While the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) accused each other of planning to rig or militarize the election, the supplementary polls were still held.

While Adamawa’s supplementary governorship polls have been suspended indefinitely, based on a court order, INEC has gone on to declare winners in the other states.

Here’s a quick run down of the results:

Benue State

In the food basket of the nation, the incumbent governor and PDP candidate, Samuel Ortom, was re-elected for a second term.

According to the state’s Returning Officer, Professor Maimako Sebastian, who announced the result on Sunday, Ortom pulled in 434, 473 votes against his main rival and APC candidate, Emmanuel Jime’s 345,155 votes. The margin between both candidates was recorded as 89,318 votes

The state’s original election on March 9 was tagged inconclusive as a result of the gap between the cancelled votes, 121,019 and the winning margin of only 81,554 votes.

Kano State

In what has been dubbed the most controversial state in this year’s election, Kano State’s polls have been marred by violence and electoral malpractice. At the end of collation for the state’s governorship polls, the APC candidate and current governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, won his second term bid with 1,033,695 votes as opposed to Abba Yusuf’s 1,024,713 votes.

A close call for both parties with only 9,000 votes between them.

The PDP has, however, issued a statement rejecting the outcome of the election.

Plateau State

In Plateau State, another second term bid was secured as the APC candidate and incumbent governor, Solomon Lalong, won the vote.

In an announcement by the state’s Returning Officer, Professor Richard Kimbir, Lalong won with 595,582 votes, defeating PDP’s Jeremiah Useni, who polled 546,813 votes.

During the March 9 elections, the governor received 583,255 votes, while Useni polled 538,326 votes.

However, the electoral umpire was forced to declare the elections inconclusive based on the 44,929 margin of lead and the total number of cancelled votes of 49,377.

Sokoto State

Recording the slimmest margin of all the candidates, the PDP flag bearer and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, secured his re-election bid with 512, 002 votes, while APC’s Ahmed Aliyu came in second place with a margin of 341 votes, polling 511,661.

During the collation of results from the March 9 polls, Tambuwal was still in the lead with 489,558 votes, while Ahmed Aliyu was a close second with 486,145 votes, before the results were declared inconclusive.

Bauchi State

While the state might have suffered a setback as the absence of its Returning Officer resulted in a late collation process, PDP candidate, Bala Mohammed, eventually won the governorship race with 6,376 votes.

He won the elections over the APC candidate and incumbent governor, Muhammed Abubakar, who polled 5,117 votes at the end of the supplementary polls.

The commission is yet to give full details on its plan for Rivers and Adamawa states.  

The post #NigeriaDecides2019: Round Up of Supplementary Governorship Election Results appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

As the inauguration of newly elected and re-elected leaders draws nearer, and before Nigerians are engulfed in collective amnesia, it is necessary to go over the election season for the sake of documenting the challenges faced as well as highlighting some of the lessons learned.

The Challenges

Violence: A high rate of violence was recorded in the period shortly before the elections and during the elections. About 181 people were reported to have been killed in the days leading to the initial date slated for the presidential elections in February.

However, a postponement of the February 18 elections to February 23 deepened tension within the country, and likely the occurrence of violence. The European Union Observer Mission (EU OM) recorded that approximately 20 and 35 people were killed in incidents related to the elections on February 23.

These deaths do not take into account the number of deaths and casualties from terrorist attacks in Yobe and Borno States before voting commenced on the same day.

A total of 11 states were flashpoints during both the presidential and gubernatorial elections. However, Akwa Ibom, Lagos, and Rivers were seen to be the most affected. Across Anambra, Lagos, and Rivers states, violence and security crises led to the cancellation of the electoral processes.

Credibility: The credibility of the entire electoral process has been questioned and debated since the conclusion of the elections in March. Several cases contesting the results of the elections are at various election tribunals seeking fair hearing by the judiciary.

A major challenge which raises doubts over the credibility of the elections is the rate of canceled ballots which has been stated to have undermined the votes of up to 3 million Nigerians. Elections were declared inconclusive in seven states as a result of the cancellations. Coincidentally, or not, the PDP was leading in five of these states.

Another challenge was the interference by security agents. Several cases of harassment —against INEC officials, members of civil society organizations, and the media, by security agents, were reported. In Rivers State, for example, military personnel reportedly prevented members of the European Union and Nigerian civil society observers from gaining access to collation centers. Subsequently, Rivers was one of the states where the elections were canceled and had to be rescheduled.

