By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa
“Truth must
be told, the non-transmission of results to the IReV portal may also reduce the
confidence of the voting population in the electoral process.” – Hon Justice Inyang Okoro, Justice of the
Supreme Court of Nigeria.
These are words on marble, coming from the highest court of the land. They simply summarise the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the 2023 general election and they remain indelible marks on the record and history of the electoral umpire.
We have now gradually come to the reality of the bastardy of democracy. An institution established to strengthen democracy is daily eroding it, through crooked elections, dribbling tactics and electoral malfeasance.
Putting it very mildly, INEC has simply become a hindrance to the
search for democracy in Nigeria. It is moving dangerously to sink the
democratic ship that many Nigerians have paid the highest price for, with their
liberties and their lives.
This is not peculiar to Nigeria though as so many other African
countries have such other fanciful entities similar to INEC in the name
electoral umpire, as the means of perpetuating themselves in office. When the
people can no longer tolerate the riggings and manipulations, they resort to
armed struggles and at the end of it, coup d’etat.
Why is credible election important for democracy? Good governance and
accountability, for if a leader is only to emerge through the verdict of the
people freely delivered at the polls without any form of manipulation, he will
be on his toes while in office in order to escape the wrath of voters.
If elections are free and fair, no political party will take
voters for granted by conducting sham primary elections, imposing candidates on
its members and the people. And where people are allowed to choose their
leaders freely, the government in power will hold itself accountable to the
electorate.
But because of INEC and its voodoo elections, we have ‘leaders’
who consider themselves as emperors, leaders who oppress those who are supposed
to have voted them into office and who go without due regard for
accountability. What My Lord Justice Okoro is saying is that election is not
and cannot be about figures alone.
That is why we talk about free, fair and credible elections. The
credibility of any elections is in its transparency, secrecy and accessibility.
Once the people have lost confidence in the electoral process, any candidate
emerging from such flawed contraption cannot truly claim to have the legitimacy
of the people. Two major areas of concern for the people of Nigeria for the
2023 election were the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System,
BVAS and INEC Result Viewing Portal, iREV.
BVAS is a device that facilitates the identification and
accreditation of voters whilst iREV is an online portal where unit-level
results are uploaded directly from the polling unit, transmitted and available
for public monitoring. It is to help secure election results and guarantee the
sanctity of votes.
Accreditation of voters and election results are the two main
areas of election rigging and manipulation. In times past before BVAS was
introduced, it was possible for politicians to hijack the process of
accreditation to their own selfish advantage.
INEC has been involved in the conduct of elections for an unbroken
period of twenty years on, from 1999 to 2019. It would seem however that there
is still a lot to do to get the electoral umpire moving.
For sure, INEC is the only statutory body authorised to organise
or conduct elections in Nigeria, in respect of certain offices created by the
Constitution. INEC is one of the federal executive agencies of the State
established under section 153 (1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, with its
functions stated in paragraph 15 of the Third Schedule of the said
Constitution.
Under and by virtue of paragraph 14 of the said Third Schedule,
the Chairman of INEC should be at least forty years old, he must be
non-partisan, he must not be a member of a political party and he must be a
person of unquestionable integrity.
By law, the major functions of INEC are to: organise, undertake
and supervise all elections into major positions of national importance as
stated in the Constitution; register political parties; monitor the
organisation and operation of the political parties, including their finances,
conventions, congresses and party primaries; arrange and conduct the
registration of persons qualified to vote and prepare, maintain and revise the
register of voters for the purpose of any election; monitor political campaigns
and provide rules and regulations which shall govern the political parties.
From all the above, INEC is the alpha and omega of major elections
in Nigeria. This is further confirmed by section 158 (1) of the Constitution
which states that INEC shall not be subject to the direction or control of any
other authority or person.
In plain language, the Constitution has set out to establish an
electoral body that is truly independent, because of the unique roles that INEC
has to play in the emergence of leaders across the land. Statutorily and
financially therefore, the goal is to make INEC a self-accounting body, in
order to guarantee its independence and impartiality. But this has not been the
case at all, over the years.
Confidence involves trust, reliance and faith that one will act in a right,
proper or effective way, it mirrors certainty that something will be done as
stated or as expected. It goes to the root of credibility, especially when
there are competing forces and there is need for someone or an entity to stand
in the place of the examiner or umpire.
If the referee in the football match, in the boxing arena and
indeed all other sports cannot be trusted to act fairly, then the contest
cannot be said to be fair. Political parties and their candidates are usually
invited by INEC to jostle for certain positions of leadership, they are to
convince the people and seek their mandate to be elected to represent them. If
that process of emergence cannot be depended upon, if the umpire cannot be
trusted, then we cannot in good conscience claim to have a contest. Now let us
relate all these with the 2023 general election.
INEC postponed the election at the very last minute, at dawn.
There were too many challenges associated with the registration of voters and
issuance and collection of the permanent voter’s cards, which indeed should be
the foundation of any electoral success. There was some form of disconnect
between INEC and the voters, in terms of voter education and information,
especially in relation to the collection of the voter’s cards.
The procedure was unduly bureaucratic, unwieldy and frustrating.
You just have to keep going and going, at times for many days on end. With the
resources committed to this exercise, there is no reason why any voter should
have been denied this basic entitlement. The frustrations associated with
election and voting in Nigeria make it unattractive to get involved in the
process of leadership recruitment through the ballot.
When there is a breach of public confidence due to failure to fulfill promises
made, there must be consequences otherwise there will be no change. One of the
reasons for imposing penalty for infractions of the law is to achieve
deterrence so that the pains, discomfort and inconveniences suffered for past
offences will serve to discourage their repetition or continuance. Presently,
it is business as usual for INEC.
The same iREV portal that failed in the past elections is still
being marketed by INEC for the off-cycle elections coming up in November. INEC
has allowed politicians turn election into some kind of ritual, whereby you
cannot participate decently in the process unless you agree to do it their own
way.
The declaration of Hon Justice Inyang Okoro is sufficient for the
INEC Chairman to either resign or be relieved of his office. You cannot
continue to supervise a system that you cannot improve upon for the good of the
nation. In this regard, the only reason that the Tinubu administration will
continue to retain the current chairman of INEC is if it seeks to profit from
the failures of that organisation.
Free, fair and credible elections constitute the foundation of
democracy and no democrat can lay claim to that title if he cannot bequeath a
legacy of electoral reforms. The President needs to act urgently to initiate
genuine electoral reforms that will satisfy the tenets of democracy.
Unbunbling INEC
INEC is simply too large, like an octopus without direction. The
responsibilities imposed upon the organization by law are too enormous and
indeed cumbersome. Non-election related matters such as registration of voters,
distribution of voter’s cards, creation and delimitation of constituencies,
registration of political parties, monitoring political campaigns, observing
party primary elections, funding elections, etc should be undertaken by a
different entity from INEC.
For instance, under the Electoral Act, 2022, political parties are
required to conduct primary elections for all elective offices and these must
be monitored by INEC.
To achieve this, there will be elections at the wards to determine
their representatives. Where on earth will INEC have the manpower and fund to
achieve the task of monitoring these elections across Nigeria? And the same
INEC is to attend and observe the campaigns of political parties and track
their funding?
Observing the behavioural patterns of INEC leaders, from the
Chairman to the Resident Electoral Commissioners at least, it is easy to notice
some semblance of highhandedness, with the impression of lord and master, as if
holding the rest of us to some kind of ransom. With the present INEC, we will
only move round in circles.
*Adegboruwa
is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)
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