LG Polls: Sokoto, first to get it right?

Ali Abdulkadir

In Nigeria of today, conducting an election that is violence free, is something vey commendable. We all know how elections in the country increasingly become a do-or-die affair, even before former president Olusegun Obasanjo made the pronouncements that preceded the April 2007 presidential elections, which eventually heated the contest of that election.

Holding a political office as many Nigerians came to realize is the easiest way of climbing the topmost rungs of the rich-list ladder. Little wonder politics is the handsomest profession nowadays. It is even attractive to people in some enviable professions like medicine, engineering and law. Teachers, to say the least, have been the greatest beneficiaries of this professional switch. Does anybody wonder why then education in the country continues to suffer neglect? The reason I believe is not far-fetched. This desperate search for wealth therefore makes politics the last resort, and the people whose onus is it to conduct an election in the country at whatever tier of the government, deserve some pat on the back, provided they did it to the satisfaction of the majority.

On Saturday, January 27, 2008, the people of Sokoto state took to the polls and elected those to who would administer their local governments for the next three years or so. The happy thing about this is that by the time the polling stations were declared closed at around 5 o’clock in the evening of that Saturday, no violence of whatever magnitude was reported throughout the state. This however does not mean the people of the state were less Nigerians, or the approach they gave to the elections was not the same as Nigerians in other states do. Again, the fact that there were no demonstrations across the state does not mean the people are any docile. It merely confirmed one thing; the people have got what they voted for. 

In the build-up to the elections, it was clear that two parties were the major contenders. These are the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its main challenger the Democratic People’s Party (DPP). Owing to the popular merger and the collapse into one entity of the All Nigeria People Party (ANPP) and the PDP in the state, which produced the present set of leaders, it became clear that the ruling PDP was poised for some trouble in the selection of its candidates for the election proper. This was so because both parties wanted their nominees to be picked ahead of the other’s, and both felt they deserve the ticket more than the others. This almost created some frictions for the PDP, before it finally nipped it in the bud. 

DPP on the contrary, whose sole viable leader and national financier would rather take his new found interest serious than stay and face another round of election, found themselves in a more difficult situation. Their candidates in thirteen out of the twenty three local governments in the state could not submit their registration forms with the Sokoto State Independent Electoral Commission within the specified time. This necessitated the commission to ban them from taking part in the election. 

One interesting thing about the electoral commission’s decision is that it is headed by Alhaji Usman Gada, a person appointed by the former administration of Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, whose followers now constitute the opposition in the state. Any attempt to label the banning of those DPP contestants as politics would therefore be fruitless. In spite of this, the DPP vowed to not only its stronghold like Isah and Sabon Birni but other places as well. It was also expected that the party’s governorship candidate in the 2007 election Alhaji Maigari Dingyadi would win his hometown Bodinga. The other places where DPP was upbeat to win were Tangaza, Gudu and Gwaranyo. At least this was the scenario until results of the elections proved that the opposition party’s claim to enjoy huge support in these places was mere utterances. It was obvious the party failed to do its homework adequately as confirmed by the people’s reaction when the results were announced.

Both Dingyadi and the present governor were civil servants who rose through the ranks before they switched to politics. But during the local government elections, the former’s reclusion could not match the latter’s political clout.

Aside the fact that the elections were handled by people one can easily call neutral, it is in record that the January 26^Th elections went down as free and fair. Election materials were evidently delivered in good time for the polls to commence early enough. Level playing field was provided for all. The claim that DPP had pulled out for fear of being rigged out was baseless. The man in charge of the electoral commission was theirs, so to say, and had given them fair dealings until they failed to treat him with the respect he deserved, which was obviously the reason why he visited them with the unfavorable but fair and justifiable penalties. 

One can thus say that Sokoto state has broken the jinx of local government elections in the country, given the cries of violence during similar elections in other states. The new administration has deserved the people’s commendation. When in the month of 2007 Kano state had its own elections, the whole country condemned it for the reported violence that characterized the polls. Tens were reportedly killed across the state. Intraparty rivalry intensified and there were mass movement of people fro and to other parties.

The story was the same in almost all the states of the federation where local government elections had so far taken place. Similar violence was reported in Kaduna, which had its elections on the same day as Sokoto. In states where the elections are due to hold, the battle lines are drawn. In Jigawa state for example, a former AIG contesting for the chairmanship of Babura local government under the opposition party was reported to have been arrested on the orders of the state administration. This has created a bad precedent and may not mean well for the elections. Also in Jigawa, grapevine has it that former Governor Saminu Turaki currently on bail over money laundering charges, has vowed to teach the incumbent Governor Sule Lamido some lessons during the local government elections. We pray that no one would be made to pay his/her dear life at the end. 

In Katsina state, the ruling party reports had it, had provided only one form per local government, which makes it difficult for candidates other than the anointed ones to contest the election. All the candidates for the scheduled elections are “arrangee” candidates, and this decision has irked some party members who staged a conference in Abuja to register their grievance to the president who incidentally is from that state.

These stories and many more no doubt make Sokoto the pacesetter. The governor and the good people of the state thus deserve our congratulations for the mature way with which they handled a divisive matter as local government elections. It remains to be seen therefore whether any other state in the federation would exhibit as much maturity.

Abdulkadir contributed this piece from Sokoto and can e reached on cisse_sisah@yahoo.com sahagar7@yahoo.com