Recorded cases of vote buying were seen to have dominated in a few states across the nation. This has also cast a shadow of doubts about the legitimacy of some of the victories recorded. States where vote buying was recorded, include Adamawa, Sokoto, Lagos, Delta, Enugu, Ekiti, Bauchi, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Kwara, Zamfara, Kebbi, Oyo, Kano, and Osun.

Voter Apathy: The 2019 elections have had the lowest voter turnout since 1999. This has been attributed to the postponement, by a week, of the presidential election, and the militarization of the process which is believed to have led to voter intimidation. In addition, Nigerians are assumed to be losing faith in the freedom and fairness of the electoral process.

How Can Nigeria Do Better?

Nigeria has received several recommendations on how it can conduct better elections from international organizations as well local players and stakeholders. Foremost amongst them is the need to review and improve on electoral laws.

The National Executive Council of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) blamed the irregularities and violence witnessed during the elections on the refusal to review and update electoral laws prior to the 2019 elections. The party has urged the incoming administration to work towards reviewing electoral laws before 2023. Some of the challenges a review will address include restrictions on candidacy, weak transparency and accountability measures, and the absence of sanctioning powers for INEC.

The onus for electoral reforms has been placed on INEC as well as the responsibility for naming institutions, individuals and events which might have undermined its ability to conduct better elections. Beyond these, the Commission has been urged to be more transparent. Particularly with the results and collation processes; the provision of voter guidelines and election officials’ manuals; and with the overall dissemination of relevant information to political parties and voters.

There is also a need for security agencies to be held accountable for the misconduct of their agents during the elections. The military seems to have been at the fore of many of the cases of misconducts recorded; while the Nigerian Army has denied the involvement of its men, it has nonetheless set up a committee to investigate the activities of its personnel in all states accused of electoral misconduct. Other agencies, the Nigerian Police Force, the Department of State Security can also follow suit.

The incoming administration has its work cut out for it because it will be responsible for investigating and ensuring accountability for loss of life, voter disenfranchisement, and efforts to manipulate election results, etc. The administration is also responsible for ensuring that the mistakes of the 2019 elections are not repeated in 2023.

Nigerians, and indeed the world, is watching to see how it will fare in executing these responsibilities.

The post Postmortem of Nigeria’s 2019 general elections appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

Based on the verified results available to us, the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party is in the lead in both states. In Imo state, the party has about 50 per cent advantage over its closest rivals including the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Action Alliance (AA) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

The will of the people must be respected and the electoral commission, INEC should now take the bull by its horn and announce the results immediately to prevent a breakdown of law and order in both states which have been very volatile during this electoral cycle.

Any attempts to thwart the will of the people could lead to dire consequences.

Track the results live here on BBC

The post Imo, Kano: The will of the people must be respected to prevent chaos appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

Citizens who went out to exercise their electoral franchise observed low turnout in their polling stations and took to social media to voice their complains.

An election observer affiliated to the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre, Amara Nwankpa, noted the low turnout at the heart of the Federal Capital Territory. His tweet suggests that the voters might have been disinterested in what is deemed the less important elections. The elections in the FCT is to fill the chairmanship and councilorship seats.

For Saratu Abiola, a columnist with a number of news publications, the electorates might have opted out of the polls as a result of the violence. Her assertions are not far-fetched. The recently concluded presidential and national assembly recorded the deaths of at least three dozen people.

The case was no different in Lagos State, the country’s most populated voting state according to the figures of registered voters released by the electoral commission, INEC. Segun Awosanya, a civic activist and convener of the #EndSARS movement said that the turnout allows room for easy manipulation of the results and warned that it is a bad omen for our democratic experience.

Andrew Madaki of the Global Shapers Abuja hub offered an explanation for the widespread low turnout, and according to him, it’s likely that citizens have lost faith in the electoral process.

It could be worse, a Twitter user said he would never vote again except the current form of voting changes.

Rita Onwurah, a film maker says there is no surprise. She says all finger is pointing to the elections conducted two weeks ago.

The situation presents a research opportunity for yet another person:

Chioma Chuka, another observer delivered what is potentially the ‘wildest’ tweet of the day based on her observation. In one of the areas she visited, people did not even realize that there were elections holding today.

The post Widespread apathy rocks Nigeria’s gubernatorial polls appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

Speaking at a meeting of Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) ahead of Saturday elections, he assured that the commission would improve on its performance from the previous election.

“A total of 1,082 candidates will be elected by citizens across the country. Learning from the experience of the Presidential and National Assembly elections held two weeks ago, the Commission has effectively tackled the challenge of logistics,’’ he said.

