- Electoral reform should commence now for better conducted elections in 2023
Four years after the 2015 general elections appraised as one of the best conducted in the history of elections in the country, the 2019 elections were expected to be much better. It was expected that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would build on the gains of 2015. However, it could hardly be said that the nation has taken positive steps forward. The 776 cases filed by candidates who lost at the polls would testify to that, that is, if largely, they succeed. Whereas the 2015 presidential election was lost by the then incumbent President, he chose to shun seeking any form of judicial weigh-in. That, partly, could be an attestation to the degree of integrity he saw in the managers of the process.
This year, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, are in court alleging mind-boggling malpractices in the elections, thus contesting the return of President Muhammadu Buhari. In almost all the states, senatorial districts, federal and state constituencies, the case is not different. The 77 election tribunals constituted by President of the Court of Appeal will have their hands full in the months ahead. The petitioners expressed dissatisfaction with logistics as the appropriate result sheets were unavailable in many polling units, some polling officers did not show evidence of proper training and some could have been compromised; machines designed to aid accreditation by reading the permanent voter cards were either unavailable or malfunctioned in some areas, returning officers were said to have altered figures in some states, constituencies or wards and, at the presidential level, the final collated figures were alleged to have been willfully altered. Politicians’ claims cannot, however, be held as gospels because truth sometimes falls victim to parochial and personal interests.
Beyond allegations by politicians, it was evident that violence marred the exercise in some areas, principally in the Niger Delta. The most notorious example of this was in Rivers State where collation had to be suspended for weeks as all hell was let loose by desperate politicians. Even when it was all sorted out, it was obvious that INEC was just determined to put a closure to the process as many things had gone wrong already. Lives had been needlessly lost in what ought to have been conducted like a carnival, with losers bidding their time till the next general election.
Rivers State was not an isolated case. In Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Imo, Anambra, among others, INEC’s facilities were set ablaze in a bid to halt the process of voting and collation of results. In Imo and Bauchi, returning officers alleged duress in collation and declaration of results. The matters are already in court.
But the INEC is less to blame. The culprits are the politicians themselves who problematised matters for the electoral body, a point the INEC orated as part of its frustrations of the exercise. When there were questions, we had a series of inconclusive elections and the umpire had to order reruns to leave no doubts about its impartiality. For most of the country, though, the elections were largely fair and international observers held that view by common consent while showing discontent in some areas, especially in the south-south region and some isolated areas in the east.
We are convinced that no body of laws could sanitise the system unless politicians, political parties and other actors on the scene are willing to effect a radical change of attitude. The now or never, or win or be damned attitude will always lead to the kind of results we got this year and in previous years. Party primary elections were marred by all sorts of imaginable and unimaginable malpractices. Party lords translated to tin gods who dictated who obtained tickets to contests and the influence of money thwarted the will of delegates and the electorate.
It is unfortunate that attempts to effect amendment of the Electoral Act before the polls were thwarted by the ego and interests of principal leaders of the executive and legislative arms of the Federal Government. Now that we are largely through with the conduct of the 2019 elections, work should start immediately on the corpus of electoral law and the whole architecture. What transpired this year must never be repeated again as it exposed Nigeria to ridicule before the international community that was fully represented as monitors of the process.
The election commission no longer has any excuse to present malfunctioning card readers. And, the manual collation and transmission of results is no longer tenable. Whereas the law as it stands today forbids full digitisation of the process, it is clearly the way to go in the run-up to 2023. If India that is more populous and has as many rural and illiterate population could deploy technology for conduct of elections, Nigerian authorities no longer have any excuse standing in the way. We have seen the best that manual conduct can give and can all attest to its inadequacy for our purpose; that should be enough incentive to employ technology.
Elections are too central to democracy for us to treat it as we have done since the Esua-led electoral commission of the First Republic. Each election cycle since then has led to wanton destruction of property, loss of lives and probable installation of losers in power. As such, those who forced their way into government had disregarded the will of the people in the process of governance, thus compounding retrogression and underdevelopment. Year 2023 offers another opportunity; one we cannot afford to miss. The security agencies have to be properly trained for the purpose. The electoral commission should drive the process, mapping out each agency’s schedule of duties. Unless this is accepted by all and all agencies made to subscribe to it, there can be no synergy and it will work against the conduct of free, fair polls. The Buhari administration should subscribe to early preparation, getting the electoral act prepared and signed before the end of this year and make available necessary funds for procurement of hardware and software, training and all needed redesign of the system. A massive campaign by information channels towards ensuring that politicians imbibe the spirit of fair-play would go a long way in assisting the reform process.
All those arrested for transgressing the law should be duly prosecuted if only to deter others from travelling the same road in future. In doing so, their sponsors, too, should be made to face the full weight of the law. Unless this is done, the cycle of bloodletting will persist and the nation would be set on edge each time election is approaching. The civil society, all educated Nigerians who are ashamed of the state of affairs should get actively involved if the jinx is to be broken.
