 Gov Nyako The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which declared him winner claimed that the election was peaceful, free and fair. The opposition Action Congress (AC) rejected both claims and alleged that the governorship seat was actually auctioned to the highest bidder by the electoral commission. It was a similar debate overheard between two people at a small café in Yola, the state capital, last Thursday, a day after the governor was sworn in. "Nyako has now won a clean election," the first speaker said. "He won nothing; it was just a silent robbery," the second speaker responded promptly. From their respective statements, it was apparent that the first speaker was a supporter of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) while the second belongs to the AC. An instant inquiry confirmed the assertion. It is a debate that may not end quickly in the state; and it had started right from the time INEC unlawfully excluded AC candidate Ibrahim Bapetel from the governorship contest last year (Some even said it actually started right from the time PDP awarded its ticket to Nyako in December 2006 without giving other aspirants the chance to go for primaries or to pick a consensus candidate). Last week’s vote was meant to at least correct the exclusion issue. It did officially; but it is unclear whether it could resolve the all-important question of legitimacy. This is perhaps why Nyako and INEC were very keen on putting forward their positions on the election and AC was equally so keen on challenging them. Both INEC and Nyako insisted that the election was peaceful and transparent. Nyako even went on to explain why he won. Speaking while receiving his certificate of return at INEC headquarters in Abuja, Nyako was quoted to have said: "the people of (Adamawa) state showed clearly on Saturday that they are not interested in whether you are a Fulani, where you come from or your religion. Urging his opponents to accept the result, Nyako said: "There is no need going to court because as everybody witnessed on Saturday that the election was free and fair as people has demonstrated that victory" went to the person who would protect their interests. "They only voted based on their interest, to the person who would deliver and, most importantly, to the man they want," he added. Similarly, delivering his inauguration speech in Yola on Wednesday, Governor Nyako said: "The landslide nature of our victory at the polls is a clear indication that our voters have got our message and thrown away the yoke of religious, ethnic and other primordial politics". There was indeed use of ethnic and religious sentiments during the last campaigns. But opposition politicians insisted that it actually emanated from the PDP camp, way back in 2006 when Nyako was hoisted on the party. Chief Joel Madaki, who had wanted to contest for the PDP ticket but was disallowed, argued that he was denied the opportunity because of his ethno-religious background. Madaki was the PDP chairman in the state for about eight years, had a long career in politics and was a commissioner in the defunct Gongola State in the Second Republic. He and his supporters said with these credentials, they could not see how he was unqualified to contest for the ticket. Even though there were equally qualified Muslims who were equally barred from contesting against Nyako, Madaki’s case was difficult to ignore, especially among his supporters. As his case was going on, the ethno-religious dimension took a turn for worse when the move to impeach the then governor, Boni Haruna, began. It was alleged that the move was hatched by the quartet of Professor Jibril Aminu, Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman; the then Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu; the then Deputy Governor, Bello Tukur; and Nyako. The allegation then was that they wanted to remove Boni (a non-Fulani Christian) and replace him with Bello (a Fulani Muslim) so as to facilitate the emergence of Nyako (a Fulani Muslim) as the next governor. The allegation was denied and the impeachment move collapsed. But the ethno-religious politics didn’t really stop. It actually intensified during Nyako’s eight-month tenure and during the last election campaigns. Both sides use it where it pleases them. Many people said that what probably saved the state from a possible crisis was the fact that the candidates of the two main parties were both Fulani Muslims. That was the atmosphere during the campaign; but INEC’s conduct before the election also came under scrutiny. Some opposition parties, especially the national leadership of the Labour Party, had questioned the rationale behind what they called INEC’s haste to conduct the election when the party had gone to Supreme Court challenging a lower court’s decision not to allow Labour Party to replace its candidate. The national chairman of the Labour Party, Mr Dan Nwanyawu, had insisted that INEC had enough time to wait for the Supreme Court’s verdict before organising Adamawa’s election, but it went ahead with its plan because it had an alleged interest to favour the ruling party. However, INEC’s national commissioner on information, Philip Umeadi, had denied that allegation, saying that the commission went ahead with the election because there was no court order stopping it from doing so. He said that when they were earlier stopped by the Katsina Federal High Court, they complied with the order and postponed the poll by two weeks. He said the commission was pleased that everything had been completed peacefully. INEC’s claim that the election was generally peaceful is largely true, many