yahaya Bello’s Victory To Electoral Intimidation -By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

While the phrase ‘Electoral Intimidation’ is not new to lexicology or to our political operation, it is definitely new to our hearing (at least to many persons) in that until yesterday 31/08/2020 when an analyst had used it on national TV to explain the supreme court’s verdict on the Kogi gubernatorial elections – which upheld Governor Bello’s election – and why the verdict was apt.

In retrospection, there indeed existed the phenomenal electoral intimidation (as was alluded by the analyst) as reality shows that not every election that went in the exact way and manner of the Kogi election was rigged. A case in point was the second election of former Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state. In that year of 2014, Fayose swept the polls and emerged the winner of that election on the platform of the PDP.

However, his victory (ably supported by federal power) was a clear tale of electoral intimidation. For in those days, the PDP was in its potentate stage of political power as far as the Nigerian political space was concerned and, did believe that it was in deed Machiavellian to destroy any opposition political party that sort to compete with them for any space in the realm of governance.

So Mr. Ayo Fayose belonged to the PDP family and for that reason qualified to be assisted with armed military men whose over-populated presence (for a small election exercise) was designed to not only scare the electorate but to especially intimidate the living day light out of the opposition. With their greatly pernicious presence, the people of Ekiti state who belonged to the APC-Kayode Fayemi camp understood better than to fool around.

A few years later, Kayode Fayemi would do a payback in much the same manner as was meted to him in 2014. In Kogi state, Governor Yahaya Bello – despite being incumbent – never rested on his privilege as a qualified APC stalwart worthy of enjoying federal backing but worked quite hard to secure the people’s mandate. For the records, this governor had sought his people who resided in far-away places like Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti, Abuja, Edo, Kaduna and Kano and had ferried them back to Kogi to vote for him.

He therefore needed federal backing for the simple purpose of to scare away the opposition. This is never to suggest that there were no cases of clear daylight snatching of ballot boxes under the watchful eyes of soldiers. That would amount to embellishing clear evidences of such acts of rigging. It is to explain that the act of scaring away the opposition from coming to the venues to vote was the soldier’s sole reason.

And, that alone turned in about 60% of the Gov. Bello’s electoral fortune. This brings us to the question: what is electoral intimidation and how does it differ from rigging? Electoral intimidation is the use of an unfair advantage of power or privilege to frighten, cause bodily harm, bamboozle or undermine the capacity of the opponent in an otherwise fair contest with the aim of emerging the victor.

It differs from rigging in the sense that while rigging has to do with manipulating the votes, this has to do with preventing the would-be voters through any means possible from showing up to cast their votes. In the process of trying to intimidate the opposition, perpetrators have engaged and encouraged the youths to thug, kidnap or even kill persons that are perceived to be relevant to the opposition’s success in the area.

In climes where the system was working, electoral intimidation should be an offence against the law that should ordinarily be severely deplored. But because it is yet to be captured as such in our list of electoral offences; some persons tend to treat and talk about it levity even to the point of justifying such amoral mentality on national television.

If the truth be told, it should be about understanding the fact that Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state and acclaimed winner of the said election could not have been able to attempt such intimidation were he not the incumbent governor or as in the case of former governor Fayose; enjoyed federal backing. This is why it was important and urgent to revisit our amended electoral act.

A clause that stipulates the stepping aside of the incumbent (seeking a second term) for 3 months period before the election should be added and should also allow the speaker to act till post-elections; that way, a level playing field would’ve been created to allow every contestant to partake in the election as equals. The same fate should apply to the outgoing governor who anoints a successor from among those seeking a first mandate.

I advance these suggestions because – for me – there’s clearly no fair contest when one of the so-called contestants has been propped to clinch the trophy. Imagine going in for a promotional examination for the rank of colonel (that you’ve prepared so hard to write) with the knowledge that your fellow soldier (who had a relative higher up) has seen the question paper 2 days ago before.

It kills your fighting spirit and makes the trophy worth less fighting for. Or imagine that the contract in which you’d bid for is awarded to a crony of the permanent secretary despite being told that the bidding process would be a fair contest. The truth is that the sanity we all seek to have in our democracy cannot come through wishful thinking but through a pragmatic approach.

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh; writes from Abuja and can be reached via this Whatsapp number +2348062577718.