17th April, 2015
 |
| Professor Attahiru Jega |
By: Amir
Abdulazeez
N
|
igeria is a nation that is famous for taking one step
forward and then two or more steps backwards. Whenever one step is taken in the
right direction, several other steps would be taken in the wrong one. This is
probably one of the major reasons why we have failed to make a lasting and
permanent progress in a lot of things.
A general belief in Nigeria and beyond is that the
1999 elections were credible with a high degree of legitimacy not because they
were very free and fair (allegedly due to the military government’s interest in
handing over to Obasanjo and PDP), but because they were ascertained to be
largely a reflection of the peoples’ will. If we had built on the 1999 success in
2003 and 2007, probably we wouldn’t have found ourselves in the present
situation whereby a mere acceptance of defeat is seen as heroism.
While the 2003 elections were believed to be possibly
the worst elections in Nigeria’s recent history, the 2007 elections according
to many local and international observers, could not pass the test of the
minimum requirements for an average African election. Many opinions have
declared that there were no elections in most parts of Nigeria in 2007.
The 2011 elections were by far better than those of
2003, but they fell short of those in 1999 in terms of credibility and
acceptance. Despite their shortcomings, the 2011 elections represented a
remarkable improvement and they laid a good foundation for the successful elections
in 2015.
Many Nigerians believed that the 2015 elections were
as good as near-perfect simply because the ruling party lost woefully. However,
in reality, they were marred by serious irregularities and manipulations, only
that the irregularities fell short of subverting the peoples’ will.
It is important to note that the role of credible elections in a democracy cannot be overemphasized. Both the 1999 and 2015 elections are probably not as credible as the annulled June 12, 1993 elections-believed to be the freest and fairest elections in Nigeria’s history. However, if we are to keep improving and edging closer to electoral perfection, we must build on the 2015 success. Some of the ways to do that is by doing the following things ahead of 2019;
De-registration
of ‘Brief-Case’ Political Parties;
While winning elections is not the only function of
political parties across the world, in Nigeria it seems to be the determining
factor not only for recognition but for meaningful existence. With the general
lack of ideological basis in the Nigerian Political Party System, only winning
elections can be used to determine the strength of the political parties. For
instance, the APC may be ruling Imo and Borno State, but almost nothing in
terms of policies will show that the two states are being ruled by the same
party.
Where any of the parties is lucky to have a hard
working elected public office holder, his performance will translate to the
success of that party and the party would be seen to have performed well in
that state, seat or office. Base on this, all those brief-case political
parties (who may never win any election in the next 50 years) that contributed
in adding to the length of our ballot papers thereby confusing the electorates
leading to high amount of invalid votes must be de-registered latest by the end
of 2016 when all cases in the election petitions tribunals might have been
settled. Strict registration procedures must also be put in place to discourage
any non-serious party from resurfacing.
Available results of the 2015 elections a released by
INEC suggests that only 8 parties managed to win at least one seat and they
are; All Progressives’ Congress (APC), Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), All
Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Labour Party (LP), Accord Party (AP), Peoples’
Democratic Movement (PDM), Peoples’ Progressive Alliance (PPA) and Social
Democratic Party (SDP). While two-party system may limit the options of
Nigerians, 8 parties are more than enough, we do not need 30 or 40 useless
parties.
Election
Tribunals Must Ensure Justice;
Many election outcomes across the country would surely
be contested in courts. Media reports suggests that no less than 100 genuine
and serious cases ranging from governorship, senatorial, house of representatives
and state house of assembly elections would be filed in courts nationwide. The
figure could be between 200 and 350 especially if we consider the fact that
even candidates with no strong cases would still want to try their luck in
court.
Elections are not perfect, that is why we have
election tribunals and their duty is to ensure speedy justice. Justice must not
be delayed because it is totally unfair and unacceptable for someone to
continue sitting on an illegal or stolen mandate for long just because the
tribunals are dragging the case for whatever reason.
Before the elections, multiple alarms of foul play
have been raised in different quarters and during the course of the elections,
many candidates have complained of rigging, violence, manipulation and
oppression, but all INEC could do was to tell them to head to court if they
were not satisfied. Therefore, it is the duty of the election tribunals to
rescue the people from being governed through illegal mandates in various
capacities. We have had enough of people serving out stolen two terms of
8-years in the last 12 years.
