Federal Government’s failure to appoint RECs threaten commission’s performance
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has continued to sink and, unless urgent steps are taken, future elections, including the 2019 General Elections may be imperilled. It took the government 18 months to appoint the National Commissioners as six of the 12 national commissioner seats were kept vacant until December last year.
Could it be that President Muhammadu Buhari lacks understanding of the importance of the commission to the country’s stability? Definitely he could not have left the seats vacant for so long because there are no fit and proper Nigerians to occupy them.
It is even more unfortunate that almost two years after his administration was inaugurated, the President has been unable to appoint Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs). It is one of the constitutional aberrations that the President appoints the 37 RECs who are saddled with the responsibility of overseeing national and state elections. Only he, too, could sack them.
There are only three RECs in office today – those of Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Gombe. They have four more months in office. It is thus difficult to understand why the President and his team are still keeping the important appointments in abeyance. This is hardly the spirit behind the provision for the offices in the constitution, the Electoral Act and the INEC Act. By failing to fill the vacancies, the President is doing grave injustice to the laws of the land.
Later this year, the Anambra State governorship election would be due. Already, the state is boiling politically and there is no one to speak out for the electoral commission. It must be pointed out to the Federal Government that, by the provision of paragraph 14 (2) of the Third Schedule of the Constitution, the role of the commission is not limited to Election Day. It has a responsibility to monitor the electioneering campaign, organise enlightenment campaign for the electorate and ensure that candidates conduct themselves in accordance with the law. It is also saddled with the duty of revising the electoral register before elections, with a view to ensuring that no one is unduly disenfranchised.
In states where there are no RECs, it would be difficult to play the roles as they cannot be performed directly from the centre. In Anambra State where the governorship election is fixed for November 23, party primaries are scheduled to start from July 22 and the electoral commission is mandated to monitor them. It is expected that preliminary activities would have started now.
In 2018, elections into the office of governor are due in Ekiti and Osun states. As is the case in Anambra, the two states are volatile and would be regarded as pointers to the standing of the parties in the run-up to the 2019 General Elections. Nigerians are aghast at the performance of INEC in the bye-elections and the supplementary elections conducted since the Professor Mahmud Yakubu commission was constituted in 2015. In Kogi, Rivers and Edo as well as legislative elections in others states, especially Rivers, the commission is deemed to have performed poorly. Although the Ondo State election was deemed fairly credible, it could have been better.
The 2017 and 2018 elections are therefore opportunities to redeem INEC’s image, but this may be difficult unless all the other stakeholders, including the government, security agencies political parties, politicians, the media and non-governmental organisations play their roles well.
The Nigerian government and the electoral commission should undertake in-depth study of recent elections in the United States of America and Ghana. Despite being hotly contested, all the contesting political parties and candidates knew the rules and no serious eyebrows were raised in respect of the conduct of the polls. It is shameful that Nigeria now has to pay attention to what Ghana has succeeded in achieving. Since 1992, the country has perfected transfer of power from personalities within the same party and across party lines.
In the recent election, not only did President John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lose to Nana Akuffo-Addo who was the flag bearer of the New Peoples Party (NPP), the result was accepted by all concerned and there were no unresolved cases in court in any of the legislative constituencies at the date of inauguration. It was a similar scene when ex-President Jerry Rawlings had to bow out after the expiration of his term. His party’s candidate lost to the opposition leader John Kuffour. Internationally, Ghana is now regarded as the model of electoral sanctity in West Africa.
We call on the Federal Government to play its part creditably and demonstrate in words and action that it is committed to improving the template for conducting elections in the country. Other stakeholders are likely to take their cue from the government’s actions. Fighting financial corruption may not yield the desired results unless the political Aegean Stable is sanitised. The Federal Government should do the needful now.