people said, at least when compared with the level of violence witnessed in Kogi State. Although AC spoke of "grand violence that characterised the election in most parts of (the) state", the officially reported violence was the ones in Michika where two people were killed, in some polling stations in Madagali Local Government and Tola (Mayo Belwa LG) as well as in some stations in Demsa and Guyuk local government areas. INEC officials said the violence and ballot snatching in those areas led to cancellation of results in the affected places. However, they said, it was not widespread enough to affect the outcome of the election in general. But the massive deployment of police and army in the state during the election was criticised by many opposition figures who alleged that it was used in intimidating their supporters and that it had wiped away INEC’s claim of peaceful election. Some opposition politicians said that even if the election was peaceful, it did not mean that it was credible nor did it clear INEC of the open partisanship allegations. They alleged that the election result published by the commission was dubious. Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Abdul Bulama, had announced that Nyako won with 361,739 votes, beating Bapetel of AC, who scored 201,767 votes. He said Nyako also defeated Jibril Dackson of Action Alliance (AA) – 1558; Ezra Ibrahim of Alliance for Democracy (AD) – 255; Mohammed Gambo of African Democratic Congress (ADC) – 235; Abdurrahman Adamu of All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) - 378; Aminu Hammanjoda Furo of APGA- 131; Bala Takaya of Democratic People’s Party (DPP) – 187; Joel Madaki of Labour Party (LP) – 7,360; Clifford Burbari of National Conscience Party (NCP) – 149; David Barau of Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) – 359; and Zira Kwada of PPP – 242. The commissioner gave the figure of rejected votes as 126, 843. The AD candidate, Ezra Ibrahim, was reported to have died several months before the election. INEC said it was not informed by the party and as such he remained a candidate. Abdurrahman Adamu of ANPP had withdrawn for Bapetel while Bala Takaya of DPP had withdrawn for Nyako. They too possibly did not notify INEC, but they did tell journalists. "The PDP was credited with victory in all the 21 local government areas of the state. To everyone conversant with the politics of Adamawa State, this is like a fairy tale," Bapetel told a news conference. "The heterogeneous composition of Adamawa State has always reflected in the political choices of the people of the state," he said. The AC candidate claimed that the plot to rig the election was clear even from the design of the ballot paper. "INEC presented voters with a ballot paper that was clearly designed to put the AC in jeopardy. The ballot paper was designed in such a way that many voters who thought they were voting for the AC ended up printing on the edge of the slot of the MRDD, a party that had no candidate in the election… "These explain the unprecedented high number of invalid votes in the election. Never in the history of elections in Nigeria have we had about 20 percent of the votes returned as invalid," he said. But observers said even if all the invalid votes were added to AC’s, the party would have still lost to PDP with about 33,129 votes. Some though are quick to point out that if it was a matter of allocating votes for election rigging purposes, those who did so would not be so stupid as to make it in a way that adding invalid votes could overturn the victory of the favoured candidate. Apparently with the exception of PDP supporters who are happy with the election result, the general feeling here is that INEC’s design of the ballot paper was done on bad faith. They put some parties’ voting space (including AC’s) on the left-hand side which many people said is an unusual way of voting, and the parties’ logos were not really very clear. INEC also put 50 political parties on the ballot for an election that the Court of Appeal said only 12 parties were qualified to contest. The AC candidate said he did not limit his concerns to the issues of ballot paper design and the high figure of invalid votes; he was also alleging ballot stuffing and intimidation of his supporters. "Ballot papers were snatched and stuffed by agents of the PDP while security agents looked the other way. In many areas, our supporters were chased away from the polling stations while PDP agents had a field day stuffing the ballot boxes. "In many other areas, PDP chieftains openly bought votes while security men ignored complaints by our party agents. In the northern part of the state, voting was not held in the mountainous areas while PDP hijacked ballot papers and wrote results as they wished," Bapetel further claimed. Despite all these, though, he said he would not challenge the result in law court. The AC national spokesman, Lai Mohammed, who was with him during the news conference, said they believe that there are three courts: the court of law, the court of public opinion and the court of God. He said they would leave the matter to God and the people since, according to him, they had gone to the law court earlier and won, but INEC had allegedly made nonsense of it. Mohammed said: "We are not interested in challenging the result because election has become a farce in Nigeria. The judiciary has been doing a good job but the PDP and INEC are not prepared to allow a free and fair election in this country. As our candidate has said, we have decided not to challenge this false result in the tribunal. The PDP has turned election into a vicious circle