Saving the Nigerian Democracy!

Alex Aidaghese

August 20 · 

Hate him, love him, or even at worst, resent him, but he is winning. The model he incubated and nurtured into impregnable magnitude in Edo State is being replicated successfully across the country.

Rigging has gone beyond the snatching of ballot boxes, massive thumb printing, and under-age voting. The trend these days is the allocation of votes at the Collation Center.

The way out is simple. Rather than go about driving around polling units with a truck load of cash, hire at least three extra hands to man each ward and unit with papers and pens, with a view to properly documenting the record of the vote counts as announced by the INEC officials at the end of voting.

These are the results relied upon by independent observers, as well as local TV stations in their broadcast. They are authentic and they are directly from the real source as announced by the real officials on the ground.

However, under the emerging trend, the real election takes place during the transit of the voting materials to the collation centers and at the collation centers. In other words, the results so announced at the Ward and Unit levels hardly make it to the collation centers intact.

Take, for instance, the last gubernatorial election in Edo State, the results displayed on TV (all the networks) at the end of voting, with specific reference to Oredo Local Government and Orhionmhon Local Government, were radically inconsistent with the final tally recorded (allocated) and announced by INEC at the collation center.

Here is the dilemma confronting the aggrieved party: During preparation for trial, he goes to court and subpoena all the voting materials recorded by the Returning Officers and in the custody of INEC. Wrong.

The results or records at the custody of INEC are not those announced at the various wards and polling units where the real election took place. They are the ones manufactured by the operatives at the collation centers. With these materials from INEC, you cannot prove irregularities. And you lose.

The way out is to have handy, all the records taken by your agents on the ground-based on the announced results by the Returning Officers. These results are also at the disposal of Independent Observers for verification and authentication purposes.