Nigerian Elections And Limits Of Opacity And Transparency

 By Victor C. Ariole

Opacity and transparency are two axes that the African governance processes are greatly undermining. Hence African governments are rarely trusted by their people as either opposition groups are clamped upon by force or litigations that call upon the judiciary to adjudicate upon are embarked on, and somehow ridicule the images of the “learned”, the bench and the bar as some adjudications show in Nigeria.

World over there are governance processes that warrant opacity and those that must be absolutely transparent and elections are one of those that must be absolutely transparent; however, in Nigeria, it is not so.

Opacity is allowed when majority of the people are not knowledgeable enough to understand the strategic content of what the government is doing like it is done in China where one-party state exist. Or, in places where the populaces are greatly illiterates like the Sahel regions as event elections are still opaque governance process as military impose forced governance or the president use the military to suppress opposition.

Nigeria must not be like them as majority of Nigerians are literate about election processes, and independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must spare Nigerians litigations that are outrightly engineered by the commission. Youth Corpers, lecturers and professors who, all, are research minded people involved in elections since 1999, ought to have been submitting reports that ought to help in reducing litigations in Nigeria’s elections. Objectivity, respect of processes, unbiased umpire, and outcomes that must be seen as carried out by such people should be the norm.

So, how could INEC ever convince Nigerians that about 0.5 Trillion was spend in conducting Nigerian election, and the basic test of why it must not incur judicial cost failed? Beyond the INEC Federal budget of over $350 billion, there are additional local costs, which one witnessed in the location I participated as a local umpire, though INEC refused to pay me any honorarium till the writing of this piece including the local incentives derive le. Count also the man-hour lost by Nigerians over 90 million employable Nigerians who had to spend days seeking to cast their votes and those who boycotted it but must remain indoor. If the average worth of a Nigerian GDP-wise is $2500 hence $7 per day, it means $630 million was lost every day election was conducted on Nigeria space.

So INEC had caused Nigeria to lose over N1 trillion for the two days of presidential and gubernatorial elections notwithstanding the appropriated sum it took.

So, where else to look for “419” activity if not in INEC and, what is more, I was surprised to observe that the BVAS and whatever joined it, came from just a given room address in an obscure town in China.

It is obvious that an elementary exercise like election placing great burden on Nigeria like it did, smarks of deliberate intention to make it opaque and for it to lack transparency as the first thing – polling booth result could not be assured of fraud free.

Indeed it is an indication on anyone that participated in the election and required great research input to see that it does not occur again just like the late President Yar’Adua observed, even as the beneficiary of such fraudulent exercise.

So, the in-coming President should assure the world – UN, EU, AU, ECOWAS observers who spend their man-hours intellect and finance thinking it could be transparent to expect an improved electoral process next time.

It is not a rocket science for God’s sake. The trajectory of results, starting from polling booths, through wards’ collection centers to local government collation to state collation centers are all dependent on the first level, polling booths and the BVAS and the IREV were meant to serve as “Primary Book of Entry” never to be faulted. Hellas, it failed.

Nobody is sure what happened till now, whether hacking, failure of technology or deliberate manipulation. In all, however, for the fact that the tools came from China, it is obvious that the “Architecture” of the electoral process is within the designer’s reach to make or mar, and it is beyond INEC. However, it is not an excuse for lack of expected intellectual surveillance from INEC.

This is where what happened in Abia state and Adamawa state ought to have happened at the Federal level; seven days interim to correct anomalies or to conduct run-offs in some areas.
It could have been more transparent than opaque as it is seen now. APC could have still won or not.

As it stands now, the discrepancy between what happened at the first election of Federal Constituency and the second of state constituency givens an impression of a great opaque maneuver comparable to magic performance of lynching people in Nigeria claiming that someone touched someone and removed his manhood.

It can only happened in Nigeria without transparently know sex replacement surgery like the one the son of Sade Adu went through to become a female.

So why should INEC not be called to account effectively for what happened to avoid travesty of justice?

*Ariole is Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Lagos.