PDP Rigging Efforts
A few days before the election, a stakeholders’ meeting was organised by INEC in which Professor Attahiru Jega and the new Inspector General of Police were present. The announcement by the new IG that people should return to their various homes immediately after voting was the most unpopular public statement ever made in recent times as the people present at the meeting roundly rejected this directive. The IG also came up with a new one when he said polling agents of political parties should not be seen at the polling booths. One wondered what happened to the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act which required every political party to be represented at the polling units by its agents in order to monitor the election. When there was thunderous reprobation against this directive, the IG directed that polling agents should stay at least 300 metres from the polling booths. It was the general conclusion that the man did not know the length of a metre and could not have appreciated that directing agents to stay 300 metres away from the polling units was telling them not to come to the polling units at all.
If polling agents are kept 300 metres away from the polling units, how are they to perform their statutory duties of monitoring the election, ensuring compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act like prevention of underage voters, ensuring valid and proper accreditation, etc.? It is the duty of the polling agents to be at the distribution of electoral materials from the distribution centres to the polling booths. See Section 43(3) of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended). Most importantly, Section 43(4) of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) provides that
“[A] polling agent shall be entitled to be present at the distribution of election materials, voting, counting and the collation of election results.”

One wonders what the IG wanted to achieve by his directive in view of the provisions of the law referred to above.

Other efforts made towards rigging the election for PDP were promptly exposed to the press. For instance, there was the case of the Electoral Officer of Obokun Local Government Area who was arrested by young APC members a day to the election while illegally transporting electoral materials before the time for allocation and distribution of materials. The said Electoral Officer and his partner were taken to the State Criminal Investigation Department office in Osogbo and handed over to the police. Unfortunately, the two were promply released in the afternoon of that same day to one Oladipo Oladapo, a PDP chieftain from Ile-Ife.

In another scenario, the Electoral Officer of Osogbo Local Government on the day of the election refused to release identification tags to APC agents thereby preventing them from being able to monitor the accreditation process. It took the intervention of the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ambassador Wali, to compel him to release the identification tags. Later in the day, the same Electoral Officer hid the result sheet on which election results for Osogbo Local Government were to be recorded. It took mass protest to compel him to produce the result form as he was only dancing to the dictates of his PDP masters who were hell-bent on rigging the election. The two biased umpires were later relieved of their jobs.

Tuesday, the 5th day of August, 2014 was a master stroke in the campaign of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and a cul-de-sac to the blind gropes of PDP for undeserved victory in the State of Osun. The conscious and vigilant people of the State came out in thousands in an unparalleled show of solidarity to present victorious endorsement to the man of the people at the Osogbo Stadium Complex. It was a clear signal that no fortress is stronger than the people and no forces of oppression can repress the people when the revolutionary consciousness has taken the centre stage of mass awareness. The last rally of PDP, which held about three days before at the same venue, commanded no more than 10% of the crowd that came to endorse Aregbesola despite the joint presence of President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo. It was a jamboree second to none and was a clear indication that people were going to vote against cluelessness which the opposition in the State symbolises.

It was at this rally that Ogbeni tutored the masses on clinical voting capable of defeating the mystery-shrouded electronic rigging by photochromic ballot papers. The masses went away assured that no bullet could defeat their democratic resolve and that they had the right to monitor the election from the beginning to the end of counting, announcement of results, recording of votes, collation at the Ward level, Local Government level and the final collation and announcement of result at the State level. Aside from the general training organised by the government of Aregbesola for the electorate from ward to ward across the State, the governor took time to tutor the electorate on a step-by-step analysis of the electoral process and how important their presence was at the polling booths on the day of the election.

The governor further brought scientific method to prevention of rigging as he directed every voter to take a photograph of his ballot paper before dropping same in the ballot box. By this, there would be photographic evidence to prove that a particular ballot paper with a particular serial number actually voted for a particular party and same was not invalidated by multiple thumb-printing at the time of voting.
The INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, at the stakeholders’ conference organised before the election, rejected this laudable position of the governor. His position also met a staunch rejection from the people who insisted on their right to take snapshots of their ballot papers as they had the right to do whatever they liked with the ballot papers once given to them. We had to do press conference immediately on this and the issue of polling Agents presence at the polling booths based on the law regulating same.