Why I won’t vote in Nigeria’s elections

I hear Nigerians would be voting again and I hear it starts from this weekend.
 

Why I won’t be voting?  I am Nigerian and I have a right to vote. 

In fact I am registered to vote but I choose not to and will vote only if Jesus Christ Himself is physically present at the polling station and stays there until I leave.

Are these strong words? I guess so, but if you have read thus far, be patient with me while I explain this stance.

My name is China Acheru and I am from a small community of just over fifty thousand people, Ogbakiri in Rivers State. 

I have also practiced journalism for about two decades now.

The first time I ever voted was in the 1993 elections and we all remember how that ended.

In 2003, I was a reporter with Silverbird’s Rhythm 93.7 FM Port Harcourt and as part of election duties I was asked to cover a part of Port Harcourt; monitor the elections and report live to the studio that was running updates from the different polling centers.

I was excited about this new task and I promised myself I would make the best out of it.

The first thing I saw as I stepped out of the house on election morning shocked me to the bones.

A man I respected so much, who lived down the road from me and was once the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice in my state had a few young men packing boxes I believed were for ballot from his house to a bus.

I saw it because his gate was open and I thought it shouldn’t be so; it wasn’t just right.

I immediately called the office and they put me straight on air for me to report what I had just seen.

I went straight up to visit polling centers in the area I was monitoring and there were no centers open because the officers had not arrived and of course there were no materials.

However I kept an ear open on my radio dial to know what was happening in other areas.

My colleague, Henry Kalio who is now late was reporting from the Diobu area of Port Harcourt and while he was reporting we could hear gunshots in the background.

He said as soon as the ballot papers and officers arrived, a white bus parked by his side and armed men alighted, started shooting sporadically and then fled with the voting materials.

He exclaimed that he was very close to them as they alighted from the bus and the guns they held were brand new and he said he was only just happy to be alive.                        

I knew I had to be more careful so I called on the youth leader of the area I was observing, introduced myself and told him I needed protection from the community youth while I did my job.

Luckily, I grew up in the area and mine is a popular name and face around Rivers State so they quickly obliged my request.

At this time I had four young men in my car, one in front and three behind and they started taking me to all areas that needed to be observed in the community and it was difficult to get an area where voting had commenced despite the fact that the people had come out in their numbers to vote.

I heard that a community, Alakahia would soon commence voting since materials had arrived and I drove down there only to witness the shock of my life.

As we approached the community, I spotted some hoodlums, heavily armed and instilling fear in would be voters.

In all my life I had never seen a sight like that from men who were not in the police or armed forces.

Soon I got a phone call that someone somewhere had been given short sleeve because he was part of a group sent by a political party to assassinate a rival.

The people who called me said the youth of the community where that rival lived rallied round, chased out the assassins and the one who failed to escape was short sleeved.

At that time in my life I really did not understand what short sleeve was and as I drove down I wondered why I would be called because someone was given a shirt even though my better judgment told me it had nothing to do with a shirt gift.

As I arrived at the place, noticed blood on the ground and I was told the victim who had his hand cut off from elbow had been taken away by the police to treated.

My question to them was, “you mean someone’s hand was cut off?” and they answered with a question, “What did you think short sleeve meant?”

Hmmm so that was what short sleeve meant. I have never been in doubt since then.

I tried to look at other locations but nowhere did voting take place even though the people had come out in large numbers, they were denied the opportunity to exercise their franchise and it was getting past noon already.

I got a call to return to my first location and the story was that the youth of that area had arrested a couple of men carrying ballot boxes in a bus.

I thought they were the same crew I met earlier so I quickly rushed down there.

They were the same people I had seen earlier in the day.

I interviewed one of them who confessed that they had been sent by the former Attorney General I had talked about earlier.

My community, Ogbakiri experienced a lot of shooting and violence that extended to Emohua. Very few people were lucky to vote as gun men shot at them and snatched the voting materials away.

There was gunfire in most of Diobu and the old Port Harcourt township as well as other rural areas like Etche, Okrika, Ogoni, Kalabari kingdom and a couple of other places. People also lost their lives and others were seriously wounded. 

