This week’s discourse topic presents an instant problématique for those familiar with my preferred panacea of an institutional approach to resolving Nigeria’s policy quandary. While I have conceded, that individuals drive policy processes, I had always argued that when institutions are strengthened and made the bedrock of development, the misfits who occasionally find themselves at the driving seat of policy positions will of necessity fall in line. A cursory look at the US elections will foreground this assertion. District Attorneys(DAs) oversee polls at the state level, which also includes those for the president and members of Congress in each state of the Union. These DAs are elected officers of the state who ran for office on the platform of any of the political parties in the US or as independent candidates. Notwithstanding their party affiliations, the DAs oversee the elections to the fullest extent of the law. Americans have not been known to haggle or lose sleep over the party affiliations of DAs who are assisted in the task by thousands of bureaucrats. The reason is simple: the institutions work and are no respecter of persons.
Given my epistemological foundation, therefore, it would seem like a contradiction to be engaging in discourse with an individual rather than the institution as the focus of my analysis. I have deliberately chosen to be a bit nuanced from my epistemic position for two reasons. First, I had in an earlier piece depicted the weak institutional framework and safeguards that the INEC was deliberately deprived of by the political class in constituting the body in 1998. This weakness has been exploited in past elections to ensure that preferred candidates of the establishment and ruling party at any given time gets an unfair advantage at the polls. What has been classified as electoral malpractice or rigging is merely collusion between political parties and individuals within the Election Management Body(EMB) to exploit the weakness to perpetrate electoral fraud, thereby depriving the people of adequate representation. The weakened structure of the INEC is evident from the appointive process recommended by the constitution for National and Resident Electoral Commissioners.
Although on paper, the individuals selected for this responsibility are supposed to be nonpartisan and with unimpeachable character and integrity, there has been verifiable accusations of these criteria being respected in breach. The choice of some of these flawed individuals is not an error of judgement, instead, a deliberate action aimed at getting malleable persons that can exploit the weak structures of the INEC to carry out the bidding of those that influenced or sanctioned their appointments. The confirmation hearings of these Commissioners have been known to be flooded with petitions by the opposition questioning the political neutrality and moral character of some of the nominees. The result is the shambolic elections that have been conducted in Nigeria between 1999 and 2015.
Concomitantly, in recognition of the amorphous structure of the INEC, several failed attempts have been made at strengthening its framework. Perhaps, the best opportunity to engineer a far-reaching change was lost with the apathy that the political class approached the proposed reforms of the Uwais Committee. The White Paper on the Committee’s Report is yet to be made public and is probably caking with dust in some government vaults.
However, government’s inaction is not suggestive of an impervious political class intent on continuing business as usual in the conduct of elections; it was perhaps more amenable to a superficial quick fix that would still allow the political class access and room for manipulation of the process.
This conclusion is reached given that the Jonathan administration spurned a window of opportunity that opened when Morris Iwu, the notoriously incompetent former Head of the EMB was eased out of his position. To be fair, former president Goodluck Jonathan understood that poorly conducted elections had become a niggling pain stabbing steadily and dangerously at the heart of the nation’s fledgeling democracy. Like his predecessor, the late Umaru ‘Yar’Adua, he was committed to finding a solution to the malaise, unlike his late boss, he opted for saddling that responsibility on a strong personality rather than entrenching reforms that would strengthen the institutional base of the EMB. Thus, began the search for that one Nigerian that would bring his integrity, credibility, honesty, and strength of character to bear on the legitimacy crisis of the INEC. Enter Attahiru Jega, and the rest is now academic history.
If President Buhari was mulling the idea of returning to the old order of lacklustre leadership for the INEC, the vocal rejection of the stopgap Amina Zakari administration must have given him a dose of the impatience of Nigerians with ineptitude having experienced a little of what purposeful leadership at the helm of authority can accomplish. The six months or thereabouts it took him to announce a replacement for Jega was not altogether a waste. Mahmood Yakubu, an erudite scholar and professor of history, may not have come with the rock star status of Jega. However, his pedigree, strength of character, integrity and neutral competence are loftily acknowledged among administrative and academic circles. We can only rue what would have been if Buhari had stuck to the criteria he used in searching and selecting the INEC boss in other appointive positions.
