By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Published: December 23, 2008
Finally, after 15 months of consultations, brainstorming and hard deliberations, Justice Mohammed Uwais and his colleagues on the Electoral Reforms Panel, have submitted their report to the man who set up the committee, President Umaru Yar’Adua.
The 22-member Committee, made up of eminent Nigerians, men and women who have excelled in all fields of human endeavour, was inaugurated on August 28, 2007, with a mandate to find solution to the country’s debilitating electoral problems. They were initially told to complete their assignment in 12 months, but when they came back to ask for extension, Yar’Adua obliged them and there was no murmur from the people.
At the end of the day, the Committee made some recommendations which, many believe, will change the face of electoral politics in Nigeria. They recommended for the independence and unbundling of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the State Independent electoral Commissions (SIECs); creation of Electoral Offences Commission (EOC); adoption of independent candidacy and proportional representation in the legislature. In their view, there is an urgent need to review the composition, administrative autonomy and funding of the electoral umpire. Because they contend that INEC’s responsibilities are unwieldy, they recommended that some of the excess load be lifted off its fragile shoulders, lest, it collapses under the weight. To achieve this, Uwais and his fellow wise men think that the jobs of constituency delimitation and political parties’ registration should be handled by Commissions distinct from INEC.
Finally, realising that most of these issues are constitutional, they came up with three draft bills on amendment of the 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act 2006.
Many Nigerians believe that the panel did a good job. Nothing less was expected from them, though. They were painstaking in carrying out their assignment. Not only did they consult widely with individuals, organizations, governments at all levels, they received 1,466 memoranda from both within and outside the country and also embarked on extensive public hearing in 12 states from which they received 907 presentations.
Uwais himself was upbeat. The recommendations, if accepted and implemented, “Will significantly restore credibility to the Nigerian electoral process and usher in an era of free, fair and credible elections that will conform with international best practices,” he enthused.
I agree with him that the recommendations are profound enough and that if faithfully implemented by the government, they would work. But I am using the world “faithfully” advisedly because I doubt if the government, not just Yar’Adua’s but indeed any government in Nigeria run by the same politicians to whom election rigging is a way of life, can muster the political will to do what is needed.
I have argued severally here that election malpractice has become a thriving industry in this country because there is no sanction against the crime. In fact, on the contrary, it is a highly rewarding enterprise. And to divert attention from the real issues, the politicians who are the major culprits in this malfeasance are playing the blame game by insisting that INEC is the main problem. But the panel’s report is not about INEC, it is about us – Nigerians.
Of course, there is no gainsaying that some unscrupulous INEC officials collude with politicians to rig elections but they are always corrupted by members of the political class.
To focus attention, solely, on INEC is therefore deceitful because the political environment determines how an electoral umpire carries out its constitutional responsibility. And it is the politicians and the people themselves that create the political environment. Perhaps, that was what Uwais was hinting at when he said that “mindsets are part of the elements that determine the success of election practices and the mindset of Nigerians are not only generally negative but also irrational.” I cannot agree less with him.
Many Nigerian politicians have hailed Ghanaians and their sure-footed democratic steps. But the hypocrites that they are, they have deliberately failed to point out that credit for the successful and peaceful polls does not belong to Dr Kwado Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the electoral Commission of Ghana (ECG) alone but to the entire Ghana political class. If the outgoing President, John Kuffour had behaved like former President Olusegun Obasanjo who saw election as a “do-or-die” affair, the story would have been different.
In Ghana, the Presidential candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, was less than one percent short of victory, yet, he conceded to a re-run. He did not organize thugs to snatch ballot boxes. He did not induce members of the electoral commission to inflate his figures. For him, Ghanaian masses, to whom power belongs, the same people that he will use the power he is seeking to serve, have spoken and loudly too. If they wanted, they would have given him the Constitutional 50+1 percent of the votes which would have made him a president. In their wisdom, they wanted a re-run and so be it.
He did not invoke the name of God. In Ghana, just like in many other countries that have taken their destiny in their own hands, they know that power does not come from God. It comes from the people who, in turn, give it to whoever they please to superintend over their affairs.
If power actually comes from God, who now gives it to whomever He pleases, in the sense that dubious Nigerian politicians cynically say it, why then are people asked to come out and vote during elections? We may well have left the choice to God, who in any case does not need man’s help in executing His divine mandates.
Those who have hailed Ghana’s election, lambasting INEC and its officials in the process come back home and conduct worse elections in the name of council polls. More than 500 people were slaughtered in Jos and property worth billions of naira destroyed. In Ekiti, almost the entire Nigerian police were deployed to the state before local government election could be held. All these happening after the same politicians have hypocritically hailed Ghanaians and claiming that Nigeria is about to turn the corner!
Why is it that the average Nigerian politician seeks to corrupt the political environment at all times? Uwais panel recommended independent candidacy which is the norm in most democratic societies. The idea is that a man who has an idea of how to run a society and who feels very strongly about his conviction is not denied the right of bringing such ideas to the table simply because he has no political platform. But in other countries, running for the presidency is a serious issue that should not be trivialised. Not in Nigeria. If it becomes part of our law that independent candidates can run for elections, there may be more than 1000 presidential candidates in 2011. That is the way we are.
To lose election in Nigeria is seen as a crime. Even those whose dubious election victories are annulled by tribunals take their case to supra-national judicial bodies like the ECOWAS Court of Appeal that have no jurisdiction whatsoever. Why is it impossible for the average Nigerian politician to say at the end of an election that the people have spoken and I rest my case?
It is impossible because, it is not about service. All there is to seeking power in Nigeria is an opportunity for self-enrichment and only the removal of that incentive that exorcise the monster of election rigging in our body-politic. That no doubt informs the idea Electoral Offences Commission (EOC). But will that solve the problem? Isn’t there enough laws in our statute books to deal with the issue without creating another bureaucracy? If the law enforcement agents cannot prosecute electoral fraudsters now, what guaranty do we have that the EOC will force their hands?
Lastly, the idea that people should resign their jobs before contesting elections helps in fanning the embers of the do-or-die mentality. If a man takes a leave of absence to vie for public office, the level of desperation is drastically reduced if he knows that at the end of the day, if he is rejected at the polls, he has a job to go back to. If he is forced by the extant laws of the land to resign, then he must win or be ruined. That kills rather than promote democratic fervent.