Mahmoud makes these statements assuming an ideal situation. However, his bigger headache should be his inability to control what happens on the field of play that is being disrupted by thugs, bandits and frankly speaking security operatives who are no different. One would have thought that security agents were meant to defend the integrity of the polls.

Already, less than 48 hours to the polls in Akwa Ibom – one of the 29 states holding elections today – an office of the commission has been burnt down with electoral materials including card readers. (INEC says the materials have all been replaced)

Another instance has been recorded in Benue where thugs have burnt down the “entire materials” needed for the conduct of the polls in one of the wards in the state.

Besides these incidents, there has been a siege over certain states in the country where voters are scared to come out to exercise their electoral franchise. Armed military men have reportedly invaded homes of politicians belonging to the national opposition party, PDP in Rivers and Taraba states and the list goes on and on.

Even Prof. Mahmoud admits these concerns.

“The commission is concerned that many of our materials, including ballot boxes, voting cubicles, voters’ registers, and smart cards, were lost to the act of hooliganism and thuggery in the elections held two weeks ago. Most worrisome is the attack on electoral officials. Some of our staff were abducted and taken hostage in an attempt to disrupt elections or influence the outcome.”

The truth is that INEC can talk all it wants but frankly they cannot bite in a field of play that has been hijacked by desperate and roguish politicians.

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The Director of Strategic Communications for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, and the Senator representing the Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye, have clashed over the president’s comment on ballot box snatching.

President Buhari, while speaking at an APC caucus meeting on Monday, declared that anyone who plans on snatching ballot boxes at this weekend’s election, does so at the expense of their life.

The comment has generated several reactions from stakeholders and observers, with many people tagging the comment incendiary and a threat to the life of citizens.

The Electoral Act provides that anyone caught snatching ballot box be arrested and prosecuted according to law of the land.

However, on Tuesday while appearing on Channels TV’s Politics Today program, Senator Melaye compared President Buhari to Idi Amin, asking the president to apologize to Nigerians for his unguarded words.

“I am utterly disappointed in my president. I am completely in shock that, in a democratic setting, a president will speak with the anointing of Idi Amin of Uganda. The president will use the word ‘ruthless,’ the president will order killings of Nigerians without going through legal procedures. That is totally unacceptable.”

“I expected that by now the President should have apologized to Nigerians and withdraw that statement but, instead, there has been a lot of efforts…by Chieftains of the APC, trying to defend what is not defendable,” the Senator declared.

Reacting to this, Mr Keyamo backed his principal, announcing that President Buhari was correct, constitutionally, and encouraged him to repeat his statement far and wide.

“I think I have listened to so many uninformed comments. What the president said is 100 percent correct, defensible and I will urge him to repeat it over and over again.”

“The President said that whoever leads a band of thugs to go and snatch ballot boxes will pay dearly for it with his life. That is a correct statement of the law.

Ballot box snatching is robbery. Ballot box snatching is armed robbery. Ballot box snatching is thwarting the will of the people. Ballot box snatching is changing a government by force, It’s treason. All are punishable by death.”

“Dino, you should spend more time in your Law Classes than in hospitals,” he said, cheekily.

The presidential election was postponed to February 23 after INEC cited some logistics challenges. Subsequently, the governorship election is expected to come hold on March 9.

This post was first published on Campus Reporter.

The post Keyamo, Melaye Clash Over Buhari’s “Ballot Box Snatching” Comment appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

Mahmoud was more than an hour late to the briefing initially scheduled for 2PM. It was understood that the INEC boss held a meeting with relevant stakeholders and international observers, ahead of the briefing.

Here are some of the major points made by the Commission’s chairman:

Over 640 Court Cases and 40 Court orders against the Commission: With over 90 political parties and 23,316 candidates vying for various positions at the polls, coupled with 84 million voters casting their votes in 119,973 polling stations, the commission admitted that managing the elections hasn’t been an easy feat.

Mahmmod stated that while the Commission tried to do its part in ensuring that all ballot papers where ready before the main elections despite the tight legal timeframe for nominations, several back and forth cases of nominations and withdrawals has resulted in the Commission being cited in over 600 court cases.  

“The Commission has been sued or joined in over 640 court cases arising from the nomination of candidates. As at today, there are 40 different court orders against the Commission on whether to add or drop candidates.”

Distribution of Election Materials Sidetracked by Bad Weather: The statement from the Commission’s Chairman, also revealed the challenges it has experienced in distributing the materials needed to conduct the elections to all its polling units.

“There is usually roughly a one-month window for the Commission to print ballot papers and result sheets and either fly or transport them to several destinations until they finally get to each polling unit. Unfortunately, in the last week, flights within the country have been adversely affected by bad weather.”