It is believed that, if the aggrieved candidates can
present a good case with evidence and the courts will respond by doing a good
job, many parliamentary and even governorship elections would be overturned.
The courts must hear every case base on merit and should not dismiss any on
flimsy technical grounds. Candidates who could prove beyond reasonable doubt
that they won elections should be declared winners instead of wasting
government funds by ordering for re-runs.
Many are likely to escape with illegal mandates due to
their good lawyers, but all in all, the tribunals must not record a success
rate of below 75%. Candidates with no serious cases can help by staying away
from the tribunals and allow them to deal with serious ones. The success of the
courts would determine the future confidence level of people in the judicial-electoral
process. If the courts do not prove to be a solution, people will resort to
winning elections at all cost to avoid going to courts.
Professor Attahiru Jega has according to media reports
made it clear that he is not accepting a renewal when his tenure ends in June.
Jega has re-invented and re-shaped INEC through a set of reforms and
innovations which his successor should sustain. He had laid a solid foundation
for others to build upon. In building such foundation, he had to sacrifice the
2011 elections for the lasting success of forthcoming elections. Jega took over
INEC in 2010 when elections were around the corner, but many expected him to
reform the electoral body and conduct a unanimously acceptable election at the
same time. However, few knew it was not practically possible. Jega managed to
carry out some reforms and conducted an improved election in line with such
reforms in 2011.
The introduction of the card readers and the
sanitization of the accreditation and voting processes have helped in no small
measure towards making the whole system credible. The next INEC Chairman should
take us closer to electronic voting or even there by 2019.
Let us note that between 2015 and 2019, there will be
governorship elections in Kogi, Bayelsa, Ondo, Edo, Anambra, Ekiti and Osun
States. It is the conduct of elections in these seven states that will
determine our optimism or pessimism on the 2019 General Elections. The Federal
Government, INEC and all stakeholders must make sure that these elections record
a remarkable improvement upon the 2015 elections with a success rate of between
85 to 95 %. The more we have credible elections, the better for the system.
Political party bigwigs and champions must jettison the
habit of relocating to a state where elections are holding with the aim of winning
it for their party at all cost. Let the people in every state determine what
they want without external interference.
The elections tribunal are likely to annul a handful
of elections and order for re-runs. Such re-runs or bye-elections must be
conducted freely, fairly, peacefully and creditably.
Election riggers are never punished in Nigeria; even
if the court settles a case, it only awards victory to the petitioner or orders
for a re-run, it never punishes anyone. This is the reason behind the brazen
impunity in our electoral system as people rig without being afraid of any
consequences. May be this is due to the shortcomings of the Electoral Act;
future Electoral Acts must come hard on riggers.
Before we amend the Electoral Act, perpetrators of
different electoral crimes in the last elections must not be allowed to get
away with it. The in-coming or even the out-going Federal Government should set
up a panel under the Attorney General to investigate election riggings,
violence, fraud, under age voting and vote buying, so that those found guilty
should be immediately prosecuted.
Whenever one sees long voter queues comprising of
women, poor, old, disabled and other weak people; one feels like advocating the
death sentence for election riggers.
Nigerian politics seems to be only for the rich people
or for people backed by godfathers with big purses. This is because many Nigerians
are money worshipers and also politics has been turned into a big commercial and
lucrative industry. This is why we witnessed excessive use of money to buy
party nominations in all our elections from 2003 to date.
This anomaly is likely to continue unabated up to 2019
unless everyone decides to change. Federal, state and local governments must
cut governance cost and make political appointments less attractive and
lucrative. Political parties must significantly cut down the price of
nomination forms and ban the use of money in party primaries and disqualify any
candidate that violates. Law enforcement agencies must arrest politicians who
spend more than what the Electoral Act stipulates during electioneering. Above
all, citizens must stop worshiping corrupt politicians, stop selling their
votes and demand nothing but service and accountability from elected officials.
In the build-up to the 2015 elections, INEC’s
independence was seriously threatened.
The electoral body was appeared to be bullied into accepting some
decisions of the Presidency and Service Chiefs. The law has mandated INEC to
fully take charge of election issues and the law must be respected and unless
in emergency and unavoidable cases, no one should directly or indirectly
dictate to INEC what it should do or not. Adequate legislation must be put in
place to ensure complete independence of INEC and ensure that such independence
is protected.
