May I register my profound appreciation to the Kaduna State Chapter of the N.B.A for this opportunity to contribute to the national endeavour to police the 2011 elections, and ensure that they do reflect the will of the electorate Let me also thank the Association for providing me the leverage to choose a focus for the lecture, and admit from the onset that events in Cote d’Ivoire have been largely instrumental in my choice of the subject matter.
As we speak, the ECOWAS sub-region, the African Union and the International Community are all involved in attempts to prevent the escalation of a major crisis arising from the disputed results of the recent elections in Cote d’Ivoire , where two Heads of State have been sworn-in, and a simmering, though low-level Civil War is threatening to engulf the nation. Our own President, who is at the heart of some of the most contentious and divisive issues in the run-up to our own 2011 Elections, personally chaired the ECOWAS Summit which upheld the elections of the opposition leader, Allasane Outara, but there is no evidence or guarantee that President Gbabgo, who appears to have lost to him, will yield to the will of the people, the pressure ECOWAS or to the international community. Perhaps his resistance may be further fuelled by the feeling that many of those who sat in judgment at the ECOWAS Summit over his situation are not necessarily innocent of the same charges against him.
It is very important that Nigerians pay very close attention to events in Cote d’Ivoire, given the similarities and uncanny parallels which exist between our two countries. The North-South divide which are exacerbated by politics are real in our two countries. We also share in common ethnic and religious differences which are routinely exploited for political gains; massive economic disparities between the North and South; a history of prolonged insurgency and series of disputed elections which have threatened national security and survival of the democratic system. Cote d’Ivoire has been effectively balkanized by different political forces in the last three years. Our own run-up to the elections are re-incarnating dormant primordial and parochial sentiments which have the potential to assume real significance in the event of widely-disputed results before, during or after the elections. In both our countries, there is no elite consensus around the basic fundamentals of the political and electoral process, and the fights within the PDP in particular over its zoning and rotation policy have exposed the dangerous decline in the power of a national political elite to determine the direction of political development.
Nigeria is of course a much larger and more complex country than Cote d’Ivoire, and these similarities do not have to be interpreted literally, but our size and complexity is also the reason why our problems may assume a much larger and more complex dimension.
Those who feel that the parallel being drawn is alarmist, need only to assess the impact of the current maneuvers to secure real political advantages by politicians and leaders who have responsibilities for ensuring that the 2011 elections are credible, and do not therefore provide a basis for major national crises. Only two days ago, Members of the House of Representatives approved a clause in the Electoral Act being reviewed, which seeks to make all serving members of the National Assembly automatic members of their respective parties’ National Executive Committees (N.E.C). This decision by the legislators represents the most brazen disregard for public opinion which overwhelmingly warned against it. It also represents the lowest form of opportunism and self-service, the type which deprives key players in the politic al process of any respect from the public, and makes it easier for others to seek to tilt the ground unfairly in their favor. After a` Public Hearing roundly denounced the plan to use their positions to legislate an advantage to themselves, the decision of the legislators has left an incredulous public to wonder what public interest will be served by the amendment. Those among us who think that people who are supposed to make laws for the Peace, Progress and Good Government of Nigerians should ordinarily be above this type of crass and short-sighted opportunism need to ponder over why they would risk both public odium as well as the possibility that President Goodluck Jonathan may not assent to the provision and the Act as amended. Perhaps the legislators, who threw out the clause which made all political appointees of Mr. President and Governors automatic delegates at Congresses and Conventions, know something the nation does not know. For instance, it is legitimate to ask whether there is a trade-off in the works, which will give Mr. President the amendment which will re-introduce the single National Convention in Abuja, in exchange for approving the contentious amendment under review. This way, Mr. President avoids State-based Primaries, and the legislators become their Parties’ NEC members, and therefore gain a strategic foothold to fight Governors, who are the real targets of the amendment. As NEC members, legislators as the single largest bloc will largely determine what happens in the Party, the fate of candidates, including themselves, and therefore give them a most unfair advantage.
If this amendment were to be passed, it will put Governors at a great disadvantage. They will fight back, possibly through prevailing on Mr. President not to assent to it. If Mr. President chooses to pander to the muscle of the Governors, in view of their present overwhelming control of the parties (actually we are basically talking of the PDP here) and the possibility that they will “deliver” him delegates, the legislators would have lost out. It he declines to assent to the amendment, the possibility exists that the National Assembly will exercise an override veto to pass it, given its apparent popularity and the dominance of the PDP in the legislature. It is also possible that a way can be contrived to ensure that a win-win situation is secured, with Mr. President being assured of a major advantage in the selection process, legislators securing the nod of the Governors that they will not face hostility during their attempts to return to their seats, and Governors retaining their commanding control of the party machinery.
