THE 7TH ELECTION IN POST INDEPENDENT NIGERIA

KARMAMI WARD
By
Umar Yusuf
2348065691504
umaruyusuf@yahoo.com

1st April 2015, 8:10 a.m.

I am an Administrative Assistant and a Registry staff of Bayero University Kano. One
day at about 12:30 P.M. one of our staffs Yusuf Liman, came to my office to ask me of whether I
will be interested in INECs work. This refers to Independent National Electoral Commission in
charge of nationwide elections in Nigeria. I answered affirmative without hesitation as a result of
which he immediately took the necessary data all other volunteers were required to give namely:
Name, Educational Qualification and Salary Grade. It was however not until later in the day I
noticed that a Special Bulletin of the University dated 20th January 2015 had carried the
information. The heading reads;
INEC AD-HOC STAFF FOR 2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS1

Part of this Official Bulletin informed its readers that:

(INEC) intends to engage staff and students of Federal
Tertiary Institutions for the 2015 General Elections2.
My attention was however not to be directed towards the issue again until when
training of the staffs commences on the 2nd of February 2015. Then another staff and fellow
Zaria man Sulaiman Sarki, notified me that a short listed staff for the exercise had already
stated reporting to the Old Site of the university for a short course that prepare the Ad-hoc staff
for the oncoming elections. I immediately went to check the list. My name was among. So I
went back to my office and notified my superiors and then also proceed to report for the
course.
In the venue, I realized that we were to be trained as Supervisory Presiding Officers
(SPOs) at the end of which some of us will be selected to train the Presiding Officers and their
assistants.
As the training commences, I noticed that it concentrates on the activities of Election
Officials on the Election Day as well as how the structure of a typical Polling Unit will be
setup. It also explained clearly the duties of the respective Poll Officials. The induction also
explains to the participants the materials to be used, the most sensitive of which includes the
controversial Card Reader and how it is used.
It also explains how to accredit a voter as well as the Voting Procedure, the Sorting and
Counting of casted votes and also how to record the votes. Finally it also explained how to
pack up and how to collate results at various voting units before eventual computing together
of all results to be sent to higher authority for further collatings3 by the Collating Officer.
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The training was only for three days but at the end of which an examination was
conducted which enabled them select those they could use to train other officials. They also
distribute some reading materials to the participants for further studies at home.
I was among those selected to train the Presiding Officers and their assistants but I was
not opportune to partake because although our telephone numbers were collected so they could
notified us on the any matter arising, I in particular was not called when the training programs
commences. I was however made to understand that I should have known that the training of
the Presiding Officers and their Assistants was to commence immediately after our brief
training. My punishment was only that I will not get the Training Allowance to be paid to those
who partake in the exercise. No work no pay. That is all right.
The election was then unexpectedly shifted six weeks ahead of the scheduled time
because of the insecurity arising from the North Eastern Rebellion of Boko Haram. The new
D- Day was Saturday 28th, March, 2015 by which the government forces might have recapture
the territories lost the insurgents. On Friday 27th, at about 12:27P.M., a co-worker, a lady from
Southern Kaduna but with a Hausa name called Kande Yusuf, who was also a participant,
passed through my office on her way to the INEC office where the postings to various centers
was said to have been made, so we could go together to checked for where we were posted to. I
took permission and went together with her.
At INEC office, the postings were pasted on the wall outside and I noted that I was to
go to Gabasawa Local Government of Kano State for the exercise. Kandes name was not on
the list. We went in the premises together, I to collect my posting latter while she to know why
she was not posted. That when we parted because I went back to the office immediately I

