UHS�s
Response to Hon. (Mrs.) Irene Imilar�s Claim on
INEC�s Voter
Registration for Delta State Governorship Re-run
Election of January 6, 2011
In a paid advertisement in Vanguard of March 3, 2011, Hon.
(Mrs.) Irene
Imilar, Member of Delta State House of Assembly for Warri North,
faulted Urhobo
Historical Society (UHS) for its analysis
of the recent Governorship
re-run
election in Delta State that was published in the Vanguard
issue of
February 28, 2011. The point of contention for Mrs. Imilar concerns the
voter
registration figure of 37,444 for Warri North LGA that was employed by
UHS in
its analysis. The claim by UHS that has irked Hon. (Mrs.) Imilar is as
follows: �We see that Warri North has voter turnout rate
of 100.4%.
In actual numbers, INEC credited Warri North in 2007 with 37,444
registered
voters. On January 6, 2011, INEC awarded Warri North a total of 37,609
votes.
Assuming that no registered voters died in the interval of almost four
years
between 2007 and 2011 and assuming no registered voter escaped the
political
turmoil in Warri North, INEC would still have to account for a surplus
number
of 165 votes.�
It
is fair to ask, as Hon. Imilar does, from where UHS obtained these
figures.
INEC published the voting figures of the re-run election and they are
widely
available in the public domain. But we see no publication of the voter
registration. We in UHS tried in vain to obtain voter registration
figures from
published sources, including INEC�s Web site. However, we were able to
obtain
voter registration figures for Delta State�s LGAs, including Warri
North, that
INEC issued to political parties on January 3, 2011 -- 3 days before
the re-run
election. That is how we received these figures, including 37,444 for
Warri
North LGA, from agents of Democratic Peoples� Party (DPP).
Since
Mrs. Imilar�s challenge, we have asked the DPP�s source from which UHS
obtained
INEC�s voter registration data to specify how it received these data
from INEC.
We now quote its specification as follows: �1. A CD-ROM
[containing
voter registration data] was received on Monday, January 3, 2011 from
the
Administrative Secretary of INEC (Delta State), Mr. Timmy Koroye. 2. The CD was
received by
Chief Lance Orhierhor on behalf of Democratic Peoples� Party (Delta
State) in
his capacity as State Secretary of the party. 3. This
particular CD
contains Registers of Voters for 11 LGAs, viz., Oshimili South, Patani,
Sapele,
Udu, Ughelli North, Ughelli South, Ukwuani, Uvwie, Warri North, Warri
South and
Warri South West, in that order. 4. The CD is
deemed to be
the "cleaned copy" [that is, authenticated or approved version] of
the original register promised by the National Chairman of INEC, Prof.
Atahiru
Jega, for the Re-run Election.� This is the
chain of custody of our data.
Against
these
ample
facts of time, place, and persons must be weighed Hon. Imilar�s
terse claim that �the officially released INEC registered voters for
Warri
North in the 2006 registration exercise is 58,911.� We must ask: Who
released
the data; when were they released; and to whom were they released? How
many
other people have had access to this �official� registration
information? Why
is it not published in INEC�s official Web site? Why is it kept secret
from the
public?
Such
questions are pertinent and urgent because of the controversies that
INEC
itself aroused on the matter of voter registration in the weeks
preceding the
re-run election of January 6, 2011. It refused to embark on fresh voter
registration for this re-run election, thus rejecting demands from
opposition
parties. Nor did INEC wholly side with the ruling Peoples� Democratic
Party
(PDP) which wanted the existing registers of voters to be used for the
re-run
election without further processing. Instead, INEC �cleaned� up errors
from the
registers of voters, before releasing its approved registers of voters
on
January 3, 2011, to contending political parties. In our view, it is
from these
approved or authenticated registers, released 3 days before the re-run
election, that analysts of the election should obtain their figures of
voter
registration. That is what UHS did. The question for Mrs. Imilar is
this: from
where did she obtain her mysterious figure of 58,911 for Warri North
LGA?
We
note that Mrs. Imilar in her paid advertisement questioned our
motivation for
carrying out the analysis of the re-run election. We want to state as
clearly
as we can that we in UHS regard the right of Nigerians to vote for
candidates
of their choice as their inalienable right of citizenship without which
they
would be nothing more than enslaved peoples. It is our worry that that
right is
being taken away from our people of Delta State. In the elections of
2007, we
all heard horror stories of men and women who lined up for hours to
vote but
were denied their right to exercise a crucial citizenship right. And
yet it was
later publicly announced by INEC officials that the people voted, thus
insulting the people who knew that they did not vote. We believe the
finding of
the Appeals Court that pronounced that there was no voting in the
Governorship
election of 2007 in Delta State was extraordinary. In these
circumstances, any
patriotic organization should do its best to ensure that INEC officials
are held
accountable for their official conduct in protecting a major right of
our
people. This is why UHS decided to carry out the analysis of the re-run
election of January 6, 2011.
Our
analysis was for all the 25 LGAs of Delta State. Our results revealed
two strange
patterns to which INEC officials should pay full attention, if they
take their
work seriously. First, the voter turnout in the urban centres of large
population of Delta State was miserable. According to our results,
there was
very little voting in the cities of Asaba, Agbor, Ogwashi-Uku, Warri,
Sapele,
and Ughelli. Second, the voting in the southward riverine areas, which
had
suffered from depopulation in recent times, appears to be abnormally
high �
with the alleged voter turnout in Warri North LGA being the most
incredible.
UHS believes that these are serious issues for which INEC should be
held
accountable. They are matters that cannot be brushed aside with threats
of
intimidation or covered up with name-calling.
It
is a shame that such simple and elementary facts as registers of voters
should
be the subject of any disputes. If INEC did its work competently and
properly,
we all would have the same set of voter registration data. We in UHS
are
confident that our figures came from INEC on January 3, 2011, and were
properly
understood to be authenticated registers of voters in Delta State�s
LGAs. All
we in Urhobo Historical Society want and, indeed, demand is proper and
truthful
service from INEC, including its Delta State office. It is clear that
at the
present time the Delta State office of INEC has degenerated into a
cesspool of
misinformation. It is entirely possible that Mrs. Imilar�s figure of
58,911 for
Warri North LGA is nothing more than a casualty of Delta State INEC�s
misinformation. In any case, Mrs. Imilar has a responsibility to tell
the Delta
State public how she obtained her figure of 58,911 which is not
available to
anyone else. We should note, however, that even if it were possible
that her
figure of 58,911 is correct, thus yielding a voter turnout rate of 64%
for
Warri North LGA, such a result would be so abnormally high and so much
a
deviation from the mean as to be statistically improbable. Simply put,
in the
circumstances of the recent re-run election in Delta State, the figure
from the
Honourable Member makes no sense. INEC may also wish to be
straightforward and
tell the simple truth about these figures. Every Nigerian has a right
to such
truth.
Signed on
behalf of Urhobo Historical Society:
|
Peter P. Ekeh, PhD Chairman |
Isaac James Mowoe, PhD, JD Deputy
Chairman |
Onoawarie Edevbie, MA, MSc Secretary |
March 6, 2011
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