As a solution to the problem, the Commission had to rely on slow-moving long haulage vehicles to locations that didn’t have infrastructure supporting air service, despite its previously set up zonal airport hubs in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Maiduguri, Lagos.

Voting Materials destroyed by Fire: Outside logistical challenges, the Commission also had to contend with fire incidents resulting in the destruction of various materials needed for the election.

“In a space of two weeks, we had to deal with serious fire incidents in three of our offices in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State, Qu‘an Pan Local Government Area of Plateau State and our Anambra State Office at Awka.”

These cases caused the destruction of hundreds of PVCs, ballot boxes, electricity generating sets, and more specifically, over 4,600 Smart Card Readers in Anambra state.

Timing of the Polls: The Commission also recorded different challenges peculiar to each state, which made it apparent that the polls couldn’t open simultaneously at 8am Nationwide. A plan the Commission wasn’t willing to go through with, if it intended to maintain the public perception of neutrality.

Logistical Issues Require Time: Taking into account the logistical challenges it was facing, the Commission had intended to move the elections to Sunday, February 17 or Monday, February 18.

However, following consultations with its ICT department, a new date of February 23, 2019 for the Presidential and National Assembly Elections was decided on.

“While the Commission was considering the following Monday 18th February 2019 as an option, our ICT Department advised us that it would require 5 -6 days to reconfigure about 180,000 Smart Card Readers earlier programmed to work only on election day Saturday 16th February 2019.”

All Election Materials Moved Back to the CBN: Following the postponement, Mahmood stated that, most of the sensitive materials needed for the elections, had been carefully returned back to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

He also gave the assurance that the materials would be properly audited, to avoid future problems.

Way Forward: Speaking on the way forward, and how the Commission intends to prepare for the upcoming polls to avoid a repeat of Saturday’s event, Mahmood listed its plan for the week.

1. Completion/confirmation of deployment Monday 18th February 2019 of materials
2.  The configuration of the Smart Card Readers Sunday 17th Thursday 21st February 2019
3. Receipt and Deployment of sensitive Wednesday 20 and materials to LGAs Thursday 21st February 2019
4. Refresher training for ad hoc staff Thursday 21st February 2019
5. Deployment of personnel to RACs Friday 22nd of February 2019
6.  Election Day Saturday 23rd February, 2019.

The post #NigeriaDecides2019: Major Takeaways from INEC Chairman’s Speech appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

One account had it that the deaths were as a result of a gun battle between hoodlums and security personnel at Nto Edino, the headquarters of Obot-Akara, during the transportation of some of the materials from the state capital, Uyo, which was needed for the now postponed presidential and parliamentary elections, previously scheduled for February 16, 2019.

Another account by Mike Igini, the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, contained no reference to any death but was rather focused on the attack on the commission’s vehicles.

Addressing a news conference in Uyo on Saturday, Igini said: “Some of our vehicles that were distributing materials were burnt yesterday and who are those instigating this? Politicians. This is rather unfortunate. Politicians, who are the greatest beneficiaries of this democracy, have become the greatest threats.”

In a statement provided to an online newspaper, the Peoples Democratic Party through its senatorial candidate in Eket, Dr. Chris Ekpenyong, attributed the violent attack to the All Progressive Congress.

Ekpenyong, who has provided a statement to the state’s Police, explained that he is well aware of the culprits behind the attack. He said that the APC led ruling party is ready to capture the PDP state by all means.

Prince Effiong Abia who coordinates APC’s campaign in the Eket senatorial district rejected the PDP’s accusations. “It is not possible. It is not thinkable and it falls on the head of logic to attribute the electoral violence to APC,” he said.

The post Two Dead, Several Vehicles Burnt in the Wake of Attack on INEC Office in Akwa Ibom appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

In many of these images, corps members were seen camping outside and sleeping under trees, while others were pictured sleeping in buses. Reports have it that as soon as the postponement was announced, INEC officials left the polling units along with security personnel, leaving the corps members to their own devices.

In a report on their situation in Ondo State, corps members lamented over the lack of amenities in the temporary places where they had been kept before being moved to the units where they would work. They also reported being kept in places without electricity, water, and proper sleeping facilities, and many reported not being told that the elections had been canceled.

Nigerians have since mobilized via social media to support as many corps members as they can, with food, accommodation, and other needs which they might have. However, there are still concerns that not all corps members who are stranded will be reached.

