ONE DAY LOST AND THE SECOND’S HEADED FOR THE SAME FATE

There is no doubt that everyone that is abreast of happenings in the country woke up with a sense of anticipation, which by this evening can only be described as misplaced: the voter registration which was supposed to have commenced this morning could not take off as most of the anticipated problems and new ones reared their heads. However, the most devastating aspect to losing a day in this all important exercise of voter registration is not that it was spent gainfully troubleshooting and trying to preempt further problems; it was in my opinion, spent accumulating problems that we could do without, not to mention the morale depleted.
Forget the many news stories that might be aired across the states and the country reporting the commencement of the exercise. Even more, ignore all the very few registration centres, if any, that opened to the public for registration today for nothing was done, absolutely nothing!
All across the country, youth corps members were yesterday told to report to the various local governments Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices at 6 am this morning. The plan was that we would be there for about an hour or so, which time would be spent in coupling the machines and getting them to functional speed before tying some loose ends like paying outstanding allowances to those youth corps member who did not get their training allowance. Well, up until 8 am we were all under the illusion that everything would go as planned before we realized that most of the INEC officials were not on ground. Most of the Registration Area Officers (RACO) and the Electoral Officer (EO) were nowhere to be found as registration assistants huddled together in groups looking for some direction – any direction – forward.

At last they started arriving, but it was becoming clear to many by then that little if anything would be done as only some of the officials who did come spent the next 30 minutes or so going over the coupling and assembling procedure for the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines. No flurry of activity, no mobilization to the registration centres and no one seems to be keen in seeing to these. Apparently, the all-important voter registration that is seen as the threshold in moving the country forward on the path to development is not seen as important enough to get Nigerian citizens moving, mobilizing and doing their jobs, which apart from carrying the all-important historical potential, carries also some cash remuneration… what is wrong with our work ethic and sense of purpose? Well, things were about to get worse.

Remember I mentioned earlier that some corps members were not paid their training allowance? That was because the INEC officials found it expedient not to use their heads, or at least with the aid of a calculator, compute the amount of money that is necessary to settle everyone. Therefore, some corps members spent the whole of yesterday doing nothing and for the time wasted they did not get the little which the federal government released to aid in any little way, give them some sense of belonging and keep the team-spirit which is always vital to exercises of these kind, aglow. The result: a lot of disgruntled corps members who are beginning to have a rethink if this whole process is worth it at all.

As if to add insult to injury, between noon and 13:00, a group of four comprising two INEC officials and two youth corps members were dispatched with a DDC to what was at that time an unknown destination, for an unknown mission. They would arrive about two hours later, and that is when it became clear that they were a ‘VIP’ delegation sent specially to the governor’s house, not his polling unit, to register him, and I gathered, his wife. The most outrageous thing of all was that one of the INEC officials sent there was dressed as a youth corps member, the purpose of which I did not know until I quizzed him:

ME: Sir, where did you people go to?
OFFICIAL: we went to register the state governor.
ME: In his house?
OFFICIAL: yes
ME: why then are you wearing the NYSC uniform?
OFFICIAL: the youth corps member sent with us (The Registration Assistant) did not know how to operate the machine
ME: but you did not have to wear an NYSC uniform; that is impersonation
OFFICIAL: well, you can take it how you want; it was the EO (Electoral Officer) that told me.

So, in an exercise that is primarily aimed at arming the citizenry with the power to take the country forward, not only does the state governor get registered first, he is the only one who gets registered… the hundreds who could have been registered today will have to wait till some other time I guess. I do not know if he looked out his window to see if everyone eligible was exercising their civic rights, I do not know if he thought about it, I do not know if he cared at all. What I know is that the process was supposed to start today, but due to the lack of ingenuity and sense of purpose demonstrated by those responsible, one day in history has just been lost. I did not switch on my TV this evening – well, I do not have any here – but I would not be surprised if one of the news items was, “Governor registers as voter registration kicks off across the state”. Pity!

