I was tempted to take liberties with the legendary generosity and accommodation of my good friend, Father Matthew Kukah to give this presentation the title “Can we panic, now?” because I started writing on the day the Senate of the Federal Republic threw out President Goodluck Jonathan’s Electoral Act 2010 Amendment Bill in a most undignifying and humiliating manner. The Senate’s reaction to the overloaded Bill was expected and welcome, and a Senator described the Bill as being full of toxic elements and viruses. But the Senate initially threw the baby out with the bathwater: the rejection of the Bill in total foreclosed the possibility that the single-issue trigger to the Bill, that is, the genuine case made by INEC for shifting the dates for the elections from January to April, 2011, could have been considered on its own merit. As it stands, and as I write this paper, it looks the National Assembly will have to dig deep into its reservoir of patriotism and sensitivity to national interests to knock together an amendment that deals only with INEC’s timelines and adjudication of petitions, and throw everything else out. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives will also have to fast track the process in such a way that the amendment process will be completed before the end of the second week of November. Otherwise, INEC and the nation will face very real challenges which will severely compromise the quality of the elections, if they hold at all! The longer we argue and delay affecting and concluding the amendment, the more we will deprive INEC of the time it needs to put out new timelines for activities demanded by law, including, significantly, producing an entirely new Voters Register! INEC is at the mercy of crass and damaging opportunism which jeopardise the 2011 elections literally by the day. We are in a race to political apocalypse, in a manner engineered to slow the process of preparing for the 2011 elections to a point where they will have no value, or not hold at all! The production of a new electronic voters register alone could take up most of the space available, and to conduct the exercise in the context of full blown political activity will pose major management problems for INEC.
There couldn’t be a better setting to capture how hopelessly dependent INEC has always been on political forces outside its control than the present, which I thought also represents a good introduction to
a topic which seeks to explore challenges to election management and
administration in Nigeria. The real irony today is that we have a Chairman and Commissioners in INEC generally considered beyond reproach in their levels of integrity and proven competence and a transparent commitment to conduct free and fair elections; yet this INEC is enmeshed in a worst nightmare possible: it cannot move an inch until powerful interests play out their battles. INEC is captive to the very forces it is intended to be independent from.
HOW FREE IS INDEPENDENT?
I was told by some National Commissioners of INEC who served from 1998 to 2004 the genesis of the word ‘Independent’ which was added to the new National Electoral Commission by the military administration in 1998. So vehement were most of them in their demand for proof of willingness of the military to allow them operate freely and independently, a demand spearheaded by the late Chairman, Justice Tayo Akpata himself, that they secured an agreement to append the qualifying word ‘Independent’ to the Commission. Even at that, many of them remained stubbornly reluctant to be appointed, and it took all manner of persuasion from highly respected quarters to convince many of them to accept to serve. The Constitution also guarantees that in the normal discharge of its function, INEC is not to take instruction or orders from any person or body.
It must have been expected by these great men and women, most of them with pristine records in life, that the name of the organisation and the legal safeguards in the INEC’s law will shield them from undue interference and influence from the Military, Political Parties and all other institutions and organizations with stakes in the outcomes of elections. They must have also assumed that such independence will guarantee that they will receive all reasonable funding and other administrative support they will require to conduct free and fair elections. These expectations were to be severely questioned. Not long into the life of the Commission, following the rather localised performance of one of the Associations in the Local Government Elections which were intended to serve as one of the criteria to qualify for registration as political parties, the Commission and the Military had a major disagreement which was to test its independence. The initial decision of the Commission was that the Association had failed to achieve a major criterion for registration which was spread, and therefore could not be registered. The military administration, on the other hand, was involved in a major political mission of engineering an all-inclusive political process which will both address the crises which arose from the aborted elections of 1992, as well as ensure that the elections of 1999 had everyone on board.
WHO IS YOUR FATHER?
In spite of the fierce and principled resistance of the Commission it was ‘prevailed’ upon by the Military administration to register this Association as a Political Party. Other Parties of course cried to the high heavens, but the rest, as they say, is history. This Political Party is today one of the largest Parties in the nation, the military showed it had the clout to breach INEC’s independence, and INEC itself showed a vulnerability to buckle under pressure. In retrospect, it could be argued that both INEC in 1998 and the Military administration recognised the strategic political imperative to ensure that a key segment of the nation is incorporated into the emerging democratic process, but the point remains that INEC had to re-visit its own rules and guidelines as a result of political pressure.
