ELECTIONS: Nigeria is still pursuing shadows, by Tonnie Iredia

In less than 4 months from now, Nigeria will hold its 2027 general elections; yet, not many would believe the assurances by the electoral body that the process will be free and fair. No one can blame the doubting Thomases because the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC is notorious for not keeping its word. Just before the last general elections in 2023, INEC told the nation that it would premise its operations on modern technology: indicating specifically that there would be both manual and electronic collation of votes etc.

But it neither kept the promise nor did it present a posture of an organization that meant what it previously promised. It did not even convey any iota of remorse for misleading people. If therefore some people have continued to reject the results of many segments of the election, it is not because such persons are bad losers, instead it is because our elections are intrinsically incredible. It is simplistic to argue that after the highest court of the land has determined a case, it should be rested.

However, to abide by a verdict of the Supreme Court because one believes in the rule of law does not mean that every such case was persuasive or seen by everyone as real justice. For example, there is a particular governorship election where our apex court had ruled that the correct candidate of the winning party was candidate A. On its part, INEC eventually declared candidate B as the winner. But our courts disagreed, recounted the votes and gave victory to candidate C.

The case was further compounded by the fact that in the end, the recount turned out to have more votes than voters. Here, there are several posers. To start with, how was candidate C able to contest an election that the court had earlier recognized candidate A as the lawful contestant of the same party? Again, why did the same court accept to recount the votes at the instance of candidate C? Answers to these questions would establish clearly that credible elections are different from those for which people work to the answer while leaving substance to pursue shadows. If we want to stop pursuing shadows, the first thing is for INEC to do something about politicians within its fold. As referees, all persons within INEC are by our constitution not allowed to be partisan.

They must therefore be above board like Caeser’s wife. Consequently, at the point of nomination of National and Resident Electoral Commissioners, INEC must do all in its powers to draw the attention of all relevant authorities to the grave adverse implications of allowing anyone known to be a card carry member of a political party to be appointed as a member of INEC. In the case of staff, there is the story that some of them who are in certain technical and strategic areas are often elevated to commissionership at the instance of governors of their states to get them deployed to cover nefarious activities. In other words, INEC knows the culprits and as such should not be pursuing shadows having colluded with those politicising the commission

When the military was planning to quit the political scene many years ago, it was imagined that there was the need for a transition programme because military rule had been prolonged beyond public expectation. The nation settled for guided democracy where the electoral body was mandated to supervise the new political parties. President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida during his tenure set up two parties, appointed civil servants to administer them and at a point asked the electoral commission to draft constitutions for the parties. It was as if our political parties were destined not to grow.

Although democracy was restored in 1999, we seem to have continued with the idea of supervising our political parties some 27 years after. When will our parties come of age or is it a case of transition without end? This question may have to be answered in the positive if no effort is made to let INEC serve as referee only without in addition serving as coach. Our parties must be allowed to determine who their flag bearers are in line with the spirit of the decision of the supreme court. There is no need for a continuation of the power given to the electoral body to monitor events such as party primaries. The clear evidence that the power is superfluous is reflected in the fact that the law also says INEC may choose to monitor or not to monitor the same events thereby creating an obvious ambivalence that invigorates shadow chasers.

The National Assembly is an integral part of the shadow-chasing team because each time a general election is due, our legislators produce another Electoral Act that is never directed at solving the real issue at stake. In view of the convoluted nature of our electoral system, no voter believes that his vote will count in an election. Rather than providing for electronic transmission of results which is internationally recognized as the best practice and which can generally assuage the fears of the people, our law makers waste energies on semantics which at the end of the day, produces an amendment that takes nothing away from statusquo. Is it not strange that at the end of each election, more people are dissatisfied with the latest edition of our Electoral Act? Does it not amount to shadow-chasing if we constantly amend the Electoral Act without achieving any purpose? The situation is the same with the general impression that is given in our clime that nothing else apart from elections is important to Nigeria. As a result, we usually close all other businesses on voting day. But in reality, there is nothing special about how we manage the conduct of elections which these days features open vote buying and other forms of electoral malpractices.

Quite often, the electoral commission is left in panic when a court decides that a political party should be added to the list of contestants on the eve of voting, well after INEC had concluded the printing of materials for the elections. While it is in line with the rule of law to obey court orders, the latter ought not to be done to destabilize society. Apart from the fact that the decision involves additional expenses and disrupts otherwise concluded logistic arrangements, it also puts a contestant in a disadvantaged position.

Here, it is easy to recall the 10-year-old case of candidate Eyitayo Jegede whose participation in the governorship election in Ondo state was not decided by the judiciary until some 48 hours before voting day leaving him with only 24hours for campaigns. The idea of litigation ‘without end’ from beginning till voting day is obviously unwise and except the trend is redressed, free and fair elections in Nigeria may remain a mirage. There is therefore no better time than now for a deadline to be fixed for the determination of preelection cases in the country. Is it not hypocrisy that we are ready to allow the litigation of pre-election matters till the day of voting but unwilling to set up an election tribunal to deal with election offences? Could it be that those who are to set up the framework for dealing with election offences are the patrons of the wrongdoers?

The issue of polling agents also deserves some comments here. Bearing in mind that the law allows all political parties to have agents to represent their interests at different polling centres, many people have often asked political parties who fail to nominate agents to hold themselves accountable for any negative happenings at locations where they are not represented by agents. I am however unable to agree with this because the absence of polling agents of some political parties during elections cannot change a credible election to a bad one.

After all, it is not the duty of the agents to officiate during elections. They are merely to take note of any event, omission, error or malpractice to enable their parties to appropriately ventilate their grievances where necessary. Let’s not forget that there are thousands of poll officials recruited by INEC and remunerated from tax payers’ money to assist the commission to do its job. Such officials are not there to favour any political party; instead, they are appointed to ensure a credible process on behalf of all.

What this suggests therefore is that with or without party agents, an election should be free, fair and credible. The presence of party agents is essentially to make assurance doubly sure. Nigeria can have a successful election if what she pursues is the substance and not the shadows of elections.

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