The 2007 General Election held so much expectations and hope despite the pessimism in certain quarters that the election would be a farce taking into account the build up to it and the shoddy preparation by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission that there would be free and fair election was out rightly dismissed by the opposition parties and some sections of the civil society such as the media. I had no difficulty allying with the opposition in the Cross River State to demand for change of the Peoples Democratic Party State Government that has been in power for eight years, however, with nothing to show for. It was apparent that the PDP was heading for a crushing defeat in the event the election of 14th April 2007 is free and fair.
On the 10th April 2007, a senior friend who is a member of the PDP in my Local Government Area-Yakurr in Central Cross River State invited me to his house to show me a security report and the plan for action prepared by the PDP for the 14th April 2007. In the report and plan I was clearly identified as one of the persons that must be neutralized if the PDP must realize its plan to use intimidation, fraud, violence and cheating to win the election in Yakurr. It was a minus that democracy would once again be subverted by the PDP as they brazenly did in 2003. My home town Ugep was perceived by the PDP as the ‘centre of opposition.’ Rumour and speculation was rife that I will be physically attacked by some people recruited by local PDP leaders peeved by my alacrity before or on the day of the election.
On 13th April 2007, I woke up with so much optimism especially when President Olusegun Obasanjo went on radio and television to promise that the Police would do every thing to protect lives and properties and that the Independent National Electoral Commission was ready to organize, supervise and undertake a free and fair election. However, the signs of what 14th April 2007 will represent started manifesting in the afternoon of 13th April 2007 when I was attacked in the full glare of people by a gun man in my house. The gun man, a local youth who is notorious for his anti-social activities in the community operated with so much verve and gusto. He fired recklessly and indiscriminately into the air in front of my house. My wife, children, mother, brothers and sisters who were relaxing in the balcony of my house witnessed this lawlessness. I had to dash to the Police Station to report. On getting to the Police Station, I was asked to wait by the officers I met there for the Divisional Crime Officer. I waited for about thirty minutes despite the urgency of the matter. At a point I was frustrated because it appeared to me that the Police were employing delaying tactics. The Divisional Police Officer finally surfaced. He took my statement but said that the Police would investigate the report later. Before I left one of the Police Officers demanded that I gave him a sum of money to enable the Police come to the scene of the crime. I considered that outrageous and quickly left after telling him that I had no money to give. On getting to my house, what I saw shocked me. There was a gang of more than fifty youths armed with guns, machetes, cudgels etc. They were brandishing these lethal weapons, singing, chanting war songs. They were in a state of frenzy and left no one in doubt of their resolve to kill and maim. I was together with my family completely, totally and absolutely subjected to intense physically and mental torture and trauma from about 4pm until 3am by this mob who surrounded my house chatting, singing, beating drums and shooting sporadically. Before they left they sounded a note of warning that I dare no come out on the 14th April 2007 to exercise my franchise except I decided to vote for PDP. There was no election.
It was a complete farce and charade. It is sad. Election materials in my Ward-Ijiman in Ugep, headquarters of Yakurr Local Government Area were given to well known PDP Stalwarts and supporters such as Ubi Brown Ebali, Egom Ofem Ebri, Ubi Otu Ubi and conveyed in a brown Peugeot 504 Saloon Car owned by a PDP member from my ward. The number plate was removed. The car was surrounded by PDP supporters in their hundreds crying for the blood of any member or supporter of the other political party who dared to come out to exercise his right to vote. The polling booth right in front of my house was filled with PDP supporters who were frenetically thumb-printing on ballot papers. There were thugs everywhere shooting sporadically. The Police man, Sunday Onen, posted to maintain order in this polling booth was helpless indeed to the criminality taking place there in his full glare, more so as he was only armed with a baton and alone. What happened in my ward was generally replicated in the other three wards in Ugep and in neighboring communities in Yakurr. Nigerian democracy is seriously flawed. Why happened on 14th April 2007 does not inspire any glimmer of hope.
Nigeria is once again on the brink of a political volcano. We cannot any longer sweep every thing under the carpet and pretend for the sake of peace to allow this democracy succeeds. We must boldly and frontally condemn the acts of rigging by PDP. In 2003, there was a seemingly unanimous stand by all to close our eyes to the worrisome charges of rigging leveled against PDP at the 2003 elections. Today, the rigging is not only done in the open, but with careless abandon, with threats, intimidation and denial of people in the opposition exercising their constitutionally recognized franchise. This is ignoble and dirty and men and women of goodwill must arise and speak out.
•Okoi Obono-Obla, Human Rights Lawyer and Activist,
Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. He is a member of the General Assembly of the International Forum for Democracy and peace.
*This essay was published by Leadership Newspaper in April, 2007. As preparation towards 2011 general election starts it is necessary to remind Nigerians the chaos that was the general election held in 2007.
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