By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
As the November 11, 2023, governorship elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states draw close, widespread and justifiable concerns continue to mount about the capacity and willingness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to organize free, credible and transparent polls to gratify the deep yearnings of the people to be allowed to exercise their constitutional right to choose their own governor.
Given the very demoralizing performance posted by INEC in the last general elections earlier in the year, whose glaring evidences are showing their egregious faces at the various Election Petitions Tribunals across the country, the people have every reason to be very apprehensive and distrustful of INEC under the leadership of Prof Mahmood Yakubu.
Many
consider the last elections as the worst and most wasteful in Nigeria’s
history. The commission was provided with all the legal and material resources
it required to succeed and change the country’s unedifying history of marred
elections, but it, sadly, chose to fail woefully and shatter the cherished
expectations of the people.
Before
the elections, INEC had gone all out to convince Nigerians that election
results would be electronically transmitted to the IREV (the INEC online
viewing portal) from the polling stations. It even went to the National
Assembly to secure amendments in the Electoral Law to make electronic
transmission of results mandatory. And despite stiff oppositions from
remorseless rigging enablers, the commission was able to get what it wanted and
there were wild jubilations among patriotic Nigerians at home and abroad.
When
doubts began to be entertained by many people about the sincerity and capacity
of INEC to do what is right for which it has secured the requisite legal
empowerment, the commission came out severally to reassure Nigerians that the
elections results must be electronically transmitted. It continued to stress
the fact that it was bound by law to do so.
The
advantages of electronic transmission were heartwarming. The instances of
ballot-snatching and alteration of results which usually occurred between the
polling units and the collation centres would be eliminated as the elections
would electronically arrive at the INEC’s IREV even before everybody had left
the voting centres. The process appeared so transparent that many Nigerians
were convinced that even before the whole election results had been uploaded,
Nigerians can stay in the comfort of their homes and treat themselves to the
exciting game of predicting the winners.
There would
not have been any more opportunity for some unpatriotic fellows with primeval
mindsets to hide at what they call “collation centres” to concoct figures and
announce the highest payers as “winners.” Indeed, no hoodlum would have been
able again to attack INEC staff as they conveyed the result sheets to the
“collation centres” to hijack and alter the records. The whole process would
have been so transparent that losers would easily accept defeat and all the
costs invested in the execution of election tribunals which have only ended up
inflicting irreparable damage on the judiciary would have been avoided. Who really
is afraid of transparency?
With this assurance drummed into the minds of Nigerians, the optimism that Nigeria was at last joining civilized countries to jettison the old, primitive style of conducting elections in favour of a more modern and reliable system overwhelmed the polity. The excitement was such that several Nigerians abroad deployed their hard earned money to return home to participate in what they considered the first elections in their country that would truly reflect the wishes of the people. These Nigerians were excitedly posting on the social media pictures of themselves in several countries boarding aircraft and heading home to have a taste of the unfolding wholesome and edifying democratic process that would liberate Nigeria from the grip of mostly imposed, medieval sole administrators.
But, sadly, Prof Yakubu and his INEC had other plans for these Nigerians and all of us. It would seem that while INEC was busy raising the hopes of Nigerians, it was also quietly devising the most primitive and painful way to dash them. We were soon fed with the absurd, preposterous tale that in two elections held the same day and with the same equipment, it was possible for the national assembly results to be uploaded on the INEC viewing portal (IREV) while that of the presidential election could not be put up due to what INEC called “glitches.”
And this lame excuse helped the callous and retrogressive characters at INEC to
muster the audacity to execute this shattering volte-face and resurrect the
long discredited manual collation of results which gives room for all kinds of
crude manipulations. By this singular action, the commission brutally disabled
the capacity of Nigerians to monitor the elections and flagrantly destroyed the
credibility of the whole process. I wonder if anyone would be able to trust
INEC again even after its current chairman had left office with a badly tainted
record!
