The National Conference recently voted to scrap the States Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) as a result of the gross abuse to which the commissions appear to have been subjected in different states of the federation.
Although the confab’s Committee on Political Parties and Electoral Matters, in its report, had recommended a strengthening of the law to make the SIECs more effective, the general house opted to scrap them outright.
The position of the delegates on the SIECs essentially translates to a vote of no confidence on the institutions, as presently operated. In several states, SIECs have been turned into arms of the parties of incumbent governors. The state electoral agencies have turned local government elections into a sham. Oftentimes, election results are written from Government Houses, from where seats are allocated to cronies. The common scenario has been for the party in power at the state level to grab all the seats, irrespective of how popular some of the opposition parties and candidates may be in certain parts of the state.
In nearly all the states, irrespective of the margin with which the party in power may have secured victory at the governorship election, the governor’s party makes a clean sweep of the local government seats in subsequent council elections, suggesting unbridled manipulation of the polls. This scenario cuts across party lines, as virtually all the parties that were able to install governors since 1999 have gone on to win virtually all the local government seats in the states.
The recommendation from the confab committee is, therefore, an attempt to put an end to this nationwide mockery of democracy. Instructively, the confab recommendation is the second such major call since Nigeria began the current democratic experimentation. The report of the Justice Muhammad Uwais committee had also recommended the scrapping of SIECs. That recommendation was eventually thrown out by the National Assembly, which considered the report. That the problem of SIEC is again coming to the front burner at the confab further confirms that many Nigerians are exasperated by the goings-on at the SIECs.
We, however feel that the problem is not strictly with the concept of SIECs. It is, rather, with the operators who, in desperation for power, take advantage of the lapses in the law to abuse the process and manipulate election results.
A situation in which the governor literally appoints the officers of the SIECs single handed, with absolutely no oversight from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for instance, leaves much to be desired.
It would, however, not make much sense scrapping SIECs and transferring their powers to INEC, which presently conducts all the other elections. This would merely amount to replacing the governors with the Presidency, without any guarantee that the same abuse being currently perpetrated by the states would not continue under the new overseeing authority – in this instance, the Presidency. Even if the present SIEC officials can be said to be puppets of the appointing governors, the same can also be said of federally-appointed INEC functionaries. So, on this issue of SIECs, Nigerians are literally stranded between the rock and a hard place. However, the fact remains that the concept of SIECs is not bad. It is just that the state governors are not allowing them to function optimally and independently.
However, rather than throw the baby away with the bath water, we advise a surgical review of the SIECs to make them serve our democracy better. Let us reconstruct SIECs. Let us make SIECs truly independent. For instance, now that INEC is beginning to attract some credibility to itself, we can involve it in the audit of SIEC processes. This should go hand in hand with the strengthening of the relevant sections of the SIEC law by the respective States Houses of Assembly.
Rather than pushing for the scrapping of SIECs, we feel that the Confab will be better off seeking a complete overhaul of the statutes that set them up. We can seek to marry the provisions of Item 22 of the Second Schedule, on Exclusive Legislative list, with those of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution on the functions of the local governments. By so doing, local government elections can effectively come under the purview of INEC.
But then, considering that this also has the danger of straddling INEC with too much work, the position of the Dr. Iyorchia Ayu-chaired Political Reform Committee on financial independence of SIEC is also instructive in this regard. A situation whereby the funding of the state independent electoral commissions is left to the whims and caprices of the sitting governor leaves much to be desired. The situation can be greatly improved if, as the committee recommended, SIEC’s funding can become a first line charge in the state’s budget.
Above all, however, we appeal to the operators of the present SIEC arrangement to ensure justice, equity and fairness in their use of powers entrusted to them by the constitution. The current devil-may-care attitude to grabbing power at the local government level is not only inimical to the country’s development, it poses a clear and present danger to our democracy, especially if those who feel cheated by the present arrangement decide to take the law into their own hands.