Tomorrow does not look set to be too different, by now a lot of the youth corps members are getting jaded and beginning to think this whole thing is a waste of time. Tomorrow morning they are not going to wake up in a hurry, they will take their time. They will prepare breakfast, eat at a leisurely pace and I bet you a lot of people will go to church; they’ll remember that the INEC officials have never respected time, have never had the courtesy to apologize when they came late and if these are the people who are supposed to be the captains then why should they bother to be any different? Unfortunately, I say this not tongue in cheek, they will be largely right. There is no reason to be responsible while others are busy being irresponsible; the country, the peoples’ franchise and the future can go down the drains, it’s not the first time it is happening!

Sadly, with the tone that has been set, I can almost imagine all the headlines that will be conjured up to make Prof. Jega the scapegoat, it is he who must be sacrificed as recompense for other peoples’ poor sense of occasion. Oh, Jega! Woe betide thee, responsible for stirring a ship full of slumbering crew members, with what few that claim to be awake only so to remind you that you are a failure. Well, except someone can tell me how Jega is responsible for coming late for work, inadequately prepped machines and imperviousness to what little emolument that should trickle down, I pray you all, spare the gentleman your self-righteous erudition.

In a nutshell, the first day, today, is lost; and, barring a jolt of positive energy, all or most of the second will suffer the same fate. However, might I admonish all to GO, GET REGISTERED!

PEACE

HAVE WE BEEN BLESSED WITH A CLUELESS PRESIDENT?

At the rate he is going, His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, will soon land himself a deserved place in Nigerian history… as the most clueless president the country ever had. This isn’t just a spurious assertion or a personal attack on his Excellency for one only need look at the line of evidence he has lined up against himself to come to the same conclusion.

When the Independence Day bombs went off some few hundred metres from the Eagle square on that fateful day and after the initial shock and anger that I like most Nigerians felt, I was sure that the recklessness and impunity of some elements in the country will for once not go unpunished. Alas, how wrong I was. Over three months down the line with an additional eight to nine bombs going off in the cities of Jos, Maiduguri and again in the Federal Capital there is yet no clue that any justice will be dished out to the perpetrators. What’s worse, the President, instead of focusing his energies on these issues seems to have discovered the hobby of his predecessors and the bane of Nigerians: Self perpetuation even if it means subversion of the peoples’ rights.

The Delta State gubernatorial re-run, which a lot of people rightly considered a litmus test for the upcoming general elections turned out to be a sham. No, hold your horses, I am not blaming Jega here like many people have resorted to in the past few days since the results started coming in. I have always maintained that the Nigerian people hold the key to their future especially in elections. The leaders they vote will assume office as soon as they learn to cast aside their phlegm and complacency and ensure by any means possible, and I mean any means, that their votes count. Jega was never going to be superman and I feel sorry for all those who expected him to be. The angle to the Delta re-run I am talking about is that which has the president himself, a few months after his presidential declaration speech packed with promises of punishment for the bad guys, and free and fair elections, campaigning for Uduaghan, a man fingered in many reports to be an accomplice to James Ibori as he looted the state’s coffers with impunity. In a sane society, Uduaghan would be behind bars or at least answering questions that will shelve his governorship aspirations, but no, in Nigeria he gets backed in words and in action by a president who is fast becoming adept at talking positive and acting negative.

Another dazzlingly worrying miss-step is that which has the president himself issuing an official statement directing that schools all over the country be closed till 30th January. Apparently the president is not worried about the decline in educational standard in the country and has no clue that as one goes down the age ladder the children become duller, unable to solve basic mathematics or make coherent sentences in English. What blatant disregard for time and the value of education, and an antithesis to the law of evolution! The progeny are meant to be better than their parents.

The final gaffe to prove that the president surely does not have a clue what he is doing came in the form of detention of Prof Okey Ndibe by men alleged to be of the Nigerian State Security Services. Alleged because hitherto, at least from 2001, I ceased to think they existed. How would they exist and not fish out the culprits of all the crises that have put almost all peace-loving people of Nigeria ill at ease? How could they exist and not be able to stop bombs from going off a few hundred metres from the president of the federal republic, even after evidence shows that security intel from foreign agencies was made available? How could they exist and these things I have mentioned will happen twice in some instances, in the space of months? However when it comes to the harassment of peace-loving, highly respected Nigerians whose records are almost flawless in the furtherance of democratic values, they show just how efficient they are. Well, this is what I think; Okey Ndibe’s arrest by the SSS is bad karma for the president. On the one hand, he could have sanctioned it, proving he does not understand the importance of allocating scarce security resource to solving the country’s real and pressing problems, not to talk about sanctioning the harassment of senior and respected scholar (the president is a PhD right?). And, on the other hand, he does not know, and did not authorize the SSS to detain Prof. Ndibe, proving he is not on top of things with the security apparatus he should be walking closest with. Both ways, I say he is clueless.

