By Louis Odion, FNGE
Though he set out to tackle the allegation of complicity in reported underage voting in recent Kano polls, INEC boss, Mahmood Yakubu, has inadvertently reopened the extant debate on the forces undermining the integrity of the electoral process in Nigeria.
Back in February, tongues naturally began to wag across
the land after the social media was awash with footages of kids purportedly
voting in the council polls in which the ruling party recorded almost 100
percent victory. With the opposition Peoples Democratic Party at the receiving
end, fingers were expectedly pointed at the electoral umpire as culpable by
enabling such underage registrants to collude with the All
Progressives Congress to steal victory.
The report presented by INEC last weekend however put a
lie to that. If anything at all, argued Yakubu, the local electoral commission
in Kano should be held responsible.
INEC’s defence could be winnowed to three broad
conclusions: the same voters register being discredited was in use in 2011 and
2015; the copy availed KANSIEC was not widely deployed during the exercise
under review and the images of underage voters on the social media were not
only contrived but also recycled as they were not fresh.
Well, the case presented by Yakubu is water-tight
enough. Only those unfamiliar with the workings and relations of both the
national umpire and the coordinates in the 36 states would have been tempted to
aim any arrow at the former in the first case on perceived irregularities in
state elections.
At this writing, KANSIEC was yet to muster a counter to
Yakubu’s weighty charges. I doubt if there is any solid grounds left for it to
articulate a sensible response.
If the voters register was scarcely displayed
that day, it was probably because the state authorities felt they needed to
save cost since the results were already pre-determined.
Truth be told, KANSIEC, like others in the 35
states, is filled with cronies of the ruling party.
So, what would then appear perplexing is the
expectation in any quarters that a different outcome could have resulted from
the exercise held in Kano in February.
To illustrate further, let us recall the rather comical
drama that had played out in Edo State at the inauguration of a new board for
the state electoral umpire during the PDP administration of Lucky Igbinedion.
After the customary rite of subscribing to the oath of
office before the governor that day, it was time for the elderly man to make an
acceptance speech to a packed audience including media correspondents. Unable
to conceal his excitement at the offer, what first came out of his lips with a
clenched fist thrust skyward was: “Up P-D-P!!!”
Needless to add that the microphone was instantly
wrestled from his hand to save further embarrassment.
In the circumstance, the only option before such a
lackey is to help his employer work from the answer to the question.
It explains why the ruling party in any state across
the country always wins 100 percent in local elections. Of course, the question
then: how healthy is this situation? What’s to be done?
These are questions for another day.
Now, one feels the national apprehension
ought to be centred more on 2019 and how INEC is bracing for the challenge
ahead. Of course, what ails the nation’s electoral process has long been
diagnosed; what has been lacking is the will to execute the recommended
therapeutic surgery. The roadmap is clearly laid out in the Uwais Report.
With the executive and legislative arms of government
presently caught in a cold war over partisan interests, it definitely
would amount to carrying optimism too far to expect that any of the prayers in
the Uwais Report can still be realized before the next polls.
Yet, these recommendations don’t appear too difficult
or prohibitive if truly patriotism runs in the veins of present actors and if
indeed our politicians were thinking of the future generations rather than the
next elections. Otherwise, they would not need further prompting to accept
Uwais’ counsel that the first step to making the electoral umpire truly
independent requires that it be given financial autonomy.
The second prayer yet unanswered is the unbundling of
INEC. For efficiency, three units are supposed to be carved out of the present
behemoth. One should cater for registration and regulation of parties, another
for electoral offences and the other for constituency delimitation
commission.
The second one is, of course, intended to create
incentives against electoral crimes.
Another key reform Uwais report canvasses is to ensure
that disputes arising from elections are dispensed with before the inauguration
of the new dispensation. This is to ensure litigations don’t last forever or
give custodian of a disputed mandate the unfair advantage of using public funds
to fight their legal battle.
However, it is pleasing to hear that Yakubu, in his own
modest way, is pushing ahead with few innovations within reach with a view to
deepening the electioneering process. For instance, insisting that presidential
candidates submit themselves to a public debate ahead of the D-Day will not
only help clarify the choices before the voters but also ultimately enrich the
democratic culture.
Two, ushering in electronic collation and results
transmission will rule out manual collation, thus helping to minimize the
possibility of manipulation. Experience has shown that rigging of seismic scale
often transpires between polling booth and the collation centre.
The actual theft is barely feasible at the former with
the vigilance of glaze-eyed party agents and just anyone around participating
in the process of counting ballot papers and recording of scores.
The innovation of electronic collation and transmission
would appear the logical follow-up to the revolutionary card-reader technology
deployed in the 2015 polls. The good news is that the senate has now furnished
the card-reader a legal basis to become part of our electioneering process.
This followed the lacuna laid bare by the Supreme Court rulings on Delta,
Rivers and Akwa Ibom state governorship polls where it was pointed
out that no section of the existing Electoral Law granted it legal
status.
While these may sound reassuring, however, the real red
flags are surely fluttering just ahead already. With barely nine months to the
eagerly awaited next general elections, INEC is yet to be provided funds to
work with, even though it submitted a budget of N300bn.
Without cashing the funds timely, the timelines
set to achieve certain targets will definitely be affected.
Needless to add that situations like this are what
ultimately predispose the electoral process to compromise. The testimony
provided by Donald Duke, should suffice here. Speaking from experience, the
one-time Cross Rivers State governor revealed that the capture of the resident
electoral commissioner is usually enabled when they arrived their station of
assignment empty-handed. With little or no provisions made by the employer for
their operations, least of their personal welfare.
In the circumstance, such operatives resort
to self-help. Once they start occupying swanky hotel suites and
drinking wine supplied by the host governor, it is only naturally they would
soon begin to pander to the benefactor’s machinations.
So far, nothing on the horizon suggests that the story
is about to change.
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