Immediately the 2010 general elections of the Nigerian Bar Association ended and the results announced, late in the evening of 29" July 2010 at the JOGOR CENTRE, Ibadan, Oyo state, the organizers and the winners of the election have not been silent in awarding high pass marks for the conduct of the elections which has been lavishly described as a huge success and prescribed a model for the larger Nigeria polity to copy.
Reading the many fulsome praises of the said elections, the ordinary man on the streets would be forgiven to think it a perfectly executed event devoid of any blemish or shenanigan whatsoever.
However any honest and informed participant or, and observer would admit that the claims of a perfect election are in reality, the inflation of the truth.
In the humble view of this columnist, the more correct assessment would be that the winners actually defeated their opponents at the polls; a more credible election could easily had been conducted.
A dispassionate view of the election would show that the Electoral Committee headed by Mr. Obi Okwusogu S.A.N erred in some vital areas.
Though accreditation of the compiled List of Voters, on delegates voters was smooth and displayed before the election, simple enough but it was observed showing the voting strength of during the accreditation exercise that there were pockets of complaints from individuals, branches and even some candidates over their registration to General Secretary Ibrahim Mark and Obi Okwusogu about the exclusion or inclusion of some names from the list of delegates.
The resolution of these complaints was fluid as a lot then depended on the personality of the complainant and the discretion of Ibrahim Mark and Obi Okwusogu SAN. For example three candidates from Ikeja branch in the elections Adekunnle Ajasa (financial secretary), Chinwe Nwadike (assistant financial secretary) and Dare Akande (2nd vice president) got accredited as voters only after the vigorous intervention of their branch secretary hours after Ajasa had tried and failed.
On the day of the election itself, it is a fact there was no list of Accredited Delegate voters, before, during or after the elections. In the event, nobody knew how many delegates voted until after the votes were cast when voter stubs were counted numbering 1,204, excluding uncounted rejects. Interestingly the total approved votes cast in the presidential election amounted to 1,205 with 718 going to J.B Dauda and 487 for J.K Gadzama. Clearly the proper procedure ought to be existence of a compiled List of Voters, on Display before the election, showing the voting strength of each of the 88 branches as well as the identities and numbers of automatic voters like Senior Advocacies of Nigeria, Benchers, past National Presidents and General Secretaries, accredited for the election.
In consequence, under the arrangement, the best data that could be had was the number of voters, correlating to the number of votes cast but it could not and did not show or prove the lawful eligibility of the voters. So if the voters included mercenaries and other otherwise unqualified entities, there was no way knowing.
During the voting, this reporter noticed that among delegate voters purportedly from Ibadan branch, at least two, wore double tags on their necks, bearing “observer”, and “delegate.” You wondered whether a person could both be observer and delegate at the same time!
Another low point of the elections that was papered over is the fact that the chairman of the Electoral Committee, Obi Okwusogu SAN perpetrated what could be described as “agent harassment and intimidation.” In the short pre-voting meeting of the Electoral Committee with the agents of the various candidates, Obi Okwusogu S.A.N., the chairman of the E.C throughout maintained the perfervid temperament of a beleaguered porcupine! He was to say the least oppressive in his manners, yelling, hectoring and rudely hushing up any agent who dared express any opinion or ask any question. The charged up silk repeatedly tossed the threat of "under the constitution I have the power to conduct this election and I will order any one out who does not comply with our regulations."
Certainly this bullying by an electoral chief, should not be commended to the Nigerian polity by any right thinking adviser! Why Okwusogu SAN normally a calm, amiable and easy going gentleman became so needlessly irascible and even power-drunk was simply bewildering but the conduct put up by him was construed in certain quarters as nothing more than a ploy to cow the agents of the candidates from opposing any untoward actions of the Electoral Committee.
The participation of Mrs. Fatima Kwaku in the Electoral Committee and conduct of the elections was another low point in the elections. It would be recalled that Kwaku had been deeply involved in the bitter and uproarious dispute that arose over the failed attempt by the falsely monolithic Northern Lawyers Forum a.k.a Arewa to present J. B. Daudu S.A.N as the single presidential candidate in the election and keep J. K. Gadzama out of the race. Up to the very day of the election Kwaku was a well known J. B. Daudu supporter, yet she and other so called learned elders and sages saw no sense in the decency that dictated her self-retirement from the electoral
committee!
In the course of the election proper maybe about three hours after the commencement of voting, the pair of Funmi Roberts and Chief Niyi Akintola rushed in one after the other, may be in the interval of thirty minutes to plead with the agents to agree to the opening of the voting hall to the huge crowd of voters outside.
According to the two lawyers, incidentally both who were co-chairmen of the Local Organising Committee of the Ibadan Delegates conference, the gates to the voting
hall should be opened since the "crowd outside were setting uncontrollable and wild and would soon force their way any how."
Chief Niyi Akintola SAN, a loud and virulent Dauduist was especially earnest in this claim. But when pointedly reminded by this reporter that he lacked the locus to press for such a thing, as to regulating access of voters, he not being part of the Electoral
Committee, his response to the QUO VADIS was a lame "we are only trying to find a solution and some people are just shouting."
All this while, the Electoral Committee maintained a sedate, "all-is-well-in-Zion posture" and did nothing!
The pertinent questions begging for answers were and still are:
1. Is throwing the gates open to a frenzied crowd, on an election ground, a reasonable
option?
2. Who was responsible for lack of crowd control?
3. Why was there such a massive crowd build-up considering the fact that NBA elections normally take 10-15 hours to conclude, and there had been no precedent of
crowd disturbance or unruliness since 1998, after the rebirth of the NBA?
In the light of all the above issues and points, I submit that any well meaning Nigerian patriot will find it hard to recommend the just concluded elections and the
accompanying shenanigans to this lamentable country.
An election where tribalism was a major factor, where key conductors were partisan, where there was no (display of) voters register, where crowd-control was poor, where voters accreditation was not transparent and where election conductors threatened,
terrorised and intimidated agents from asking relevant questions.
I close with this observation. In the Ibadan Delegate Conference election only about 1,204 voters voted in one voting centre. Imagine if it was an election of 30 million voters in 500,000 centres. Just imagine.
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