Guber Day:location"Delta

Yeah this is my Home state unfortunatley things didnt work out as supposed..Happy Reading

WHAT happened Saturday, April 14 during the Gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections in Delta State was anarchical and anything but how not to take part in an election, grumble over irregularities, perceived or real by politicians and their hirelings. However, that is not to impute in any sense, that there was no cause for the Devil in some people to be provoked by the show that was put up by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and some members of the security agencies in the discharge of their duties.
It is the extent, which they went in the display of their anger that has dragged the state back to the Stone Age. Truth is that elections were held in the state but it was not free and fair in some places, especially Ethiope East local government area, where the gubernatorial candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) Chief Great Ogboru, hails from, and the INEC responded on Thursday by canceling the polls in three identified local government areas of the state.
As at Wednesday, 11 persons were reported to have been killed in the state with more than 20 persons seriously injured. No fewer than five houses, belonging mostly to PDP chieftains were razed and the direction where the attack, arson and killings came from was clear.
A serving Commissioner in the state, Mr. Evans Iwhurie, had his home in Abraka, the stronghold of Ogboru, razed, with a couple, a man and his wife who came visiting burnt to death. The President General of Udu Improvement Union, Chief Poge Otirikpe’s, regal abode on Orhunwhorun Road in Udu local government was also burnt by thugs, who also visited the same mayhem on the Agbarho residence of Special Adviser to the Governor on government house matters, Chief Omeni Sobotie.
One thing was evident in the elections in Delta on April 14 and that is that while some people prepared to take part in the voting process, some prepared to rig, while others prepared to cause mayhem.
Governor James Ibori who was taken aback at the magnitude of destruction in the state told newsmen on Thursday, that he received an intelligence report that some people in the opposition were arming thugs and preparing for war penultimate Saturday, but he did not expect that they would be so animalistic. He said that some leaders in one of the opposition parties even sent text messages round that some ballot boxes had allegedly been stockpiled in his (Ibori’s) home but he thought that they would be a bit civilized in their conduct.
For this reporter and other journalists who went round the state on the Election Day, it was war that was fought on that day and not an election. The trip was without hitches from the INEC office in Warri South local government, where people thronged the office as early as 8.30 am, creating an atmosphere of insecurity for officials of the Commission.
Between 9.00 am and 9.30 am, voting materials had not left the office but some people alleged that the ballot papers had been thumb-printed the night before. It was difficult to confirm the allegation but the same chaotic situation prevailed as we passed through Effurun, Enerhen and Ovwian-Aladja areas. According to reports, voting materials came later in the day but while some voted, others could not.
At the Uvwie local government secretariat, some people were already spitting fire, threatening to go on rampage, as at 10.00 am, saying that there was no voting, but as it was later learnt, the INEC encountered some logistic problems earlier in the day, and so materials could not be distributed as scheduled in some areas. However, as far as the groups of protesters, mainly DPP members were concerned, there was no logistic problem; it was a calculated design by the PDP and their collaborators in INEC. There were pockets of demonstrations and bonfires everywhere, forcing the state government to slam a curfew on the local government.
The situation was not different same at Otu-Jeremi in Ughelli South local government, where a presiding officer told Sunday Vanguard that the voting materials were hijacked earlier in the day by thugs but another source said the INEC officials were working out the distribution arrangement in the office and that voting would commence after the distribution.
In Oshimili South local government area, a highly placed member of one of the parties was said to have directed security men to burn the ballot papers after votes were cast, while the poll officials that were sent to Kiagbodo, the country home of the former Federal Commissioner for Information and chairman of the Elders, Leaders and Stakeholders Forum of Delta state, Chief Edwin Clark, were allegedly detained till 3.00 pm on account that the voting materials sent to the area were fake.
It was later discovered that they were genuine materials and by that time, voting had ended. What saved the officials was that they were all indigenes of Kiagbodo and harming them would amount to spilling the blood of their own kinsmen. It was the confusion over the genuineness of the voting materials that were sent to the area that made it impossible for Chief Clark to vote in his town. But the hottest spot in the state during the election was Abraka, where Ogboru holds sway.
It was a very bitter experience for journalists who went there against advice. But how can you advise a newsman who is hungry for news not to go to a place where there is news.
Before we got to Abraka, I had received text messages that the town was on fire and that the Police Station had been razed. As we approached the town some 20 minutes, fire was billowing and at a closer distance, bonfires were raging on the deserted street but we decided to get to the Police Station to confirm the veracity of the story that it had been razed. That was our undoing. Even when we clearly identified ourselves as journalists, Abraka youths pounced on us, accusing us of preventing them from voting and working for the government.
They hijacked our vehicles and stole two GSM handsets, belonging to the Guardian Correspondent in Warri, Chido Okafor. They also smashed his eyeglass and snatched his staff identity card. Sylvester Idowu of the Tribune lost his digital camera, while hoodlums, who the reporters would ordinarily not have any business with, ordered us around. Their girls even joined in taunting newsmen.
It was the intervention of soldiers that saved us that day, as they wanted to rob and maim us. They had already hijacked two of our vehicles. One of them had the temerity to order me to come back, as I tried to sneak away from the trouble area, hollering, “Come back here, you fool, look at his k-leg”, he said. Unknown to us, the rampaging youths had by 10.00 am when they did not see voting materials, kidnapped one of the electoral officials and burnt down the INEC office at Isiokolo, the headquarters of Ethiope East local government area on the grounds that the PDP had taken away the materials to thumb-print in the homes of their leaders in connivance with INEC officials.