Even in the rather tame and sedate atmosphere under which the preparations and conduct of the 1999 elections were managed, the independence of the Commission and the will of the political leadership to have its way clashed on a number of occasions. The calibre and integrity of the Chairman and Commissioners was a key element in the relations between the Commission and the military. So was the transparent commitment of the military to hand over to an elected leadership in 1999. The nation was just waking up to the possibility that the military may be serious about handing over this time around. But the understandably high levels of cynicism and pronounced resistance by key segments of the political elite to the military’s democratization programme was still a major issue. Above all, there was palpable consensus between the military leadership and key elements of the political elite, principally from the North, that the democratic dispensation should not only re-integrate the mainstream Yoruba people into the political process, but that former President Olusegun Obasanjo should be supported to become the President.
The issue of elite consensus around fundamentals which should govern the rules of the electoral contest as well as its possible outcomes is central to the manner in which elections are managed. Election management in Nigeria reflects the disposition of the dominant elite around, and in the build up to elections, and all the three elections held since 1999 have reflected in some measure the nature of the disposition of the elite. In 1998-1999, a congruence of interest between the military and key fractions of the ruling elite produced a PDP victory with President Obasanjo as President. In 2003, the in-roads made by the opposition particularly the emergence of the Buhari factor into the political terrain, and the emerging dominance of a strong President, Olusegun Obasanjo who learnt the lessons of building his own political base as a result of the fall-out with his Deputy, resulted in a consolidation of both PDP and emergence of large swathe of non-PDP areas in the country. The 2007 elections reflected the near-total dominance of the PDP, which itself derived from the pervasive influence of the outgoing President Obasanjo.
This is, of course, a simplification of a much more complex phenomenon. The point here is that the dynamics of elite politics, or dominance of fractions of that elite, or even a ‘strongman’ like Obasanjo have major influence on electoral competition and outcomes. INEC is not immune to these influences, much as it would like to be. I have alluded to the issue of the registration of an Association against the initial resistance of the Commission. Between 2000 and 2003 elections, the Commission was involved in countless fights for funding and both in quantities and in times of availability, in court cases and disputes over the 2001 and 2002 Electoral Acts; on the conduct of elections in one day and on the Order of Elections; on the merger of the Voters Register with the I.D Card Project; on the liberalisation of the conditions for the registration of Political Parties; on the infamous Anambra 12 and the Senator Wabara debacle. All these skirmishes were at the heart of the struggle to maintain the Commission’s independence from the ruling Party and other major political interests.
It is now history that the 2003 elections were extensively criticised for falling far below standards of acceptability. As someone who was intimately involved in those elections, I can only say how bitterly disappointing it was that this verdict is the one which appears to have been more popularly registered. It is all the more disappointing, when this verdict is weighed against the painstaking and meticulous preparations, and the many battles we had to fight against the encroachment and subversion of our powers and willingness to conduct credible elections. The irony is that even the PDP complained of losing States like Kano, Lagos and Borno through collusion or rigging involving the Commission, and the opposition Parties never acknowledged that they retained, or won new States or seats as a result of the steadfast commitment of INEC to reflect the will of the electorate.
Before this sounds like a belated apology-and it is not-let me restate the point I am making: even the manner election management is treated by Political Parties, the media with a heavy dose of partisan agenda, N.G.Os and C.S.Os, many of whom are paid to influence specific outcomes, represents an onslaught on the integrity and capacity of INEC to conduct credible elections. The only credible election management body in our history appears to be one which conducted an inconclusive election – Prof Nwosu’s NEC – or one which has not conducted one yet – Jega’s INEC! It sounds terribly cynical, but it is beginning to look as if the only credible elections in Nigeria are the elections we have won.
HOW DEEP IS THE BOTTOM?
By universal acclaim, the 2007 elections have been the worst. I will contend that they also largely reflected the worst political environment in which to conduct elections:
i. A bruising fight between President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the heart and soul of the PDP and the nation’s political levers. This fight formed the character of the elections in many ways; in the litigations; in the manner INEC itself took sides in its preparations for the elections, and in the alliances which it generated;
ii. The total dominance by President Obasanjo of the political terrain in spite of, or quite possibly because of the failure of the third term bid, which allowed him to re-invent himself in the successors he handpicked;
iii. An aggressive, all-out assault on the opposition (the infamous do-or-die approach) intended to expand the scope of control of the PDP;
iv. A palpable loss of moral tone in the leadership of INEC itself, manifested in the rather public pandering to the larger-than-life posture of the PDP, right up to litigations regarding candidature and the printing of ballot papers.