The sooner Mr President gets busy addressing the real issues facing the country and we start seeing results the better for all of us, but seeing as the election is already upon us, I am afraid the real issues have to wait till after the election. Hopefully, our votes will truly count.

GEARING UP ON VOTER REGISTRATION AND ELECTIONS, AND SOME THOUGHTS

Friday, 07 January, 2011

Finally, the long awaited Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) training to build capacity among corps members towards the conduct of the 2011 voter registration and general elections has begun in my local government, Ogbomoso North. This is amidst news coming from Delta, where gubernatorial re-run elections are being held. Nothing but the same old story of ballot box snatching, kidnapping, gun-touting, and disenfranchisement.

Here is what one of my friends taken from Bayelsa to Delta for the elections had to say,

“I was almost kidnapped, I saw militants lyf in action. Corpers were hijacked with election materials. No security for corpers, and PDP did not win at all!”

Sad indeed.

JEGA! JEGA!! JEGA!!!

This time however, one man seems to be the object of all blame, the INEC Chairman, Attahiru Jega. But wait a minute! Jega is just a man like all of us and elections are not the exclusive responsibility of one man or a group of people. I fear that we have, starting from the Delta re-run, started the process of ‘Jeganizing the elections’. What is ‘Jeganization?’ is the the state of mind where the electorate absolve themselves of all responsibility in the election and heap all blame on Jega; from late arrival of materials, to snatching of ballot boxes, to alteration of results at collation centres, etc. Begs the question, is Jega superman? Can he in a superhero burst of energy be everywhere? Do everything? Right every wrong? Well, maybe that was in his job description but I doubt if he’ll be able to live up to that. The pertinent question must be asked: where were the other election stakeholders? The observers, the party agents, the security agencies and the electorate are all absolved of blame as everything is heaped on the shoulders of Prof Jega. It hardly makes sense to me that snatching of ballot boxes is blamed neither on the Police or other security forces like the Airforce or Navy, but on Jega.

We have to wake up! We have to realize that as much responsibility lies on us as on Jega… nay, more. We are the ones physically in the centres; our votes at risk and our future at stake. ‘Jeganizing’ this election will not make anything go away, it will worsen things. I am fed up of all the nonsense going on and will perform my civic responsibility of registering to vote and voting, and as a corps member saddled with the responsibility of conducting the exercise, I’ll discharge my responsibility with the utmost sense of responsibility and love for this country. It is the much I can do, just do yours and leave some hapless INEC Chairman out of this, Will you?

Sunday, 09 January, 2011.

Today, the INEC the training has come to an end, but not before we all had a go at registering ourselves to get more familiar with the equipment and the registration software. It is pretty much straightforward, but it did not take long for us to realize that the process, which should take an average of three to five minutes, depending on the familiarity of the Registration Officer to local names, and typing speed, is considerably increased to fifteen or more minutes. All the extra time goes at the point where the ten finger prints of the registrants have to be captured. For some reason, the INEC in her wisdom decided to go for the finger print scanner that captures one finger at a time; I’m pretty sure there are types that capture all ten fingers in less than a minute, or at worse the five fingers of one hand. The problem this poses is at once obvious: with hundreds of people expected to be registered at each point daily, working from 8 am to 5 pm it means only about 54 people can hope to get registered in a day. Throw to this milieu the problem of language barrier in some centres, late arrival of officials, system malfunction of different sorts and some upheavals that could interrupt the process for any number of minutes and your guess is as good as mine as to the daily average of registrants whose data will be captured.

Well, I hope that somehow we’ll all learn on the job and become ingenious somehow… people must be given their right to vote.

More to come as the process kicks off. Cheers!