But if these maneuvers will produce any result, it will have to be secured at the expense of the conclusion of the process of amending the 2010 Electoral Act. This is the area which poses a major threat to the conduct of the forthcoming elections. As we speak, the extant law which Governs the electoral process is the 2006 Electoral Act, but it does not contain some of the amendments which have been made, or are being made in the 2010 Act. INEC has put out a timetable which is contingent on the assumption that election dates will be moved from January 2011 (as in the 2010 Act) to Apart 2011, (as in 2006 Act). Until the 2010 Act as amendment is finalized, the date of the elections is still January 2011. This audience is also fully aware that the legality of the Constitutional Amendments are currently before the supreme court for interpretation. There are, arguably, issues in the Electoral Act which are contingent on the amendments to the Constitution, and so may have to await the resolution of the dispute around the amended constitution.
The management of the 2011 elections will pose major challenges, because of major issues which will affect the quality and credibility of the elections are still unfolding, even as we speak. I have referred to the attempts to use the opportunities provided by the need to amend the Electoral Act to seek unfair advantages. We have not heard the last on these attempts, but there are genuine fears that they will affect critical timelines for major activities.
The forthcoming Registration of Voters will test the resolve of INEC, Political Parties and politicians to their limits, essentially because it will be conducted within a two-week period under a most intensely politicized environment and atmosphere. Even when organized in less volatile and challenging environment, registration of voters has always been vulnerable to being hijacked by politicians. The technology being adopted by INEC, as well as the possibility that it has a plan ‘B’ in the form of a manual register is not itself a foolproof guarantee that politicians will not seek to exploit its weaknesses. The possibility of theft of the Direct Capture Machines or outright sabotage in enough numbers to render the exercise useless in many areas; the possibility that politicians will mobilize millions to register more than once in the belief that the technology will not cope with detecting it, the deployment of widespread violence to prevent the exercise taking place in many parts of the country; and the simple fact that the two weeks may be insufficient to capture 70 million voters in Nigeria, with our penchant for last-minute response are all real threats. I have not raised issues such as the availability of the technology, training and deployment of staff to undertake the exercise because INEC has assured the nation that these will not pose problems.
The atmosphere under which the registration of voters will take place has to be controlled by a strong political will and a robust and credible security infrastructure. This is where the frightening quarrels, particularly within the PDP, and the involvement of the person and office of the President in these disputes will have a telling effect on the manner government deals with breaches and abuses of the process. There is little hope that the arguments over zoning and rotation in the PDP will be settled before its Congresses or Convention. On the contrary, the quarrels are likely to become more bitter and divisive. Ordinary citizens and a large army of professional political fixers may detect a weakness at the political level as well as a will to deal decisively with major breaches and abuses, to wreck havoc on the election timetable, starting with the Registration of Voters.
To use one or two possible scenarios, it may be safe to say that if Atiku Abubakar loses the PDP ticket to President Jonathan, there will be a price to pay in terms of some restiveness at the political level and a threat to security in the North and other parts of Nigeria. Similarly, if President Jonathan loses to Atiku, the same will happen. How would the President, who may be both the source of a problem and its solution react? The weakness of opposition parties and the possibility that they may not achieve their strategic alliances in time to mitigate the fallout of the PDP contest will be another negative factor. The tendency to adopt violence as a major political strategy will also pose another problem, and the security infrastructure will be stretched to deal with it, in a context where Niger Delta and sundry threats in the north are also engaging our security agencies.
The political context of the 2011 elections poses the greatest threat to the possibility that they will be credible, free and fair. The entire leadership is involved in bitter disputes centered around their own fortunes. Major decisions are being delayed or manipulated, with the objective of securing short-term, parochial gains. INEC and the 2011 elections are the mercy of crass and damaging opportunism, which jeopardize the conduct of free and fair elections literally by the day. As I observed at a different forum, we appear to be in a race to political apocalypse, in a manner engineered to slow the process of preparing for the 2011 elections, or ensuring that they do not hold at all!
But just in case many of us feel depressed, I do have faith that the doomsday scenario can be avoided, provided.
(I) The Supreme Court rules or the dispute over the legality of the constitutional amendments very soon;
(II) All amendments to the Electoral Act 2010, except those which move the election from January to April 2011 are dropped, and the Act is given effect indefinitely
(III) Politicians and leaders convince a summit to establish aground rules for the 2011 elections;
(IV) INEC is encouraged to speak out without restrictions on issues which impinge on its operations and the wider political environment;
(V) Political parties, C.S.Os and N.G.Os raise their levels of vigilance over threats to the electoral process and the elections;
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