Barely nine days after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, set up a 9-man fact-finding team to probe the alleged underage voting in the February 10, 2018 Kano Council poll, promising to make its report public in two weeks, the apex electoral umpire has made its ‘Findings’ public.
True to the postulations of some discerning minds, INEC has cleared itself or the Kano Independent Electoral Commission, KANSIEC of any wrong doing in the February 10, 2018, Council polls held across the 44 Local Government Areas of the state.
Members of the INEC fact-finding panel included: Abubarkar Nahuche (chairman), May Agbamuche-Nbu, Mike Igini, Kassim Geidan, Yakubu Duku, Rukayat Bunmi, Paul Omokore, and Jude Chikezie (secretary).
Just three days ago, this panel met with KANSIEC and before we could say Jack Robinson, the INEC fact-finding team on alleged underage voting in the last Kano council poll is saying it has not received any evidence of under-age voting.
According to the Chairman of the committee, Abubakar Nahuce, from his team’s interaction with civil society organisations and media, no evidence of underage voting has emerged.
Hear Nahuce: “From all what we have seen and discussed with you media men, none of you has seen any underage voter in the line or voting.
“All what we saw were from social media and they are not verifiable… some of them (pictures and videos) are not even from Nigeria, some are from Kenya elections but people are attributing them to Nigeria.”
Sincerely, INEC should stop these barefaced lies and denials and immediately fix this mess going into 2019.
Despite these denials, fact remains that under-age voters are not new to Northern Nigeria.
Members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, who served in Northern Nigeria, and were INEC ad-hoc staffs just during the last 2015 Elections that brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power can attest to this fact.
If you don’t register these under-age voters, see you in Heaven. If you don’t allow them to vote, see you in Heaven. This is a common knowledge up North. So, these pretences and denials by INEC must stop.
INEC must immediately begin to weed its Voters Register particularly in the North of under-age voters. If not, this portends a recipe for chaos in the North as the 2019 election would be between “us” and “us.”
The 2019 Presidential Election is no longer between a Muslim Northern candidate and a Christian Southern candidate or between a ‘Religious’ man and an ‘Infidel.’
Look, the photos and videos of under-age voters which hit the internet on February 11, 2018, are from Kano, Northern Nigeria and not from any so-called Kenya as claimed by INEC.
An investigation with Google image proves that the first time these photos appeared on Google was on February 11, 2018. So, needless this new Halleluyah songs.
More so, having done a critical evaluation of the photos, it’s apt to state that in Kenya, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), responsible for the conduct of elections, has a different logo and the design of their ballot boxes differ from the photos allegedly emerging from Kano on February 11, 2018.
Even the discordant tune from Mohammed Garba, Kano State commissioner for information, that the images were taken during the 2015 general election shows these are #LiesFromThePitOfHell.
I have spoken to a Kenyan lawmaker, a Taita Taveta Women Representative, Joyce Wanjala Lay, and she had just laughed off the claim by INEC as comical.
It’s imperative to state that our own Jide Ajani, Sunday Editor, Vanguard Newspapers, in many special series before the 2015 General Elections exposed to Nigerians and the world, how INEC under Professor Attahiru Jega was committing a lot of frauds with INEC Voters Register up North.
So many concerned Nigerians called for Jega’s sack but former President Goodluck Jonathan never listened.
Today, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, the new INEC boss has continued from where Jega stopped.
I reiterate, ahead of 2019, and if we are to record any Transparent, Free and Fair elections, INEC Voters Register, up North must be investigated and these under-age voters cleared off. We can’t continue to run this country like this.
Attached are Kenyan Ballot boxes in pix 2 and 3. Dear Nigerians, please, compare and contrast with the Kano photo in pix 1 and judge if INEC is not lying!
Ikenna Asomba, a Social Commentator writes from Atlanta, Georgia.