It was while we were being harassed that I overheard that the house of one of the PDP leaders in the town had been set ablaze but what wast uppermost in my mind then was how to leave Abraka alive. It was no longer the case of confirming if the Abraka Police Station was burnt, a story that Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Miss Olabisi Okuwobi, later told me was not true, let alone finding out which PDP’s chieftain’s residence was razed.
Chief Ogboru, however, explained that the INEC officer was not found in the office when the angry people went there and they brought his assistant to his (Ogboru’s) house but he took him to the police for them to properly release him before somebody did something funny to him, and the crime would be hung on him.
He did not admit that the protesters were DPP members but asserted that they were men, women and youths who were angry that they were denied their right to vote and were expressing their disenfranchisement the way they deemed fit. The INEC office at Obiaruku was burnt the same way the one at Isiokolo was burnt.
Governor Ibori, nevertheless, told newsmen that those who sponsored the attack on the INEC offices were not politicians that they claimed they were. He said that it was too early in the day at about 10.00 am to assume that electoral materials would not be sent to the area without finding out whether there was logistic problem or not. According to him, the materials for the election were all in the INEC office at Isiokolo and were burnt by the impatient thugs.
He said that the attack and burning of the houses of PDP members were premeditated, as it had nothing to do with the election. His posers: Did anybody tell you that he found electoral materials in Iwhurie’s house? What is the business of the couple that was burnt to death in his house with the election? What of Chief Poge in Udu, what is his offence, you are the press men, did they tell you that they found voting materials in his house? Can you imagine, they attacked somebody and burnt down his house because they said I went there a night before? So, because I went to settle a private dispute between two persons, they would now burn down the person’s house?As Ibori spoke, it was apparent that he was unhappy with the carnage that took place in the state and he called on the security agents to bring the culprits to book.
As the chief security officer of the state, he said he would not leave any stone unturned in ensuring that justice was done and even if it was the only thing he would do in his remaining days in office as governor, he would make sure that the life and property of Deltans, whether those in opposition or otherwise, are protected. If what journalists passed through in Abraka on April 14 was a child’s play, what happened the next day, Sunday, April 15, was a mother’s play.
Chief Ogboru had invited some select newsmen to his Abraka home for a briefing on the previous day’s polls but he was told by the newsmen that they would not come to Abraka without an escort given their earlier experience. An escort was provided for them from Eku and just as he was rounding up the session, news came that Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan of the PDP had been declared the winner of the election.
In less than 15 minutes, youths in the Abraka axis, mounted barricades in the town and adjoining villages. The escort, which was leading us in our vehicles out of the troubled town, did a u-turn, as he sighted the mob.
We took a bush path to escape from that batch, but along the Abraka-Eku on the way back, there were more than 15 barricades by the youths who were smashing vehicles and extorting money from motorists. Initially, it was thought that armed robbers seized the opportunity to rob but when it dawned on us that it was rioters, some people were saying their last prayers, but again, soldiers, came to our rescue after about one hour in hell, clearing the barricades at each point.
They returned back to Abraka when they thought it was all over but we were lucky, as the hoodlums that left from Eku to Abraka took the old road. At Orerokpe, we saw motorists reversing from Warri end and in what would thrill a James Bond or Jackie Chan movie enthusiast, we steered our vehicles into Orerokpe town. When we finally came out on the Abraka-Warri Road , not too far from Osubi, the coast looked clear and by the time we got to the Warri axis, soldiers had taken control of the riotous situation that engulfed Uvwie. I swore as I got home that Sunday never to step my foot on Abraka again until the “war” is over.
A female reporter with the NTA, Sapele, Helen and her team were attacked the previous day. Her cameraman was said to have been taken away by the thugs, while the driver ran into the bush. She was however spared. At Agbarho where Chief Sobotie’s house was burnt, he told Sunday Vanguard that the thugs first came, claiming that there were ballot papers in his house.
He said he asked them to select some people to come in and conduct a search when he saw the crowd even though he knew they were sent on a mission. After the search, they did not find anything and left only to come back again, saying that voting materials were hidden in the ceiling of his house.
He asserted that he read the situation and knew that it could be bloody if he stayed around and asked the security men with him to repel them. To avoid a bloody situation, he decided to leave the house but according to him, that was a golden opportunity for them, as they invaded the house, looted his property and set the house ablaze under the allegation of that electoral materials were stockpiled there.
Protesters, mainly Urhobo women, said to have been hired, stormed Warri, early in the week, to condemn the outcome of the election, saying that they were disenfranchised but Governor Ibori, who said it was their right to protest peacefully, urged them not to do anything violent, as his government would not tolerate further bloodshed in the state.
He said that the President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government was ready to hand over to another civilian government on May 29 and he (Ibori) was also set to hand over to the elected governor on May 29, saying that from the facts on ground: “The DPP did not campaign or mobilize voters to vote for it, they only prepared for carnage and violence, and relying on a section of the state to win”.
The governor asserted that some of them actually approached security agents before the elections were held to turn in reports that polls were not held in the state because they wanted a postponement or cancellation, adding that those who burnt Chief Poge’s house went there earlier in the day, did not discover anything, yet they went back to burn down the house.