SEGUN ADENIYI: NGF Poll and the Dangers Ahead

The Verdict By Olusegun Adeniyi. Email: olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

Very early in 1993, the State House Correspondents (of which I was one, reporting for African Concord) held an election at the Villa. Because our then ‘oga at the top’, Double Chief Duro Onabule, presidential spokesman to General Ibrahim Babangida, was suspected of having interest in some candidates, the stakes were raised in what ordinarily might have been a drab contest among reporters.

The campaign preceding the election was therefore interesting as reporters pledged and shifted loyalties. But one of the contenders, then correspondent for Champion newspaper, Mr. Amaechi Dike (now of blessed memory) was not only sure of victory but would also not want to take chances. He therefore sent money to the Champion State House photographer who was then in Port Harcourt, so he could return to Abuja and vote for him.

On D-Day we held the election but to our shock, the late Amaechi scored only one vote which meant he secured no other ballot outside the one he cast for himself. It was very embarrassing, especially for those who had pledged to him their support, apparently with the cold calculation that he would garner some votes and they would claim to be the voters. The scene that followed between the late Amaechi and the “treacherous” photographer is better imagined by readers. From that day, I learnt the lesson that pledges count for nothing when it comes to secret ballot as people often hide behind the fact that they are not likely to be detected to vote their true convictions.

That explains why I was not surprised by the outcome of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) election which held last weekend and was won by Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi of River State. While 19 Governors had signed a piece of paper “endorsing” Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State, only 16 eventually voted for him, leaving the old man thoroughly embarrassed and confused. I watched Jang on television, asking rather incredulously, why he could lose when 19 Governors had “endorsed” him and I felt really sorry not only about his naivety but also for the manner in which Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom (who authored the paper in which April was changed to May in his handwriting), has carried on after he had been politically out-snookered!

It is instructive that while the NGF has been around for some time now, its affairs did not command as much interest until some presidential proxies waded in and unwittingly turned the election of the chairmanship of what is no more than a social club into a referendum on the popularity of President Goodluck Jonathan. At the end, the conduct of the governors purportedly acting on behalf of the presidency smacks of political desperation and an opportunistic attempt to control their colleagues through intimidation and blackmail.

Against the background that it was only yesterday that we came half way through the four-year mandate for the current office holders, events of recent days are indicative of the fact that at practically all levels, the permutations about 2015 have overtaken the primary responsibility of governance at a time when our country is beset with multiple calamities. Yet there are also lessons from the outcome of the NGF polls. If an election comprising just 35 electors could generate this much heat and acrimony, what would then happen during the 2015 general elections? Even more pertinent is the question: Why would responsible adults like governors subject themselves to a process and then turn round to play truants just because the outcome did not favour them?

Notwithstanding, I still believe that media coverage of the election in which the president was reportedly “floored” by Amaechi carried journalistic mischief too far. In the context in which the election was fought, the person Amaechi actually floored is Akpabio because the River state governor himself is well aware that there is no way he can defeat President Jonathan in a political contest. Yet there is also a potential banana peel that should worry presidential handlers: If governors would sign a paper to back a particular candidate touted to have been endorsed by the Villa and then vote somebody else, what is the guarantee that they cannot do the same during the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) convention to pick its flag-bearer (where they control the delegates) or at the election proper?

However,  the greater worry is the implication of the desperate scenarios that played out in recent weeks on the 2015 elections process. Will the polls be free and fair? Will the outcome be accepted even if it reflects the wishes of the electorate? Are we susceptible to a situation in which the losers would rather that our democracy crash than be gracious in defeat? These are a few of the posers that arise from the outcome of the NGF election and the prognosis does not look good with the way some of the governors have carried on.

Indeed, the real fear now is in what the NGF metaphor portends for our country and the prospects of its survival as a tolerable democracy. An election involving only 35 men is being shamelessly mangled. An election openly conducted with secret ballot with the tally announced by the Director General of the same NGF, a highly principled and thoroughbred professional, is now being derided by those who freely submitted themselves to the exercise, just because they could not have their way. An election within the confined space of a state government lodge, protected by the security details of all governors and in full view of the press is being annulled by subterfuge before our very eyes. However, there may also be a dividend in this nonsense: Nigerians need not look too far for the real culprits in the saga of election manipulations in our country: The faces of the bad losers in the NGF election seem very much familiar. Shame!