Matchettes cuts were as common as bullet wounds.

There was an instance when at least 20 armed youth surrounded the premises of Silverbird’s Rhythm 93.7 FM brandishing dynamites and threatening to blow down the building because there was a mistake made by the newscaster when announcing results of the House of Representatives elections.

They told us there were just waiting for the order to blow down the place from their master and you’d be shocked if I mention the name of that master who sent them to do that but I love my life so I will keep quiet on that now. 

I was there when it happened.

From my observations and that of my colleagues who monitored other areas, elections did not hold in at least 75% of Rivers State yet we heard results announced decent results as if we all voted.

Four years later in 2007, I was not in Port Harcourt but I kept an eye on the elections and one story touched my heart.

A news editor from my former place of work was chased out of a community my gun wielding boys and he did not just run for his life, he was helped out by armed police who may also have been running too.

He told me while panting that as soon as he got to safety, he was offered a beer by one of the police men who rescued him because he was getting to a state of hysteria. 

In another instance, a staff of a radio house was giving live reports of election violence in community I have mentioned in the piece already and was traced by armed youth who finally caught up with him.

With at least six guns pointing at different parts of his head he was forced to call the station and report that all was going well in that area.

The situation went like this…

Ring ring… voice at the stadio “Now we have our correspondent calling in from yyy… let’s hear the latest he has to give on the elections.

Correspondent, “I, I… I want to say my senior colleague in the studio is lying… please… you all must know that the elections are going on smoothly here and everything is fine… line cuts…

He returned to the office and did not say a word to anyone because he was yet to recover from the shock. He eventually spoke up a day later.

I read reports of people encouraging Nigerians to vote and I hear a lot of names being bandied around the place- “What about us?” RSVP, and many others but where are these people going to vote? In Abuja, California or Rivers State?

Maybe these people have been paid to put up radio jingles and news paper adverts and that is why they do this but do know what it is to vote in the Niger Delta rejoin?

The truth is that I have seen enough to discourage people from voting and I will not vote so how can I be convinced things have changed?

If things have really changed, let us look at the run down to the elections this year.

Human Rights Watch estimates at least 70 people have been killed in political violence in the run-up to the national elections that will be held the next three Saturdays.

Three people were killed in northern Nigeria this week at a rally and it is said that the police stopped two heavy explosives from detonating in the same crowd.

At the last count there have been 16 bomb explosions and if you compare to 2007 as bloody as it was there were just two.

And it will also interest you to know that since independence in 1960 no Nigerian has been convicted and punished for electoral offences so these people have some sort of immunity.

A PDP rally in Abuja or somewhere close was attacked by a bomb, right?

In Ibadan, during a rally, a chief PDP supporter was killed, right?

In Ogbakiri, former governor, Celestine Omehia’s campaign team (APGA) was attacked two weeks ago and property vandalized, money stolen.

In same Ogbakiri, former commissioner for information, Emma Okah was abducted when he went to campaign for another party and released later.

Somewhere on the way to Ogoni, in Rivers State a Jeep was stopped by the police filled with arms and ammunition, and this was just last week.

We are yet to know what political party was responsible for that.

In Tai, a community outside Port Harcourt, somebody got a long sleeve treatment and there are reports that arms are being stockpiled for elections proper and I sit here typing and thinking who are these people saying we should go out and vote? Go out and vote or go out and be killed?

I can go on and on about how there have been violence in the run down to the elections and you expect me to believe the elections will be free of violence?

I am not a pessimist but realist and this is my feeling. Please somebody convince me otherwise.

I have seen instances were gun men arrived at polling stations and opened fire dispersing innocent voters and running away with voting materials.

I have seen whole communities wiped out in Rivers State because they refused to vote for particular political party.

People, I can write on and on but I believe my point is made clear now that I am not willing to risk my life and that of my family by going to vote.

Those of you who live in the comfort of Abuja can move to my state to monitor elections and then blog about it later but for now, I will say.

Am I saying all these to put fear in you? Yes I am because your life is more precious than a ballot paper.

Thanks and see you in 2015.