Civil society
(SBCHROs, Onitsha Nigeria: 11th March
2019)-Owing to shameless conducts of soldiers of the
Nigerian Army in the shambolic polls of 2019 in Nigeria, which
widely hit air, television and other electronic waves around the
world, it may most likely be safe for the Independent National
Electoral Commission to begin or initiate the process of
registration and recognition of the Nigerian Army as a political
party so that it could formally join the league of the Nigerian
registered political parties.
“In this regard, the Nigerian Army may go by name: the Army
Political Party of Nigeria (APPN)”; the Southeast Based Coalition
Of Human Rights & Democracy Organizations, SBCHROs; a coalition
of more than 23 human rights and democracy
organizations based in Southeast Nigeria; said today in a joint
statement issued in Onitsha, Southeast Nigeria and signed by Messrs
Emeka Umeagbalasi, M.Sc., Aloysius Attah, M.Sc., Jerry Chukwuokoro,
PhD, Justice Chidi, PhD, Prof and Ms Chidinma Evan Udegbunam, LLB,
BL.
From the National Resistance Movement Army
(Party) of Uganda to the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Army (Party) of Rwanda, registering the Nigerian Army as a
political partywill generally make Nigerians to begin to see and
treat the Nigerian Army during the polls as “participant” and not
“securitization referee”. In the World Wrestling Entertainment
(WWE), for instance, wrestlers interested in certain championship
belts usually do so by “sending strong message” to the title
holders or organizers of the WWE. In the case of Nigerian Army, the
brazen brigandage, thuggery and other forms of electoral
partisanship and robbery played out in the just held shambolic
polls of 2019 are negatively a clear sign of “sending strong
message to Nigerians that the Army is tired of being “non
partisan” or “security referees” in the Nigerian polls.
It is no longer hidden or news that the soldiers of the Nigerian
Army had during the shambolic electoral exercise engaged with
reckless abandon in snatching and diversion of ballot boxes and
materials including result sheets; doctoring of results, holding
electoral officers and party agents to ransom, obstruction of their
duties and restriction of their movement or access to collation
centers as well as forcing them to announce results at gunpoint.
The soldiers of the Nigerian Army also engaged in shooting and
killing or causing the death of voters, breaking into family
apartments and exposing the nakedness of married couples in their
sleep as well as intimidation and harassment of voters and poll
observers, etc.
On the other hand, going by the compromised roles of the
Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the shambolic
polls, it may most likely be safe to advise the Commission to
replace its existing logo with “the APC’s broom” logo, so as to
formally legitimize its leprous status and stopped from being seen
by Nigerians and international watchers as “unbiased umpire” or
“independent electoral commission”. Apart from overtaking the
Maurice Iwu era of INEC as the worst electoral commission
leadership in Nigeria since 1999, it is also most likely correct to
say that the present INEC is nothing short of an electoral
commission flooded with “APC animated brooms”.
Other than Dr. Mike Igini (REC of Akwa Ibom), other National and
State RECs including INEC Chairman have by their recent misconducts
shown that they are nothing short of apologists of dictatorship,
tyranny and totalitarianism and arch enemies of democracy in
Nigeria. Dr. Mike Igini has been very outstanding and remained
incorruptible since his appointment as REC several years ago; a
feat he has maintained till date. He is integrity personified and
deserves plethora of international awards.
Aside him, others are speaking in tongues very difficult for
Nigerians and other lovers of democracy to decode and understand. A
clear case in point are the unfolding dramas in the just held
Governorship poll, etcetera; whereby “inconclusiveness” was
introduced in States where the ruling APC’s major challenger, PDP,
is coasting home to victory, whereas in others where APC has “won”,
“conclusiveness” was applied to the last. In other States where PDP
is having an edge with convincing margin, “the results are still
being collated”. This is in spite of the fact that the ICT era
governorship polls were conducted since past three days.
In Rivers State, it was “suspension of the poll” even when APC
did not run or field a governorship candidate. In Imo and Kano
States where PDP was officially leading convincingly, “collation
and announcement of results have been abruptly suspended”. The APC
thugs led by Deputy Governor of Kano State were reported to have
torn the remaining results of the last LGA (44th LGA) so
as to facilitate possible declaration of the entire guber poll
“inconclusive”. The winner of the Kano governorship poll
would have been long declared by INEC if it had gone the APC
way.
In Nasarawa State, where PDP was officially leading in most of
the LGAs, the results were magically turned in favor of APC with
its candidate announced as “winner”. In Taraba, Benue, Kaduna and
Delta States where APC was officially trailing PDP in many results
announced, their declarations have been suspiciously delayed. In
Sokoto, Bauchi, Plateau and Adamawa, where PDP was coasting home to
victory, their results “have been declared “inconclusive”.
But in Ogun, Lagos, Borno, Kwara, Kebbi, Katsina, Gombe, Niger,
Jigawa and others where APC “successfully” won, their results have
since been easily and “conclusively declared” and their “winners”
returned. Governorship polls are strictly designed by INEC as
“State INEC business”, but in the just held governorship poll,
“Abuja INEC and Presidency must reportedly confirm” and where the
contrary is the case, “they are declared inconclusive and
rescheduled” or put on hold under the guise of “results are still
being collated”.
