Niger governorship poll under threat

The state resident electoral commissioner Emmanuel Onucheyo said he only discovered the error yesterday while arranging for the movement of the sensitive materials to local governments.

“I immediately informed the head office in Abuja and they advised me to go ahead and use ballot papers for the rerun election instead, because of time factor. I was also advised to hold a meeting with the parties and inform them of the situation,” he said.

Mr Onucheyo therefore called a meeting with the leaders of all the parties in the state, which held in Minna for well over two hours. This was intermittently rowdy and ended abruptly when no resolution could be reached. A half hour break, which Mr Onucheyo encouraged the parties to take so they could reach a consensus, also proved unhelpful.

In terminating the session, the electoral commissioner said, “It is INEC’s business to run election and we are saying this is the way out. We have decided to go ahead and use ballot papers for the rerun. Thank you.”

This abrupt dismissal angered the party representatives, some of whom shouted insults at the commissioner.

Only the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party supported the decision of the electoral commissioner. Its state chairman, Abdulrahman Enagi said his party had no objections, “provided there is no legal implications about the proposal and provided the ballot papers you are presenting to us have the names of all political parties contesting for governorship.”

‘This is deliberate’

The state chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which is arguably the leading opposition party in the state, Umar Shuaibu, said there was no excuse for such an error.

“They postponed parliamentary election for a whole zone in the state because of shortage of materials, and they didn’t use these rerun ballot papers which were available then,” he said.

“And two weeks ago, we submitted a proposal to the INEC commissioner in which we emphasised the need to ensure that all ballot papers contained the logos of the parties participating in the election to avoid mishap, so he had ample warning.”

One of the main reasons the opposition parties gave for rejecting the use of the rerun election ballot was the fear that the results of the poll may be contentious later.

“How can we hold election with a different set of ballot papers from the rest of Nigeria?” asked the state chairperson of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Amina Jummai Mohammed.

“The worst part is that they have even refused to tell us which parties were affected. There is a deliberate plan to intimidate us.”

Aminu Bello, the zonal coordinator of the Action Congress of Nigeria, said his party does not agree that the election should take place under the prevailing circumstances. He noted that the rerun ballot papers being proposed contain the names of 63 political parties, while the customised papers for the governorship election for every state have only the names of parties participating in the election.

“How do you expect our electorate to be looking for 63 names instead of eight?” he said.

Election will hold

At a press conference later, the electoral commissioner insisted that election will go ahead as scheduled.

Pressed to name the two parties whose names were missing, Mr. Onucheyo said he had to consult with the commission’s legal adviser. He finally released the names of the parties; Citizen Popular Party, and the African Democratic Party.

Answering questions over allegations that the rerun ballot papers to be used were already in circulation, Mr Onucheyo said,

“As far as I know, there is no truth in this. I only took custody of the ones given to me by the Central Bank which I am currently distributing.”

Earlier, the opposition parties protested the curfew imposed by the state government as a result of last week’s riots.

A statement by the ACN chairman in the state, Isah Mokwa said law enforcement agents are using the curfew to intimidate and harass opposition supporters on the eve of the governorship election.