A little insight into what is known about the INEC boss will reveal that he was indeed a round peg in a round hole. The Jonathan administration did not sanction his second term tenure as Executive Secretary of TETFund for no other reason than his refusal to allow the Fund become an Automated Teller Machine of the then ruling party. Even after ASUU took the unprecedented position of writing a letter to the then president calling for his reappointment, it was apparent that he had stepped on powerful toes. He was then appointed as the Assistant Secretary, Finance and Administration, of the last National Conference. Not many would know that in this position, he saved the nation several billions of naira that would have been lost on a white elephant project proposed by the leadership of the Conference. The leadership had proposed to award contracts worth over one billion Naira for the provision of an Electronic Voting System(EVS) for the Conference to a company owned by a family member of a principal officer of the Conference. Yakubu staunchly refused to endorse it insisting that the EVS was unnecessary for an ad-hoc assignment that would end under three months. When suffocating pressure was mounted on him he threatened to resign rather than append his signature to that bogus project. I have confirmed the veracity of this narrative from no less a person than the revered former Chairman of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission, Professor Chidi Odinkalu.
This stubborn streak and insistence on respect for process followed Yakubu into his new assignment. As a CSO observer during the Edo governorship elections, this writer is aware that he threatened to resign from his job following the meddlesomeness of the police hierarchy in the infamous postponement of the election and reportedly only rescinded that threat after the president assured him that the Edo debacle would not repeat itself. This assurance would come in handy following attempts to postpone the Anambra elections . He stuck to his gun and resisted all entreaties to delay the elections by one week. Yakubu’s insistence on due process and strong desire to see to the improvement in the quality of elections have started paying dividends. There is now a lull in litigations in the challenge of the outcome of elections. The Anambra and Ondo Elections has no single legal challenge, and the results were unconditionally accepted by the losing candidates and parties, saving Nigeria huge sums in litigation costs.
Expectedly, the political class, who are not used to not having their way have come after him. Just last week, the Peoples’ Democratic Party called for his resignation. Before then, the Chairman of the ruling party, the APC, had accused him of being a mole of the PDP. As we inch closer to the 2019 Elections, the crescendo of attacks against him will only increase. However, the stakes involved in this election are too high for Prof Mahmood Yakubu to fail. I shall next look at the implications of a failed process for Nigeria.
The wisdom of hindsight tells us that the outcome of the 2015 Elections pulled Nigeria back from the precipice of disintegration. What, with the tensions which Jonathan’s second term bid had generated and the conflagration of ethnic tensions, it was obvious that an illegitimate electoral process was the catalyst that was needed to combust a highly-charged environment. Admittedly, the 2015 elections were fraught with so many irregularities such that an unprecedented number of cancellations was subsequently recorded at the tribunals, however, the deployment of Card Reader technology ensured that the outcome was a fair reflection of the will of the people. Many analysts have wondered aloud why President Buhari’s administration seems to be getting away with blue murder in his now notorious policy predilections, whereas his predecessor was sent to the guillotine for lesser infractions. Perhaps, the legitimacy thrust on his administration by the outcome of the elections has something to do with it. Nigerians may have adopted a calm feeling of collective guilt, realising that the current order is a product of a majoritarian naivety that unthinkingly gobbled the ruling party’s campaign jiggery-pokery in 2015. Having experienced the power of their votes or PVC’s, any attempt to return Nigeria to the dark days of votes allocations, ballot box stuffing, crude manipulation of elections and all other electoral frauds would portend a significant danger to the nation’s corporate existence.
Arising from policy missteps and lack of statesmanlike brinksmanship of the current president, the ethno-religious tensions that permeated the pre-2015 atmosphere seem to have returned. The anger and malcontent with the administration only seem to be simmering due to the anticipation of a day of reckoning at the polls. The impending elections are gradually turning into a referendum on the ruling party’s change agenda. For a populace that was not accustomed to seeing their votes count, the excitement and buzz that the 2019 election is creating is a testament to the acceptance and acknowledgement by Nigerians that the country is turning the corner in its electoral process. INEC’s fantastic performance in the last elections in Ondo, Osun and Anambra states has further strengthened the belief of Nigerians that credible polls are possible. Anything, therefore, short of an excellent upgrade from 2015 elections would be unacceptable and will have severe ramifications for peace and security in the country.
Similarly, the confidence in the capacity and capability of the Yakubu-led INEC to deliver on its mandate of free and fair polls is perhaps one of the driving forces behind the recent surge in political participation by activists and young Nigerians. Yakubu’s liberal interpretation of the registration requirements for political movements has seen him removing the obstacles in the way of radical left-wing parties like the Socialist Party of Nigeria, allowing it to become a political party. The intention to run for president by the likes of the irrepressible Omoyele Sowore, Fela Durontoye and others hewn from the same tradition is probably, the singular most important stamp of legitimacy that INEC may have received in this election circle. A new set of the political class is set to be unleashed through a recruitment system that is outside the dragnet of the typical Nigerian path dependent leadership trajectory of godfatherism and sycophancy.