collected my appointment latter so as to get money that will transport me to Gabasawa Local
Government Headquarters and the INEC office there.
Actually I had no money with me, and I had to borrowed two thousand naira (N2,000)
from the Secretary to the Registrar Alhaji Tijjani, so as to enable me to travel since INEC
neither gave us money nor provides transportation for us. I do not know Kano well so I ask
people to direct me to where I could get a commercial vehicle to my destination.
An hour afterwards I was on my way to Gabasawa in a commercial bus. On reaching
there, I ask the passengers to direct me to INEC headquarters. They told me that, had I talked
earlier they could have asked me to drop at the village before Gabasawa because it is nearer to
where I was going, but all the same I could get a commercial motor vehicle that could take me
there. In short I reached the village of Zakirai, where INEC office is located at about 08:50
P.M., and reported to the Electoral Officer there named Malam Bashir.
It was dark and in our present Nigeria where electricity is erratic I could not make out
how large the village was. A policeman stopped me at the entrance gate but when I identified
myself as an INEC AD-HOCK official he politely let me in and directs me to the Electoral
Officers office. There the officer recorded my reporting and took my Mobile Telephone
Number after warmly welcoming me. I recognized some of the fellow Supervisors that also
like me were from Bayero University.
The place was a little bit crowded for such a period of time and looked busy as if it
were not night, but no wonder the following day will be the anticipated Election Day after six
weeks postponement. I sat on a car sit left behind in the compound by vehicles that removed

them to give to create space for election materials being moved to the respective RA/Ward
Collation Centers (RAC) for distribution to the Voting Units on the D-Day.
As the night deepens I began to feel asleep but it wasnt comfortable sleeping in sitting
posture and there is nowhere else to lie. I then noticed some empty cartons left behind by the
entrance to office block. I used it to lie so as to starch my legs. That was at about 1:45 A.M.
and soon I was deep asleep. Suddenly the sleep was cut short when at about 2:30 A.M. all the
Supervisors were invited in the conference room for briefing, posting and collection of the
materials to be used in the Polling Centers.
I was posted to Karmami Ward comprising of sixteen polling units. Two in near our
collation centre in Karmani itself, three, in another part of the village and in another location
but all were located in schools. The remaining ten were located in distant hamlets scattered and
the country of Karmami, where the people lived as farming communities. I collected my
materials comprising of sixteen bags each of which at the RAC, as a Supervisor I suppose to
enclose certain items that I was given in their respective cartons.
The most important of these items include:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Ballot papers
Card Reader Machine
Forms EC17; EC25B; EC0A; EC8 EC60E etc.
Register of Voters (EVR)

I was also given cash (N256, 000) to be given to the sixty four staffs that will officiate
in the sixteen voting units of the ward. Each is to collect four thousand naira (N4, 000). Also 16
police officers headed by an ASP were to go with me to provide the necessary security required
in the Polling Units.
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We observed the Morning Prayers at about 5:30 A.M. before departing immediately
afterwards. It was about 30 minutes drive. There (Karmami), I met the Presiding Officers and
their respective Assistants. I immediately began to separate the items into sixteen separate
groups for the respective sixteen units I am to supervise. When I was through with that I shared
the items together with allowances to the respective Presiding Officers. They departed
immediately to begin the accreditation exercise that was to precede the election. That was
some few minutes after eight in the morning.
Actually we supposed to have started Accreditation Exercise by 8:30 A.M. However
that notwithstanding by when 1:30 P.M., when the election was to commence, some of the
Polling Units had completed their accreditations.
The exercise involves matching the photograph in the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) the
voters carry with the voters, then afterwards also the authentication of this PVC using the Card
Reader. This machine can read the PVC once it is brought very close to it by its ability to
electromagnetically picked the data in the PVC including the Polling Unit details which must
corresponds to the Polling Unit a voter is cast his votes. The card also automatically counts the
number of people it verifies. That minimized the traditional rigging tendency associated with
the past Nigerian elections because at least it gives a rough count of the number of people
verified to vote in a particular polling unit and therefore the maximum number of votes
expected from all units.
As the verification work progresses one apparent problem arises virtually in all the
units; that the finger prints of so many people could not be captured by the card reader. That
had been anticipated because there was a form called Incident Form that was given for such

