- No sober Nigerian will contest the proposition that the electoral system is severely compromised
An indication of just how compromised the system has become can be seen in the report of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) investigations into the conduct of the 2015 general elections, and in an internal inquiry carried out by the election umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The one resulted in the suspension of 205 serving and retired election officials and staff based on evidence linking them to election malpractices. The other reported that 80 other officials, including a former National Commissioner with INEC, five former Resident Electoral Commissioners, one of them since deceased, had been referred to the Presidency and the EFCC for further investigation.
The INEC report also placed in the gallery of election villains a non-governmental organisation supposedly representing civil society. The organisation, identified as the West African Network of Election Observers and composed of retired INEC officials, served as a conduit for funneling bribes to election officials with the aim of “influencing” the outcome of the 2015 general elections.”
Anodyne phrasing will serve no useful purpose here. In plain language, the bribes were designed to facilitate, once again, the process through which losers are turned into winners and winners are turned into losers.
Of the N23 billion the EFCC said was corruptly employed in a bid to rig the election, INEC reported that roughly N3.5 billion went to its officials in 16 states.
The picture that emerges from the EFCC and INEC reports is of massive corruption, perpetrated or condoned by some of the very officials entrusted with protecting and preserving the sanctity of the ballot. It is of a piece with the moral derangement that led top military officers to steal funds meant for purchasing arms to fight the Boko Haram insurgency.
Those who accept corrupt money to falsify election results are stealing the voices of the electorate, their most potent weapon for asserting their citizenship rights and claiming their privileges. These obtainers are just as morally degenerate as the top military officers who embezzle funds earmarked for counter-insurgency operations.
The one is just as subversive of national survival as the other.
The EFCC and INEC deserve commendation for bringing to light the dark side of an electoral system that has thrived unchecked for so long, enthroning in the process a cruel phenomenon of voting without choosing, and making a mockery of democracy and the time and energy and resources invested in its cultivation.
Election officials in 20 states and Abuja remained faithful by and large to the code of behaviour they are enjoined to uphold. By his personal example, INEC chair, Professor Attahiru Jega inspired faith in the conduct and outcome of the 2015 poll, judged by accredited local and foreign observers to have reflected the preference of the electorate.
Whether former President Goodluck Jonathan conceded voluntarily or was driven to concede by pressures he could not override, it has to be acknowledged that doing so was a singular act of statesmanship for which he will be remembered.
It remains to bring the suspects to justice without delay, based on iron-clad evidence of electoral malfeasance. It is time to drive it home that ballot rigging has no place in Nigeria and will not be tolerated.
