Nothing “free and fair” or “regular” was witnessed by me or my journalist colleagues in the Nigerian 2007 Elections.
Saturday 14th
Travelled with two other journalists to observe the Gubernatorial elections around Port Harcourt and surrounding villages within River State.
The elections are due to start officially by 8am and end at 3pm.
At around 10am, when my colleagues and I arrived in Rumudomaya Obio/Akapor Local Government offices in River State, voting materials had yet to be distributed to the various polling stations in the area. We observed INEC official sorting materials, gathering and loading them into vans for distribution - obviously later than the scheduled time.
So they arrived almost an hour late at Ikwerre LGA (Local Government Area) and in two other places near Elele. It was clear that in that area there were willing voters but they would have to wait at least one or two more hours.We continued travelling to see whether anyone was actually voting. By now it was around 1pm.
Instead we came across a van crammed full of dodgy youngsters followed by four of five motorbikes each carrying two, three or four passengers.
We weren’t sure if it was a good idea but we followed them. We were able to interview them and they were excited to pose for my camera.
Their leader told us that they were travelling from one polling station to the next to make sure there was no violence and to make sure the elections were pursued peacefully. They openly stated they supported the Governor’s Candidate Mr. Celestine Omehia (PDP, People’s Democratic Party), who promises jobs and opportunities to young people…just like them.
Finally we reached polling stations attended by a few voters, all of them crowded around the little voting table. Voting confidentiality. There was none.
We headed back to check areas within Port Harcourt. We saw a few deserted polling stations set up on market stalls and a couple more lively ones in some official buildings.
Going in was an overwhelming experience, confusion gripped the place, people argued loudly, as I passed people leaned their heads toward mine whispering “this election is rigged”, others told me firmly “the election is free and fair”, some stopped me to say INEC officials were taking voters’ hands and guiding them to mark the right candidate, onlookers whatched what people were voting and some other people said the election results had been set the night before.Incredible. It was 2pm when we found INEC officials in another polling station. They were already counting ballot papers. At every polling station we checked the results sheets were missing.
We left PH to return to the villages previously visited.
Back in Ikwerre we argued with the Village main chief who, exhausted by our insistence on seeing results sheets forbade us to enter the polling station where the ballot papers were being counted.
As we were moving away we met a young man who started to tell us how people hired by the governing PDP Party came to him and tried to bribe him to stay away from the polling station and not to do his job as a party official. He told us he refused the money and so was unable to enter the polling station to do his job.
A small crowd was surrounding us as we talked and suddenly he was attacked by someone. He was punched and dragged away from us.
The situation became confused, my colleagues intervened trying to stop the attacker, while I tried to film the situation. The crowd become a mob, people were screaming at us to leave immediately.
We got back into the car. We tried to rescue the young man who finally managed to get into our car, then we were surrounded, a woman lay down on the front of our car preventing us from moving, the mob smashed one of our side windows while someone else managed to sneak his arm in, open the door and drag the guy out.
We had to move. We left.
Later in the day through a series of telephone calls we were able to talk to him. He was ok, his friends and family were there, and had been able to take him to his house. We are keeping track of him to see he whether he’ll be safe.
Depressed and frustrated we got back to Port Harcourt to the main collecting point where all the voting material from the various areas was to be gathered and transported to the Main INEC offices.
The scene was one of abandon: ballot boxes were piled and left aside neglected, ballot papers scattered on the floor for anyone to pick up.
A series of telephone calls to independent observers, journalists and NGOs confirmed that the situation was the same in almost all the Niger Delta oil producing region and throughout the West and North of the country. Irregularities, intimidation of voters, shootings aimed at disrupting the elections, houses burned to the ground.
The free and fair elections were to end two days later with the announcement of the winning candidates to the governorships in all 36 states.
Saturday 21st: Presidential Elections
I travelled around Delta State with observers from an NGO and a journalist from AP (Associated Press)
We experienced more or less what we had witnessed the previous week.
We followed the distribution of voting materials from the outskirts of Warri, Uvwie Local Government Council
While waiting for the material to be sorted and distributed, we went and checked other distribution points.
We stopped at the main distribution point in Ughelli South where groups of police officers and army staff were securing the place. They let us in and we met an INEC official who showed us evidence of last week’s attack on the building when a group of party opponents attempted to burn the station down.
Police prevented us from recording any evidence of the place and pushed us out.
Back in Uvwie we waited for distribution to begin. It was around 1pm when vans started to depart with voting material to distribute to various polling stations in the area. We followed several vans to see whether they would stop at any chief’s house, and finally we stopped in Airport Rd in an area called Bright Hope.
The location of the polling station was going to be announced at 2pm. People were milling around, some of them found us and started to complain loudly about how they had waited in vain to vote for the governors the week before.
No polling station was set up last week.
They showed us their voting cards and stated that they would not vote this time unless they could vote for the Governor first. Very few of the 1762 registered voters where there, and even fewer were willing to cast their votes.
On our trip we stopped to inspect what remained of a chief’s house which had been attacked the previous Friday.
Apparently Mr. Pogy, a PDP party affiliate and Chief – who some allege got rich through an involvement in oil bunkering – tried to ignore protesters gathered outside the walls of his large house. The mob was accused him of hiding ballot papers and results sheets in his house with the intention of rigging the vote.
Not very cleverly his wife decided to take up a weapon and shoot two people in the crowd. The protesters went mad and one week later there was little to see where his house and several cars had been.
We went to two other places. We witnessed a young man being punched because he voted for the wrong party. I have a series of shoots that show him casting his vote and toughs intercepting him as he left.
I did not witness his beating because I was shooting from a balcony above the polling station, but the observers I was with described how he was stopped, punched and how he finally escaped.
Finally we stopped at a polling station where we found a bundle of ballot papers on the floor – they had already been marked to vote for the same party: the PDP.
Again our observers and journalists Network, throughout Niger Delta States, west and North Nigeria, witnessed the same Elections farce, irregularities, intimidations, anger disillusionment.
From the 29th of May when the old mandate will end, the new Nigerian President the fraudulently elected PDP party Umaru Musa Yar’Adua will lead the country for the next 4 years mandate.
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