Our elections have truly come to the next level – to borrow one of the most saleable idioms of one of the political parties. As I write this late evening on Saturday much of the first bout of elections has been done and the compilation of the results is in progress. I woke up this early morning to the excited chatter of would-be voters beginning to gather in the polling unit hugging the perimeter wall of where I live in Wuse 2, Abuja. By the time the Subhi prayer is done and the glimmer of the first lights from the east has started showing, the crowd around the polling unit has grown and their chatter would soon develop into a high din.
In due course, the election officials accompanied by an assortment of security personnel arrived and I discerned a neat queue forming to begin the affair of the day. The election arrangements looked flawless, seamless and the crowd of voters orderly. Incredible. I became an incredulous spectator of the scene because I have watched the same happenings in the same spot for many years since I settled in this part of Abuja at the turn of the century. During past elections in the spot the crowd was always larger, so many times unmanageable with loud disputes snowballing into regular fracas.
All morning I watched voting progressing in this spot with hardly any untoward incidence. It was an incredible spectacle. I was still in this state of mind when I ventured out to cast my votes. My polling unit was some distance out towards the border between Wuse and Maitama, at the front of OAU Quarters. I drove out and was pleasantly surprised to find the same occurrence there. In between parking my car and coming before the electoral officials to verify my credentials and engaging in the actual voting, I spent barely five to seven minutes. I drove back to my home jubilating at the fact that our election umpires have put their hands on the right levers and are at last prompting the country to the correct level.
Not yet. True, the electoral umpire has upgraded its technology to safeguard the sanctity of election materials and the voting procedures, thus making them foolproof. They have successfully deployed the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal. The BVAS is a handy device used to identify and accredit voters’ fingerprints and facial recognition before voting, while the IReV is an online portal where polling unit-level results are uploaded directly from the polling unit, transmitted, and published for the public. All these have truly reduced the frustrations in the process of voting and made the average voter have confidence in the whole system. Also, the subdivision of polling units has also gone a long way to drastically minimise overcrowding at polling units and the tension it used to aggravate. On the part of the government, the provision of adequate security has, in addition, made it easier for voters to go voting without any fear of being attacked.
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But INEC is not on top of the situation yet. They have yet to come to terms with the intricacies of the logistics in the distribution of electoral material. There are many reports of material not reaching the intended polling booth in good time to start off voting. In volatile areas, this can be a recipe for the disgruntled to start trouble.
Probably many readers have watched in the media how a disappointed Senator Kashim Shettima the vice-presidential candidate of the APC had to return to his residence when he could not cast his votes at his polling centre at Shettimari polling unit 001 in the Lawan Bukar ward of Maiduguri. He had earlier gone to the polling centre accompanied by Borno State Governor Baba Gana Zulum after 10 am but could not vote due to the absence of the election officials and material. He is reported to have waited for 10 minutes among other voters and thereafter left the scene.
Despite the tight security, there are reports of outbreaks of violence here and there. Your usual suspects include the rump of the Boko Haram terrorists still rampaging in some pockets up North, the Biafran separatists, IPOB, and the bandits roaming the North West and North Central space. Boko Haram made a feeble attack on Gwoza town in the morning and when they were beaten back, voting was said to have taken place without hitches. IPOB and the bandits seemed to have been contained.
As the day was rounding up, and the muezzins were calling for the Asr prayer from mosques around, the sky suddenly darkened and rain fell in sheets. Even as the rain was falling, I could hear the chanting of the counting of votes coming from the polling unit close to my house. The counting was as orderly as the voting. This rain in Abuja is the first. It was unforeseen and even the weather gurus did not predict it. Rain in this part of the world portends a good omen. I hope the exceptional performance of INEC and the good conduct of the political actors is a sign of better things to come.
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