There was violence and intimidation of voters – Solarin, PDP scribe

Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ogun State, Sunday Solarin, shared the grievances of his party on the last Saturday local government election in the state with OLUFEMI ADEDIRAN.

What is your assessment of the last local government election?

We are all aware of the rush by the governors to have local government elections because of the directive of the Supreme Court to ensure that LG allocation goes directly to them without undue interference from the governors and that any local government without a democratically elected leader should not be given allocation. If not, maybe the election would not have taken place, and the governors will continue to have their cronies as caretaker committees. Notwithstanding, the People Democratic Party in Ogun State witnessed the worst of any democratic experiment that can be imagined in the history of the state and perhaps in the history of Nigeria.

When the process started, we knew that this government lacked the capacity to conduct an election because it was a product of an illegitimate electioneering process. Governor Dapo Abiodun rigged himself into office and there was no way he would give what he didn’t have. However, once a democratic contest is called, a political party must participate irrespective of the confidence of the party in the process. we decided to have our machinery activated for the election, but one of the first things we noticed was that even during the process of nominating party candidates, Governor Dapo Abiodun infiltrated PDP, trying to lure some of our members to submit a parallel list to the Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission. Of the 236 councilors who were supposed to be fielded, the faction led by our former Chairman, Sikirullaih Ogundele, could not produce up to 50 councillorship candidates. So, they saw the ploy as being impossible and they disembarked from the plan because the person who was merchandising with them to produce a parallel list of candidates could not supply that as they could not get the support of party members.
Immediately after that, they instituted a case against the party at the state High Court, asking the court to order OGSIEC to delete the list of candidates of PDP from the list of candidates to contest the election. What they were praying for was that the PDP should not have candidates in that local government election. But the court dismissed the case. That left them with no option but to cause crisis and violence on the day of the election. People were beaten, and macheted on the day of the election, and three of my aides were seriously wounded by thugs. One of our principal’s (Ladi Adebutu) policemen was shot by these hoodlums as well. All these are currently being investigated by the police. The same governor who was using the police to harass the opposition in the state said the opposition caused violence during the election.

How did the election go?

As of 9 am on the election day, the printing of election materials had not been concluded by OGSIEC. Out of 5,042 polling units in Ogun State, about 4,000 of the polling units did not even have materials for the election. OGSIEC officials were just there looking as if they came to watch a cinema. In some polling units, they did not have voter registers present, while there were no sufficient ballot papers in some others.  As of 1 pm, some polling units did not have result sheets. It was a case of somebody who was trying to dress his wound by himself and you know such a person will not shed tears. That was the situation we found ourselves.
There was no election, so I’m not sure how we want to even start mentioning our complaints because if there had been an election, we would be talking about malpractice and rigging. But there was violence and intimidation of the electorate. They were doing this to send a signal that in future elections, the electorate should develop apathy because of the insecurity they were trying to stimulate in our electioneering process. Some people told me that they would not come out to vote again if the atmosphere was that chaotic. I think that was what APC was trying to do, to discourage people from voting, because they are unpopular.  They sent signals of insecurity and lack of safety for people who wanted to exercise their franchise. PDP will not complain because the election did not even take place.

Will the party challenge the outcome of the election in court?

We won’t go to court because, the law that establishes OGSIEC, says once you are uncomfortable with the outcome of the election, you can only approach a state High Court which is also being controlled by the state governor. What are we going to get out of the court? Even if we want to go to court, we would go with facts and figures, but these are not available. They did not give any of our agents any result sheets, and they did not even follow the guidelines. If we want to go to court, which result sheets are we going to present? It will be a fruitless voyage for us to challenge the results of an election that did not even take place.

Do you support the call for INEC to conduct LG elections in states?

There are two alternatives: it is either they relieve state independent electoral commissions from conducting local government elections and allow INEC to conduct the polls because we can never get neutrality from elections conducted by individuals under the whims and caprices of the governors; or we amend our constitution and let the governors continue to appoint people who will manage the affairs of local governments, for us to know that the third tier of government is not going to be democratically run; it will be an appendage of state governments, instead of endangering the lives of the people, wasting tax payers’ money on conducting elections that would turn out to be unfair.

I’m aware that the National Assembly is trying to promulgate a law that would ensure that only an independent and national body is allowed to conduct local government elections in Nigeria. I don’t know how we are going to enhance our democratic system and culture in the country if we keep getting it wrong in every successive election. The judiciary and the law enforcement agencies should up their game if we want to protect our democracy. But in a situation where the ruling party or the governor will be using the police to intimidate the opposition, it is a way to tactically kill our democracy. In a situation where the judiciary would be awarding victory to candidates (because if we say democracy is about the wish of the people, but it is the judges that will be using the law to award victory), then it is no longer following the principle of democracy. If three or four judges would sit down and say this is the winner of an election contrary to what the people have said by their votes, it is against the principle of democracy. So, I urge the judiciary and the police not to aid the death of democracy in Nigeria.

The minority leader of the state House of Assembly, who is a member of PDP, was apprehended on the day of the election for no offence. This is happening because the security is under the control of the governor and he can easily manipulate them. In Ogun State, we had reported cases of opposition leaders being humiliated, but for how long are we going to continue this? During the last general election, one of our House of Assembly aspirants stayed for too long in the custody of the DSS, why? And up till now, we have never had a case of any of the members of the ruling party being apprehended for any offence in the state. Why is it that only members of the opposition are the people committing crimes? Our chairmanship candidate in Ogun Waterside was just released on Monday by the police. By all this, you will know that they were just trying to frustrate the continued operation of democracy in Nigeria.