and we have decided not to make ourselves a part of this circus any longer. Our party has said over and over again that no credible election can be conducted in this country until this present INEC is dissolved and replaced with people that can be trusted by all Nigerians," he said. The statement later issued by AC was even harsher, alleging that the governorship seat was sold by INEC to the highest bidder. "The sham re-run election has also proved the hollowness of the government’s much touted electoral reform, rule of law and war against corruption. We expect the PDP, INEC and their accomplices to dismiss us as bad losers. But by the time we release the full and sordid details of what transpired in the public auctioning of Adamawa State governorship seat, Nigerians will be shocked to their marrows at the complicity from the highest echelons of government, the PDP and INEC and other institutions entrusted with the conduct of the election," AC said in the statement signed by Mohammed. Both INEC and PDP have largely ignored AC’s claims and protest, preparing to stick to their positions that the election was peaceful, free and fair. INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, said the successful conduct of Adamawa’s re-run was a clear indication that democracy was taking root in the country. Speaking while presenting the certificate of return to Nyako in Abuja, Prof Iwu was reported to have said that the election was peaceful and orderly. "That is how election is supposed to be conducted as it is supposed to be (like) sports and not to be war and the outcome of the election was glaring to everybody," he said. He said the people of Adamawa State had demonstrated that "it is you (Nyako) they wanted for the seat." Prof Iwu was apparently relieved that AC had said it would not be challenging the result in law court. He would probably also be happy that the election was not monitored by professional election observers like the ones who monitored the 2007 elections. INEC came to Adamawa with its own observers for the re-run and they are likely to deliver their verdict in its favour. Other things that had worked in favour of INEC and PDP were the pre-election happenings that gave the impression that the election was being prepared to be freer than the 2007 elections. First, when Acting Governor James Barka was sworn in after the upholding of the nullification of Nyako’s previous election by the appeals court, he pledged to be fair to all political parties. To demonstrate his resolve to be fair, Barka dissolved Nyako’s cabinet, sacked his aides and local council caretaker committees and area administrators – all to the admiration of opposition parties. But a day later he began to reverse his decisions. He re-appointed Nyako’s ex-campaign director-general, John Manassa, as Secretary to the State Government. He also appointed another PDP stalwart, ex-federal lawmaker Auwal Tukur, as his chief of staff. Few weeks later he re-appointed local government caretaker committees and area development administrators – almost all of them from the PDP. The move enraged the opposition and was one of the issues AC raised in its protest letter to President Umaru Yar’Adua. But they were ignored. There were also allegations that the acting governor had allowed PDP to use state government’s resources for its election campaigns and that the state-owned media were turned into PDP campaign organs. Opposition parties said they did complain about it, but the complaints were ignored. They also complained that the federal government released excess crude monies to Adamawa State government just few days to the election, even though it had initially said that it would not release such monies to an interim administration. Some opposition politicians said they became even more enraged when they later discovered that the announced sacking of Nyako’s aide by Barka was more of media propaganda than a reality. They said that the so-called sacked aides were left with their vehicles and were being given their salaries, even though they were not working for government. Some AC stalwarts though expressed some appreciation to Barka, saying that the mere announcement of the sacking was at least an effort when compared with what happened in Kogi where the then acting governor retained all Ibrahim Idris’ aides. Their main grudge though was that they were allegedly cheated by Barka’s deception, having been given the impression that a level playing ground would be provided in the election, only for them to find a different atmosphere, they said. It was the same sort of anger many AC supporters here express towards President Yar’Adua whom they accused of giving former Vice President Atiku Abubakar a false assurance that the election would be free and fair only to turn a blind eye to the rigging that they alleged was perpetrated during the election. Initially, there were rumours that Atiku and Yar’Adua had struck a deal under which Adamawa would be allocated to AC in return for Atiku to drop his challenge of Yar’Adua’s election at the Supreme Court. Both sides had denied the rumours and the subsequent happenings did re-enforce their rebuttals. He did say he would do so when he flagged-off its campaign, anyway. But even that did not stop the rumours until the election result came out. More allegations and counter-allegations are likely to continue, but with the new governor already sworn in and his main rival’s decision not to challenge him in court; it is possible that the political temperature in state would now come down – unless something dramatic happens.
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