INEC’s mandate should be constitutionally extended to
allow it conduct local government elections. State ‘Independent’ Electoral
Commissions have been conducting nonsense in the name of local government
elections since 2003. The last time we had meaningful local government
elections was in 1999 when they were conducted by INEC. State governors have
proven their lack of patriotism by organizing and executing fraudulent local government
elections over the years and nothing in sight suggests that they are going to
change. Therefore, to save the local councils, proper elections must be
conducted by INEC uniformly across the country.
Level
Playing Ground Should be Created;
Many a time we confuse elections to mean voting only.
Voting is only one out of many activities that make up an election. Election is
a process that starts right from candidate nominations, campaigns, up to
settlement of petitions in election tribunals. Right from 1999 to date, we have
never had a level playing ground for all parties and candidates at different
stages of the election process.
Parties in power stand to enjoy many privileges and
benefits. For instance, the ruling party monopolises the usage of state-owned
media at little or no cost and apparently deny the opposition the use of
such. A sitting president controls the
security forces to his own electoral advantage or that of his party. He uses
government-owned and maintained jets for all his campaigns while the opposition
would have to hire jets or alternatively ply the dangerous roads across the
country for their campaigns. Incumbents have unrestricted access to campaign
grounds while opposition are made to undergo many bureaucratic processes before
they have a simple permission to use a venue. The federal and state governments
together with the national and state parliaments must put in place adequate
measures to ensure that all candidates irrespective of their parties are
treated equally. Incumbents must not enjoy too much advantage over his
opponents.
Nigerian electorates seem not to be well motivated
either due to lack of confidence or interest in the electoral process and governance
or due to hard voting conditions; hence, we have witnessed huge voter apathy in
recent years. Only consistent free and fair elections, leadership
accountability and good governance can revive the interest and confidence of
Nigerians in government.
Another important issue is that of the bandwagon
effect in Nigerian elections which is very dangerous. Many candidates were not
elected base on their own merits but because their elections were conducted the
same time with candidates who seem to be the peoples’ choice. Incompetent and
less competent candidates have benefitted from the bandwagon effect, just as
competent candidates became victims. Future elections should be conducted
separately in an order which the bandwagon effect will have little or no
influence.
Candidates
should Emerge by Popular will;
The most popular aspirants usually lose in the party primaries
probably because they don’t have money or godfathers, leaving voters to elect
between bad choices or for whomever candidates the party primaries produce for
them in the general elections.
Nigerian political parties must think of ways through
which candidates would emerge through popular will of the people and not
through the narrow interests of few people. In the last elections APC’s
modified indirect primaries saw only 6,008 delegates select a Presidential
Candidate for more than 170 million people while PDP used about 3000 delegates
to vote for just one contender. Also, 21 delegates were alleged to have
determined the PDP gubernatorial candidate for the whole of Yobe State.
If candidates emerge by popular will, the people will
have little problem with whomever emerges victorious in the general elections
as all the party candidates were initially determined by the people.
APC Must Lead by Example;
The All Progressives Congress is the new ruling party
with enormous influence and goodwill across the country. APC should not be preoccupied
with governing Nigeria only; it should also concentrate on reforming our
political system. If APC wants to make history, this is the best opportunity.
From 1999 to date, the PDP had introduced many things
into our political system, most of which did more harm than good. PDP
introduced the Party Board of Trustees (A body whose function is largely
mysterious and appears to weaken the main leadership of the party), zoning of
positions which caused many divisions among Nigerians and did a lot of damage
to competency, candidate impositions, undemocratic consensus in the election of
party officials, encouraging party cross-carpeting, position of party leader-who
appears to be even above the party constitution. All these were negative
inventions which the APC also embraced and unfortunately institutionalized some
of them.
The APC must immediately make a self-assessment and
make necessary amendments; let this victory not get into its head. APC must
champion the cause of ideology in Nigerian political party system, internal
democracy, building strong parties, party supremacy, accountability and good
governance, etc. If the ruling party behaves properly, all other parties trying
to unseat it in 2019 will be left with no option than to follow suit.
©2015: abdulazeezamir@hotmail.com