cases. The voter should however be allowed to exercise his franchise rights to vote if the initial
verification proves that the Voter Card belongs to the voter and is authenticated as correct for
voting in that unit. Another problem that also comes up was that of battery power dissipating.
Twice I had to run back to the Local Government INEC Headquarters at Zakirai, to collect
batteries to the replace dead ones.
Then there was one mixed-up which was discovered later; the result record shits of
different polling units were mistakenly given to different units because the cover page were the
same. It was only discovered that at page one of every booklet the name of the respective was
written. That was when I had to go round all the sixteen polling units to retrieved the ones that
not theirs and gives them theirs. There are three booklets for every centre for the three
respective contested offices; the Presidency, Senate and Federal House of Representatives.
This however gave me the opportunity to realized how apart some the polling units
were with each other. We used motor cycles because some of the more remote areas were not
accessible by a four wheeled vehicles. In some of the remote Polling Units there were no even
primary school to use for as a Polling Unit; as such the election was conducted under the shade
of some trees.
Thank God however, because by about 7:00 P.M. virtually the voting exercise had
ended and the Presiding Officers had started returning to our Karmami Collation Centre, were
the results of all the other Units will be computed in front of the Agents of all the contending
Political Parties by the Collation Officer.
That was to take us until almost 2:30 A.M., partly because some did not returned in
time and partly because some of the Presiding Officers do not know how to tidy up their result
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sheet according to the standard required. For instance, you had to record the number of the
registered voters as contained in the register of voters, and then also record the total number of
the ballot papers issued to the Polling Unit as well as the number of the unused ballot papers.
Then the number of the rejected ballots and spoilt ones had to be recorded. After all these, the
valid votes scored by each of the political party also had to be recorded in both figures and in
words in the appropriate spaces provided for in Form EC.8A.
All these were done so as to authenticate results which ones incorrectly entered the
final computing will not be correct. Many of the Presiding Officers conducting the exercise for
the first time had muddled all these up, as such it takes time to be re-computed the way it
should be. The collation was however completed at about 2:30 A.M., and all the representatives
of the Political parties present were given the collated results.
As a Supervising Presiding Officer, it was my responsibility to collect all the items
given to the Presiding Officers except the Result Sheets and Card Reader at the end of the
exercise. These two items mentioned were usually submitted to the Collation Officer whose
responsibility was to compute all the results of the ward.
The items collected from the POs were then taken back to INEC Local Government
Headquarter at Zakirai. The journey took us about 20 minutes. We went back together with the
Police Officers we came with and there after, the police left, while we the SPOs were
instructed to remove the forms used by the Polling Officers and separate them. At the same
time we were directed to account for the number of ballot papers that were not used by the
respective polling units and those not issued to them in the first place. That work took me
almost two hours to complete.

I do not sleep for the two days consecutively so I intends traveling immediately I
prayed in that morning of Sunday, at about few minutes to six A.M because my family lives in
far away Zaria, but the Electoral Officer told me to write a report on how the election was
conducted in my ward. I do, something that occupied me for another 45 minutes or so. I
submitted it and left the INEC premises to go and look for a commercial vehicle back to Kano
as the first leg of my journey.
At the main road, I stood for over 30 minutes by the road but no commercial vehicle
pass by. I saw other people also waiting about two meters away from me, I went near them.
From their discussion however I realized that it was for two reasons that commercial vehicles
were scars. One of the reasons was that most of the commercial vehicles were hired out to
INEC for the ongoing election exercise, and secondly, the other commercial operators were
afraid of traditional destruction of properties that usually followed the announcement of
election results which was always rigged by those in power in this part of the world
Finally one man taking the advantage of the availability of the passengers, decided to
use his private car to convey us to Kano. By then some results had started filtering to the
members of the public both by rumors and commercial radios as well as social media via
internet. The information coming was unusual in the sense that, at no time in the Nigerias 55
years history had any opposition party ever won an election but from all indication that is what
seems to be happening this time the remaining is now history praying that this should be a
good omen for the future of the country

Each of them were given a copy

Notes
1. Bayero University, Kano Official Bulletin Vol. XXXIV 20th January, 2015 No. 4
2. Ibid.
3. Synopsis of election day activities for election officials (INEC)

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