17th February, 2019
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| INEC Chairman: Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu |
By: Amir Abdulazeez
T
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he first person
that came to my mind when I was given three lengthy ballot papers to vote in
the 2015 Presidential and National Assembly Elections, was the typical
uneducated Nigerian voter. While I cast the votes, I had many thoughts; how
will the average unsophisticated voter sort out and know the difference between
each ballot and what time will it take each voter to locate the party he wants
and vote for it without spoiling the ballot? How can we guarantee the
credibility and integrity of an election largely decided by the bandwagon
effect? Why will INEC ignore the nature of the Nigerian voters and combine many
elections together just because it apparently wants to save cost?
True to my
thoughts, when the results for that polling unit was made available later in
the day, close to 10% of the votes were invalid. Apart from APC and PDP, the
two leading contenders, no party was able to secure more than five votes out of
a possible 1000 in that polling unit.
Sometimes,
you sit down and wonder why we deliberately do certain things that are neither
useful nor necessary? Why do we need to add to our logistical burden by having
close to 100 useless parties that are not serving any purpose? Will Nigerians
still not have abundant reasonable options in five to ten parties? How has the
political system improved with the continuous registration of these briefcase
parties? Now, imagine the printing, organizational and other logistical costs that
INEC will significantly cut if it were dealing with only seven parties? Apart
from cost, the time and energy that will be saved is too huge to be ignored. Imagine
how less confused will the voters be and the few post-election litigations that
will be involved.
This makes
it imminent for all stakeholders in the executive and the legislature to make
sure the Electoral Act and Constitution are amended to accommodate only a
manageable size of performing 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 governed by the same party.
When
Professor Attahiru Jega’s tenure expired as INEC Chairman in June 2015, it took
President Buhari up to late October to appoint his substantive replacement;
many National Commissioners and State Resident Electoral Commissioners were
appointed several months after the tenure of their predecessors expired. Some
states were without RECs for more than a year. These things may look
inconsequential over four years, but the truth is they are the kind of issues
that accumulate to mar painstaking preparations of several months.
Many
Nigerians never expected the 2019 General Elections to take place without an
amended, comprehensive and reforming Electoral Act in place. Unfortunately, the
bad politics between the presidency and the National Assembly had greatly
ensured that we are deprived of one. How does it feel to go into an election
under an act that doesn’t even properly recognize the card reader which is currently
the most important electoral instrument? How about operating under a system
that doesn’t even have decisive punishment for election riggers?
We are all
witnesses to how the 2019 Election Budget presentation and consideration was
deeply politicised. We clearly saw how selfish interest superseded national
interest in broad day light. We all saw how INEC got its funding very late
because some people who love themselves more than their country also double as
our leaders. Given circumstances like these, we must start thinking of a more
reliable funding mechanism for the commission in the future. Let us not even
talk of the lingering judicial battle over election sequence between the
Presidency and INEC and the National Assembly on the other. In general,
politicians have not been helping matters for INEC. The Zamfara and Rivers
State APC cases are clear testimonies to this.
This is not
to absolve INEC of all blames. However, it is to acknowledge the fact that the
dilemma the commission found itself was caused by so many other stakeholders
whether directly or indirectly. One of the shortcomings of INEC is that it has for
long retained staff that are largely corrupt, dormant and incompetent. That
election is a four year exercise doesn’t mean staff should abandon their duty
posts for months until when the election is near. This has contributed in
largely making INEC full time staff at some levels being little or no different
from the Ad-hoc staff in terms of performance and readiness for the job. With
such kind of staff, many of INEC’s problems are from within.
Historically,
to be fair to INEC, the first time it really had the independence to prepare
and conduct an election was in 2011. Not much can be said of 1999 when it was
under the direct supervision of the military, but it is clear to all of us that
in 2003 and 2007, results were apparently written even before the elections. During
those days, INEC need not to care about any preparation or lack of it, nor of
the consequences that comes with. Those elections had a predetermined outcome.
Abel Guobadia and Maurice Iwu’s INEC apparently didn’t care of any credibility
or legitimacy issue that will arise from the elections they conduct.
If we
observe, any election post 2007, have seen INEC becoming gradually more
independent and hence its preparations mattered. All the postponements and
inconclusiveness of elections conducted in recent years are perhaps a testimony
that the commission can now take decisions with little or no interference and
that it is willing to do things right. In 2011, when we began to get a semblance
of an election, the commission had to postpone the exercise after polling had begun.
Therefore, as painful and costly as these postponements are, they represent
some progress on the part of INEC. The only problem is when it keeps repeating
them.
It is
surprising that this government under President Buhari, who was a serial victim
of Electoral fraud have done close to nothing towards electoral reform. One of the
key attributes of periodic exercises is improvement upon past experiences until
a certain level of perfection is attained. It is sad that the current INEC
doesn’t represent a better one than 2015, even if it is not worse.
Already,
this election is expected to witness a huge voter apathy even before the
postponement and with the postponement, it can only get worse. How Nigerians
are gradually getting disinterested in the voting and political process is a
subject of discussion for another day. However, before we set to comprehensively
address all these issues by 2023 General Elections, there are some issues the
recent last minute election postponement by Yakubu’s INEC had raised that need
to be urgently addressed.
Henceforth,
INEC must consider postponement as the very last resort. Depending on the law,
if conducting the elections can hold over three voting days in certain areas to
take care of unforeseen problems, so be it. All ad-hoc staff should be
recruited and trained at least two weeks before the election and then the
postings may be delayed to avoid compromise. The commission can conduct a final
review of its preparedness at least a week before the election and come out
with a solid decision that will not change except in the case of a serious
emergency beyond its control and not logistics.
With people
risking their lives by travelling long distances to vote, INEC must consider
making the PVC flexible enough to allow people vote anywhere they are at least
in the presidential elections. It must also look at the possibility of allowing
voting by postage from any location around the country and make arrangement for
transparency in handling posted votes. With the amount of money INEC is
gulping, it has no excuse in failing to do things as simple as this.
INEC can
look into the possibility of taking advantage of technology to make room for
online voting. A secured platform can be set up which a voter can log in, enter
his PVC details and vote the candidates of his or her choice and find a way of making the process effective,
transparent and reliable. We are in the 21st century; we cannot
afford to be wasting lives and resources just because of a voting process whose
outcome doesn’t even guarantee the safety and quality of those lives.
Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez
