On occasion, some people from the south-east are heard saying that “Ndigbo no dey carry last”. Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has just proved them wrong: of the six geopolitical zones in the country, the south-east came last in the number of voters it registered to vote in the general election starting next month.
The list released by INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu recently shows that barely 10million (less than 12%) of the country’s 84million registered voters come from the five south-east states. The north-west geopolitical zone has double that number: 20.2million. The south-west follows with 16.3million, the north-central 13.4million, south-south 12.8million, and north-east 11.3million.
What do the figures indicate? Already pundits have latched on to the numbers to allocate fictitious votes to political candidates they claim would be voted for in their constituencies. Election fraudsters, too, have been reading the figures to guide them in falsifying figures in favour of their candidates at the polls.
It is an understatement to say that the strength of the south-east in elections has been diminished as a result of this small number of registered voters from the zone. A greater calamity is that, in virtually all the five states, a large number (up to 40% in some states) have yet to collect their permanent voter cards. The deadline for collection of PVCs is two weeks away, and no-one will be allowed to vote without their PVC.
Going by INEC guidelines for the polls, which 61 parties are said to have kicked against and have headed for the court to contest, the number of voters registered in an area can make the difference between success and failure for candidates. Simultaneous accreditation and voting, use of “incident forms” as well as non-compulsory use of card readers are distortions likely to permit people whose names are not even on the voter register to vote. People who are not properly accredited or who are with fake PVCs are likely to vote. We are not indicting INEC yet, but the previous elections it conducted are a guide.
The south-east has always been a targeted zone. Even as continuous voter registration (CVR) was going on last year, the president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, had cause to voice out the concerns of the people of the south-east. He spoke of a deliberate plan by INEC to disfranchise them in the 2019 general election through shortage of registration materials in virtually all the states in the south-east zone. It was evident that, during the CVR, the machines in use in the south-east were inefficient and few in number compared to those used in the north. Registration materials were in short supply, as were staff needed for the exercise. The immediate outcome was that only a few people were registered during the period. In some booths, for instance, fewer than 50 people were registered in a whole day, as opposed to over 200 registered per booth in parts of the north-west and south-west. Maybe these deficiencies were meant to frustrate prospective voters, as many who were not patient enough had to walk back to their homes in anger.
It is noteworthy also that a huge number of south-east people reside in other zones of the country. While their kith and kin were being short-changed at home, they too were facing discrimination in their areas of residence: “indigenes” were first registered before Ndigbo in queues received any attention. Some got frustrated too.
We do not expect INEC to accept that it made attempts to under-register the south-east. But the truth has now shown on the final list it released last week.
Now that the ground has been prepared for reducing the south-east electorate’s strength in the February and March 2019 polls, nobody needs an oracle to tell them that further tricks will be applied to short-change the people. As was the case during the CVR, card readers may still malfunction in targeted areas while they may work efficiently in other areas. Electoral materials may still arrive late in, or be undersupplied to, many polling stations in the south-east. Understanding that many Igbo live outside their home states, some unscrupulous politicians might still evoke fear aimed at scaring non-indigenes away from their states of residence as polling day approaches. At least that was the confession of one northern politician after the 2015 polls. Many Ndigbo had to leave states like Kano, Kaduna and the FCT Abuja where they had registered, and they could not vote in south-east states to which they had fled.
Politicians from the south-east states would do well to regard the recently released list of voters as a catalyst for action. While they cannot mobilise people to register now, they can ensure that all ready PVCs are collected by their owners within the next few days. For their part, eligible voters should turn out in their numbers and vote for their candidates on polling day. They could still regain some strength by utilising their votes effectively.
With: The Oracle Today