Pitiably, therefore, the Nigerian Army under Lt Gen Tukur
Buratai has been so debased with slimmest chances of being redeemed
and returned to professionalism, non partisanship and college of
modern day territorial security and military science. We make bold
to say that the Nigerian Army is on speed match, already hitting
the nadir of precipice to join the moribund armies of former
Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone and other armies of the crumbled
brutal regimes around the world.
It is on irrefutable records that the present Nigerian Army
under its COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai has never been so politicized,
un-professionalized, disrespected, partisan, thuggery, debased,
demeaned, uncontrolled and tactless than under the present chief of
army staff. The Army has never been this bad and desolated under
any other army chief of staff and all the past army chiefs put
together. What remains of professionalism, neutrality and secular
status of the Nigerian Army has been rubbished by its recent brazen
thuggery and brigandage in the country’s 2019 shambolic polls
especially in the South-south region of Nigeria.
It is so brazen and shameful that the national Army of Nigeria
is now being watched on televisions and other visual electronic
devices all over the world snatching ballot boxes and other
electoral materials; shooting and breaking into family apartments
at night, exposing the nakedness of family couples and their
children, disrupting their sleeps and staining their family
apartments with bloods of the shot innocent citizens including
public office holders.
As undeniably caught on cameras and videos by Nigerians and
members of the international community including the UK
Government and foreign poll observers, the soldiers of Nigerian
Army sent by Lt Gen Tukur Buratai have now been debased to the
extent of usurping and taking over the functions of the compromised
and integrity challenged Independent National Electoral Commission.
It is so bad that soldiers of the Nigerian Army now determine which
party agents and INEC officials to be allowed access or denied same
to results collation centers particularly in South-south region of
Nigeria.
The Army leadership is so shameless and unrepentant that when
locally and internationally busted of its evil deeds against
Nigerians particularly the innocent voting population; it
shamelessly came out and claimed that “hoodlums in military
uniforms are responsible”. Footages of the military misconducts in
the shambolic polls have not only rented the air or gone viral
across the country and beyond its borders, but also sent shocks to
Nigerians and members of the international community; ridiculing
and tarnishing what remains of the country’s regional and
international image and reputation.
Noted, too, is the fact that the intensification and escalation
of the military’s gross misconducts in the shambolic polls are
chiefly necessitated by the conspiracy of silence and congregated
and aggregated endorsement of such atrocious conducts of the
military in the Feb 23 segment of the shambolic polls. Had the
international community including the foreign observers come hard
on the Nigerian Presidency and its military by calling spade a
spade, the latest round of gross misconducts on the part of the
military would not have taken place or occurred at minimal scale,
if taken place.
Today, the UK Government has suddenly and belatedly woken up to
“express deep concerns over military interference with the works of
INEC in Rivers State”; yet it was the same UK Government that
hailed and congratulated PMB over the “free and fair conduct” of
the 23rd Feb Poll. It is so bad and shocking that not
even the award winning and $5m richer former President of Liberia
and newest recipient of the Mo Ibrahim democracy icon award, Madam
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; alongside others, could speak out or rise in
strong condemnation of the armada of electoral fraud called
“Nigerian General Polls of 2019”.
We therefore make bold to say that the credibility tragedy
befalling the present Nigerian Army and its leadership had been
long seen way back in 2016 when it ceased to be truly “Nigerian
Army”, but an Army composed or tailored along ethno-religious
lines. The Army started by making itself a national militant branch
of “the Miyatti Allah cattle breeding of Fulani stock”. Since then,
the Nigerian Army has remained more of “jihadist Isbar militias”
than the “Nigerian Army”.
Both at the level of the Coalition and
Intersociety, several investigative reports and
statements have been issued on these, drawing the attention of
various interest groups including the present central Government of
Nigeria and the international community; calling for the return of
Nigerian Army to path of professionalism and secularism. We have
also on several occasions put it on clear records that no
leadership of the Nigerian Army has troubled Nigeria and Nigerians
than the present Army leadership under Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf
Buratai.
The Army under him has killed and maimed more innocent and
unarmed Nigerian citizens than under any other Army chief in the
country and in non war situations. He is also the first Nigerian
Army chief of staff to be powerfully and popularly dragged to ICC
over strong allegations of crimes against humanity perpetrated in
non war situation(s). Several international and local research
works or documentations also abound over atrocities committed or
condoned by Lt Gen Buratai while in office as the Nigerian Chief of
Army Staff since July 2015.
INEC must therefore release all the results in its possession in
the above named States and ensure that the results released are the
true reflection of the votes obtained from polling booths. The
results of Imo, Delta, Taraba, Benue, Kaduna and Kano must be
released intact or as originally collated from their polling
centers or in accordance with results contained in the
FormEC8As. Nigerians also demand firm and concrete
explanations from the integrity challenged INEC over its suspicious
declaration of the governorship results of Sokoto, Bauchi, Plateau
and Adamawa as “inconclusive” while those of APC held areas were
released with ease and declared “conclusive”.
Going by recent experiences as were the case in the
23rd Feb Poll, these “delays” and “inconclusiveness” are
obviously and deliberately designed to subvert the true electoral
wishes of the Nigerian voters and massively manipulate them in
favor of the APC ruling Party and its central Government and
outgoing state administrations in the named States.
Jointly Signed
By:
Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights &
Democracy Organizations (SBCHROs)