When will Nigerian elections be believable? By Tonnie Iredia

From history, it is easy to find reports on early Nigerian elections which reflected some high degree of crudity which were enough to convince everyone that even those declared as winners were themselves not persuaded that they went through what looked like an election. In those days, politicians won elections by pouring acid into the ballot boxes of their opponents because at that time everyone had his own ballot box. At other times, some candidates were returned unopposed because their thugs had kidnapped all available opponents that were released only after winners had been declared. It was therefore not surprising that many Nigerians did not believe in their country’s elections. We had imagined that with time, such weird incidents would naturally disappear to make it possible for the country to conduct credible elections.  But then, faith in our elections till today has remained weak.

The belief that the main problem of Nigeria’s election is located within its successive electoral bodies was also popular for long but it is also becoming clear that the belief is simplistic. This is because many other elections organized by ordinary groups and associations have also failed. During the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a rift ensued within the powerful Nigerian Governors’ Forum NGF which had 36 members only. The government of the day sided with one of the two groups that wanted to lead the NGF. At the end of the election, one candidate had 16 votes and the other had 19 while one member declined to vote. The government openly recognised the faction that had 16 votes establishing beyond reasonable doubt that even at the level of government, belief in elections was not a straight forward business. It was not about who scored the majority of votes, it was instead about whom the government preferred and was willing to relate with.

Again, because the NGF election was not conducted by INEC, we have to be careful about our continued belief that the only problem with a Nigerian election is attributable to the nation’s electoral commission. This argument stands strong when it is realized that the recent Nigerian Bar Association election has been described to be as bad as that of our general elections. Lateef Akangbe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria SAN and first runner-up in the election had said the NBA election was ‘shambolic’ insisting that the NBA must first address its own electoral shortcomings before demanding electoral accountability from public institutions. As for Olumuyiwa Akinboro, another SAN and also a presidential candidate, ‘the last NBA election was the worst so far because within 30 minutes of the commencement of the election, the site had crashed. Akinboro and other critics listed other problems with the election.

Considering that in the past there were many articulate lawyers who imagined that persons dissatisfied with the conduct of general elections were bad losers, is any analyst free to call losers at the recent NBA elections bad losers. Otherwise, we must now begin to listen to those who are dissatisfied with any election with a view to finding out what went wrong with the claims they are raising. Some people were disappointed with the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria as it developed inexplicable glitches. Many believed it was the handiwork of hackers; now that the NBA election has also had glitches, is it not time to examine what is causing glitches in our elections? There is no reason why an otherwise reputable body like the NBA cannot study and expose the causes of the election glitches.  If not, some conspiracy theorists may attribute the NBA’s election glitches to politicians who want to use it to stop lawyers from further comments on election glitches and hackers in Nigeria.

There is indeed, the need to further isolate our election challenges because it is getting clearer by the day that INEC cannot deal with some of the issues at stake. One of it is that INEC itself seems to be in chains. To start with, the commission’s overrated independence does not include financial autonomy. Although the law says the electoral body should get its approved funds ahead of elections, huge segments are never released until well after the election. For the 2023 elections held around February and March, some funds were not released to INEC until well after the elections in September. Only a few days ago, Joas Amupitan, chairman of the commission restated the obvious that although the Constitution places INEC’s funding on the Consolidated Revenue Fund, “experience has shown that as long as INEC remains subject to the normal appropriation process and depends on budgetary approvals by other institutions, genuine financial independence remains difficult.”

There is also the issue of several roles which certain laws require INEC to play in the game of elections. It would have been an easy exercise if all that INEC is required to do is to serve as a referee of the game; but it is more than that.  For example, INEC is also to midwife the political parties which is more than the role of a referee. In other words, unlike most other election management bodies, INEC, is required by law to serve as a type of coach to assist every team in the contest to prepare those to make its list of players. This is a very difficult role because politicians unlike INEC do not bother about due process. All they want is to insist on their preferences which may breach certain laws or guidelines. As a result, INEC finds itself carrying part of the blame of defective internal democracy.

The major problem for INEC, is that she is often penalized for issues arising from faulty internal democracy. For instance, in Osun state where a governorship election is due in 3 weeks, a High Court has just ordered INEC to include another political party in the ballot after ballot papers had already been printed. It is not only the task of reprinting ballot papers that is difficult, it is destabilizing for the commission to be facing such a task on the eve of election. From the way the rulings are made, it does not appear that anyone takes note of the impact of last-minute court rulings on the electoral body. The approved budget for an election can certainly not fully accommodate unexpected events. At the same time, can we with our poor economy justify the wastes arising from late cancellation of already printed ballot papers?

The way out appears to rest with the legislature to bring about needed reforms that can position INEC to perform excellently. The major problem with that line of thought is that not many have fully realized how our law-making body has failed to help society. Many of our lawmakers do not even fully appreciate their mandate. When we clamour for change occasionally, they come out with an amendment that takes the public far backwards – a good example being the handling of the public request for electronic transmission of election results. What really motivates the legislators is quite hard to comprehend because at a point while amending the Electoral Act, they disenfranchised themselves without knowing. Consequently, legislators who could have saved the day are different from their predecessors who bothered about the interests of their constituencies.

What we have said so far can be misunderstood to mean that nothing is wrong with INEC itself. Such a perspective is however far from the position of this column. The truth is that everything that goes wrong with any election has an INEC insider collaborator. The most problematic is the presence of politicians in the commission in breach of the law. So, within INEC, everyone is minding his business because none is sure of the exact mission of his neighbour. The implication of this is that INEC lacks uniformity in operating procedures because insiders have divergent goals just as there is no unity of direction as everyone has his own destination.

For a long time to come, it would be difficult to persuade Nigerians to have faith in INEC. Each time a new commission is constituted, we get assurances of a new beginning. But when looked at critically, what we hear is hardly different from what we heard from those who failed while they were there. Can we blame those who keep calling for help from outside? Those calls are unpatriotic but where are our patriots? Quite often, we are told that this time around, BVAs will work; and we believe, only to realize at the end of every exercise that the BVAs that were to work were not even available. INEC should perform and leave assurances alone.   

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