INEC Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu, has since come under fire for the mistreatment of corps members and other ad-hoc staff. Yakubu explained during a press conference the Commission held on Saturday that the centers where corps members were lodged did not belong to the Commission and were only utilized once every four years. He also stated that much had been done to improve the conditions of the centers and much more would be done to make the staff comfortable.

Here is what Mahmoud had to say:

“We have done a lot to improve the super racks. Remember these are not facilities owned by INEC, they are public facilities used by INEC once every four years for a general election or as the need arises.
“But we have taken steps. We have procured generators for each of the super racks because that is the place where the youth corpers revise the training manuals before they are deployed to the polling units. They also see the opportunity to recharge the smart card readers before deployment.
“In some places, we have an understanding with the NYSC to ensure that mattresses are made available. We have also gone out of our way to provide mats, rubber buckets, water tanks, toiletries, to make the condition comfortable for the ad-hoc staff that we engage.”

If Yakubu is right that much had been done to prepare places for corps members, then perhaps not enough was done. This is perhaps best indicated by the fact that as at Saturday the 16th, corps members had not received their allowances. However, since the backlash on social media over the treatement of corps members, reports have it that they have since begun recieving allowances.

It is not certain what will be different going into the elections this week. However, INEC cannot continue on the path it is currently treading where corps members are concerned. Unfortunately, the situation does not call for much optimism because the Commission has highlighted its priorities this week, and nowhere has it listed corps members and other ad-hoc staff.

The post Election postponement: the case of INEC and youth corps members appeared first on Nigerian 2019 General Elections.

Economic Costs

The economic cost of the postponement has been estimated as $2.2 billion according to a report by think tank SBM Intelligence and public affairs firm Gatefield. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimated $1.5 billion, according to the Chamber’s General Director, Muda Yusuf .

“The economy was on partial shutdown the day before, and a total shut down on Saturday for the elections,” Muda stated. The estimates given by these respected organisations narrate the overall economic cost for the nation. However, it is worth assessing how the sectors have been affected by the postponement.

Some of the factors leading to this loss include:

• Disruption of business activities – including supply chain, such as manufacturing, construction and food -related industries and ancillary services (e.g. transportation), which are constrained by tight schedules to fulfil orders and shipments
• Disruption of social events – recreation and events which typically occur during weekend and had to be put on hold or cancelled entirely will have contributed significantly to the economic losses incurred.
• Increased wage cost – even though many workers had the day off, salary earners would still need to be paid therefore increasing the wage to revenue ratio of organisations
• Overall inconvenience to daily life and reduced consumer spending – the restriction on movement which had been placed to allow for safety and ease of reaching voting units meant that even after the postponement consumers were home all day, and many businesses remained closed.

With an estimated Gross Domestic Product of about $420 billion as at the end of 2018, the foregone GDP for the various economic sectors are indicated in the chart below:

Voters

This group is the largest and perhaps the most important group which has been affected by the postponement of the elections. Many voters travelled long distances to in order to be present at their voting centers. On the morning of February 16th, the day the elections would have held, pictures were seen circulating online of people who were stranded sleeping outside in uncomfortable places. Many voters will incur extra costs to return to their bases and then travel back for the elections. Those who decide to stay back at their voting centers will also incur extra cost for feeding, accommodation and other logistics. A third and rather unpleasant option would be to return to their bases and give up the opportunity to vote.

For each of these options, there are cost associated even though these costs are not entirely monetarily.

Political Parties

Political parties have also been significantly affected by the postponement. Having deployed Polling Agents (PA) to 119,974 Polling Units (PU) across Nigeria, political parties have been estimated to incur the following losses due to the postponement:

As the table indicates, about N42.7 billion would have been incurred if the election had held, and given that the decision to postpone was announced in the early hours of the election day, it is highly plausible that political parties lost this much on February 16.

The estimates were made based on the number of agents deployed per state, and the political parties active in each state.

INEC

The electoral commission is not exempted from the implications of its decision to postpone the general elections. No doubt the agency will incur extra cost to redeploy personnel and materials which it had already done. The commission, based on its budget, would have incurred a loss of about N6.2 billion. The expenses which have led to this include, logistics, daily allowances, deployment of support staff, foreign observers, setting up of the INEC situation room, voter education, etc.

In addition, the commission has also incurred non-monetary cost in terms of waning trust by Nigerian voters in its ability to credibly conduct the elections. In line with this, several Nigerians have taken to the internet to demand the resignation of Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the electoral commission.

With the incredible costs incurred, both monetary and otherwise, it is worth hoping that INEC gets it right in the coming week. Nigerians might not as be as patient.

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