The embracing of the method of elections as a means of effecting change and entrenching social justice by these radical elements may have seen the country avoid, for now, revolutionary agitations capable of violently altering the class stratification of society. A cross-national study of conditions that led to the violent mass-based overthrow of totalitarian regimes in the Middle East, popularly known as the Arab Spring, exposes Nigerians vulnerability and fertility for similar actions. Yielding to the democratic norm of elections, revolutionaries or change agents are at once constrained by its incremental approach to change, consequently, the onus to ensure that these actors do not reconsider a retreat to old habits lies on the legitimacy of 2019 elections.
Elections do not drive change; people do; elections are merely the vehicle to recruit the right human resources to initiate change. Professor Yakubu must ensure that the process which allows us to hire those who can drive the process of change is transparent, free, fair and trustworthy. However, It will be foolhardy to expect that one man can singlehandedly perform a task meant for an institution, especially when that institution is structurally inadequate and inchoate to carry out such onerous responsibility. As sincere as the INEC Chairman would want to be, he would need help. Evidently, that help is likely not going to come from political actors of both strands (ruling party and the opposition). What then do we do? Nigerians must consciously decide that in the face of the likely complicity of political gladiators to take advantage of the weak structures of the INEC, only collaboration with and ownership of the INEC boss will guarantee success. Let me explain!
As the 2015 elections gathered steam, Jega found himself isolated. He could not count on many members within the INEC for apparent reasons. They had sold out to politicians -Professor Yakubu’s bold hand over of 220 staff members of INEC for trial over their roles in trying to sabotage 2015 elections confirms this claim. The main actors in the political drama (PDP and APC) had already taken positions against him. To the APC, Jega was going to act out the script of his “paymasters “, those who appointed him, while to the PDP, Jega was a sectional irredentist bent on imposing his “Fulani “kin as president. Jega’s only respite was the support he got from the Nigerian Civil Society base and millions of Nigerians. This support allowed Jega to see the process to its conclusion. His close associates tell stories of how close he came to quitting the job, but for the support he got.
If Nigerians are indeed ready for a better experience at the polls in 2019, nothing less is expected of them regarding support for the INEC Chairman. Nigerians must own the INEC boss and firmly assure him of their support. The signs are rife that the political class will do what they know best-sabotage the system to gain an unfair advantage. A hint of what is to come is the criminal, callous and irresponsible local government elections that different states are conducting. These elections, constitutionally the responsibilities of State Independent Electoral Commissions, have become a denigrating poster-child of the modest gains of our democracy. The videos of suckling minors unashamedly being goaded to vote by older folks in the Kano local government elections is the culmination of the tyranny of political actors over our electoral system.
Although not within the remit of the INEC, Professor Yakubu has taken the bold step to investigate the tragedy. This is where Nigerians must step to the plate. There is no magic to detecting underage voters without the support of local communities. Just yesterday, INEC handed over the voters register to the 68 political parties in Nigeria. Nigerians must have access to this register and begin the process of fishing out the underage and illegal entrants into the records. Yes, even aliens have found their way into our voter’s register. In Ogun state alone, the National Immigration Service have retrieved 75 PVCs from nationals of Benin Republic, in Lagos, about 36 PVCs were retrieved and in Borno, close to 40. This trend is noticeable in every part of Nigeria.
Nigerians must be willing to pay the only price that liberty demands: vigilance. Vigilance to be able to sift the chaff from substance especially as the political class begin to rent the air with the foul smell of dangerous and repulsive propaganda against the electoral umpire. In this mission, all manners of conspiracies primarily targeted at de-legitimizing the electoral system will be spurn. Some of these contrivances will play up the socio-political and ethno-religious constructs that have always been potent in dividing the nation. However, Nigerians can and should be smarter than the portrayal that politicians envisage. As these forces of demagoguery gather to continue once again the affliction of the masses that has constituted the means to the sustenance of the survival of the elite class, Nigerians outside this class structure must now combine and form a bulwark against the hijack of the electoral process. To achieve this, INEC in general but Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in particular, must be given a groundswell of support to succeed.
Written by Dr Chima Amadi, a 2016 Chevening scholar in the Department of Government of the London School of Economics and the Executive Director of the Centre for Transparency Advocacy
@AMADICHIMA
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