In a
decent country, Prof Yakubu and his INEC should have been probed to explain how
with the humongous sum of N105 billion allocated for the execution of the
electronic transmission of results, they simply ended up taking Nigerians back
to the stone-age kind of elections. But Yakubu understands the game very well.
He knows that the beneficiaries of the manipulated process, once they are in
power, will never be able to muster the effrontery to call him to account. He also
knows that the Nigerian judiciary has long largely lost its esteem, courage and
ability to deliver quality judgments and so would easily lend its stamp of approval
to the flagrant abuse of process and brazen disobedience of the extant laws
governing the conduct of elections which INEC had already decided to adopt as a
guiding principle during the elections.
By now,
instead of encumbering the public space with his unwelcome presence labouring
to assure Nigerians who no longer believe him that the governorship elections
results in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states will be electronically transmitted and
that there won’t be any “glitches”, he should have been telling a court (which
court, by the way?) how he spent over N300 billion to conduct this kind of outrageously
sham elections.
By the
way, so, Prof Yakubu is able to know when there will be “glitches” in an
election and when they would not occur? Does it mean then that these glitches
(so-called) occur at the discretion and behest of the INEC chairman and that he
has decided that they won’t occur in the coming off-season elections? And why
should we believe a man who once lied outrageously to us?
I am
particularly interested in the governorship election in Imo State this Saturday
and I think that if Yakubu wants Imo people to accept his reassurances, he
should reshuffle his staff and bring in credible people that are capable of
securing the people’s trust. It would be recalled that of all the governorship
elections conducted across Nigeria in March, it was only in Abia State that
spontaneous celebrations erupted and enveloped the whole state after the
governor-elect was announced.
The
Returning Officer in that election, Professor Nnenna Oti, who is also the Vice
Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, (FUTO) told the world that
she had to resist tremendous pressures from Abuja in order to announce the
correct results in Abia State. Instead of wasting his breath reassuring Imo
people who no longer believe him, he should bring Prof Oti to repeat the
transparent process she executed in Abia. This will even help Yakubu and his badly
discredited INEC to infuse some bit of credibility into their work which they
need badly now.
I always
find it insulting to imagine that a bunch of atavistic “king makers” would stay
in one air-conditioned room somewhere and impose unacceptable leaders on
long-suffering people just because they occupy some public offices. Those who
have continued to do this with relish should realize that they have already
overtasked the patience of the people. It could burst soon. Decency demands
that people are allowed to choose whom they want to be their leader.
Now, come
to think about it, even the much touted BVAS which eventually failed Nigerians
is, in my opinion, an unduly costly process. With fewer funds, INEC can even
conduct a totally paperless election. All it would take is simply a programmed
machine (which could be a laptop) with its screen displaying the names and
images of candidates. And once somebody touches his thumb on his preferred candidate’s
image, it will automatically register in the machine and reflect 0n the IREV
where it will be recorded as vote for the person. As simple as that! But will the
bankrupt entities at INEC and the election-rigging enthusiasts among the
political class allow this very simple but transparent process to happen?
I am not
going to vote in Saturday’s election because I was not registered in Imo State.
But what is clear is that Imo people are tired of leaders imposed on them from
outside to execute external interests that are mostly detrimental to Imo
people’s welfare. All I am concerned about is for the people to be allowed to
get a leader they want and would vote for on Saturday.
Prof
Yakubu should, therefore, bring Prof Nnenna Oti to repeat what she did in Abia.
Fortunately, she can even remain in her FUTO base and report for work at the
INEC state office. So, her deployment would not attract any undue cost to INEC.
Unless,
like in the previous elections, Prof Yakubu and his INEC have some other
motives.
*Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye, a Nigerian Journalist and Writer, is the author of the book, "Nigeria: Why Looting May Not Stop". (scruples2006@yahoo.com)
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*This article was first published in Daily Sun, Nov 8, 2023 and Vanguard November 9, 2023
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