The verdict on the 2007 elections is quite possibly well deserved; certainly if the embarrassing outcomes of litigations on the elections are considered. Just a few weeks ago, a new Governor was sworn-in: three whole years after INEC had returned his opponent! Could these elections be reflections of a political context from which INEC took its cue? It is difficult to rationalise the low quality of the 2007 elections without answering this question in the affirmative, because there really is no other answer. Certainly, of the entire National Commission which conducted the elections of 1999 and 2003, only two were left by 2005. One of them was Professor Maurice Iwu. Over 90% of the Resident Electoral Commissioners were in place from before the 2003 elections to the 2007 elections. INEC’s entire bureaucracy (except the two Secretaries), was in place from 1998 to 2007. I will argue the case here that as in 1998-1999, the 2007 elections also largely reflected the dominance of the leadership.
CAN WE PANIC NOW?
The 2011 elections will be conducted in a context where the dominant influence of the PDP which substantially provided the character to the 1999, 2003 but more significantly 2007 elections is substantially fragmented. The preparations for the elections have already suffered massive setbacks, and a combination of a badly-prepared election and an intensely-fragmented political elite is the worst nightmare for our developing democratic system. It is tempting to assume that INEC has little to do with the in-fighting within the PDP, but the reality is that it affects it in many important respects. It is no secret that the setbacks and the delays in amending the 2010 Electoral Act are traceable to the manoeuvres within the PDP for some strategic advantages. In whatever manner these monumental quarrels within the PDP are resolved, it will be reasonable to expect that they will affect the organisation and quality of the elections. Let’s just take a brief look at some of the factors which impinge or will impinge on the capacity of INEC to conduct elections in 2011:
i. An Electoral Act which is still being part together 6 months to an election;
ii. The production of a new Electronic Voters Register in approximately four months – which has not yet commenced;
iii. Putting out statutory timelines, supervision and management of Party activities;
iv. A political environment which is polarising the nation along potentially dangerous lines and which is likely to feed electoral violence, and a political elite which has never been so fragmented since 1979;
v. A President with awesome incumbent powers who is fighting for his political life, and who has shown a capacity to seek political advantages which generate intense hostility;
vi. Opposition to the President within his Party which is not averse to adopting its own scare tactics and pandering to the lowest common denominator, including producing a candidate through a quasi-tribal conclave;
vii. A looming spectre of violence and general insecurity which will be compounded by existing flash points in the Niger Delta and some parts of the North;
viii. A nation whose appetite for credible elections has been whetted by the appointment of the present leadership of INEC and which has not been prepared to accept the possibility that it may be disappointed.
THE DAY AFTER
Perhaps the fears being raised by the postures and utterances of the people who are aspiring to lead us; by the failures of the Presidency and the National Assembly to provide a timely and appropriate legal framework for the 2011 elections; by the constant search for opportunistic advantages through legal and other questionable means by aspirants and contestants; by the looming spectre of increased violence around electoral issues; and by very high expectations of Nigerians that the promise of credible elections in 2011, will come to pass. Perhaps;but these fears are real, and they must not be dismissed as unnecessary alarmist. If the political meltdown we are witnessing affects the quality or even the conduct of the 2011 elections, the future for Nigeria is bleak. But it does not have to happen, and it should not happen if:
i. Decent Nigerians speak out against the militarization of our democracy, or the appearance being created that aspirants and contestants are about to wage wars against each other, and drag us into them;
ii. Decent Nigerians demand that the Presidency and the National Assembly concludes the amendments to the Constitution and Electoral Act within the next two weeks;
iii. Decent Nigerians raise their vigilance and involvement in the electoral process by actually making themselves available for registration and election duties, and joining N.G.Os and C.S.Os to keep an eye on the electoral process;
iv. Decent Nigerians join active politics, not only to add value to governance, but also to wrest the political initiative from the few who have cornered our politics and imbued it with the character of corruption, violence and indecency.
There is little time to salvage the next elections and make them better than those in 1999, 2003 and 2007. This task will not come from the leadership of the country, but from ordinary Nigerians who should rise up to shield it from monumental fallouts of the political level, and which will find expression in the manner the 2011 elections are managed and administered.
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