That Mischievous ‘Don’t Vote, Go To Jail’ Bill!

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Nigerian politicians are a funny lot who have perfected the inelegant art of majoring in minor things, which explains why, at a time like this when the country is at a socio-economic and political crossroads, the House of Representatives is going around chasing rats while the house – Nigeria – is on fire.

Their puerile antics reminds me of the July 13, 2000 book, This House Has Fallen: Midnight in Nigeria, by Karl Maier which chronicled the problems threatening Nigeria’s existence. “We… ignore Nigeria at our peril,” Maier, a London Independent correspondent stationed in Africa for more than a decade, admonished the world. Sadly, 25 years thence, those problems are not only still prevalent but have, indeed, become metastatic cancer.

And so, rather than address Nigeria’s existential threats, the National Assembly is chasing shadows, wasting scarce resources on frivolities that neither add value to Nigerians nor promote good governance.

On May 15, a bill seeking to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting compulsory scaled second reading in the House of Representatives. First introduced in February by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, the proposed legislation, which has been referred to the House Committee on Electoral Matters for further legislative action, includes a provision for a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to N100,000 for failure to vote during elections as an antidote to low voter turnout, which Abbas claimed undermines democratic institutions.

It is harebrained to think that making voting a legal obligation will promote public accountability. To be sure, Nigeria’s electoral democracy is imperiled and Nigerians’ enthusiasm has waned significantly. Since return to democracy in 1999, voter turnout has progressively plummeted, reaching its lowest point in 2023 with only 26.72 percent voter turnout. Out of the total 93.47 million registered voters, only 24.9 million voted in the Presidential and National Assembly elections, representing one in four registered voters. That was an 8.03 percent decline compared to the voter turnout of 34.74 percent in 2019.

Even in 1999 when enthusiasm ought to be at its lowest ebb given the fact that the military had taken Nigerians for a ride for too long and many were not convinced that they had truly turned the corner even with the death of General Sani Abacha, 29.8 million Nigerians voted in the presidential election that ushered in President Olusegun Obasanjo. Yet, 24 years after, only 24 million voted, representing a drop of 5.8 million.

The highest turnout was in 2003 when 39 million people — representing 69.08 percent of registered voters — cast their ballots. Since then, the percentage turnout has been on a downward spiral: 57.54 per cent in 2007, 53.68 per cent in 2011, 43.65 per cent in 2015 and 34.75 per cent in 2019. The absolute numbers rose from 35.4 million in 2007 to 38.2 million in 2011 but have been dropping since then: 28.6 million in 2015, 27.3 million in 2019 and 24 million in 2023.

So, there is clearly an issue that should worry every well-meaning Nigerian. But any altruistic effort to address the problem must start with answering the all-important question: what went wrong? How is it that a people who waged an existential battle against the military to usher in democracy have suddenly become lethargic?

Truth be told, the people have lost confidence in the potency of the ballot. Why should anyone bother to vote when the votes don’t count? What incentive is there for anyone to risk going out to vote in an environment where electoral officials and citizens are killed or kidnapped by thugs and where politicians make the environment for elections a war theatre with voter suppression and violence being the hallmark of political astuteness?

Indubitably, addressing low voter turnout is crucial to strengthening the quality and substance of democracy but it will be tantamount to putting the cart before the horse if the causative factors driving voter apathy – insecurity, electoral violence, voter suppression, lack of trust in the election management body and poor governance – are not addressed first. Twenty-six years after the return of democracy, rather than strengthening and deepening it, politicians are busy dismantling its guardrails with reckless abandon.

So why would any Nigerian bother to vote when the votes won’t count? The voter is shortchanged at every stage. At the polling booth, he is bullied and humiliated and even when he manages to vote, the umpire announces results quite at variance with the votes cast. As if that is not bad enough, at the end, the courts, not the votes of the electorate, decide who gets elected, a process Professor Chidi Odinkalu, former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, calls “judicial selectorate.” And few months after, elected officials whimsically trade off their party’s mandates as was the case in Delta State and the legion of lawmakers joining the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, with very scant regard to the political parties that propelled them into office.

Ultimately, the idea of democracy is to promote common good and the primary function of government is to ensure the safety and well-being of its citizens. Nigerians are seeing little or no democracy dividends – political, economic, social and legal. So what incentive is there to vote in 2027?

It is obvious that the National Assembly is on a wild goose chase, a voyage of mischief with this vexatious bill which flies in the face of reason and law, a point which the Nigerian Bar Association eloquently made last Tuesday when it dismissed the effort as unconstitutional and draconian and a blatant violation of civil liberties and democratic principles.

“In a democracy, voting is a civil liberty, not a legal obligation. Compelling citizens to vote through coercive measures infringes on their fundamental rights,” the NBA said in a statement by its President, Afam Osigwe. “Compelling individuals to vote, regardless of their faith in the electoral process or the choices available, violates their personal convictions and political freedoms… Democracy thrives on consent, participation, and trust, not coercion. Forcing citizens to vote under threat of imprisonment undermines the essence of free and fair elections,” the group further said.

Speaker Abbas and his co-travellers know that the quickest way to solve the problem of voter apathy is to give the people a reason to believe by addressing the evils of electoral violence, outright rigging and ‘go to court’ ridicule, not by criminalising non-participation in an electoral process plagued by mistrust, insecurity and systemic flaws, because to do so will amount to double jeopardy for the longsuffering and much abused electorate. As NBA rightly noted, “Nigeria’s democracy requires trust, transparency, accountability, and inclusive reform.”

By attempting to criminalise voter apathy, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas is being smart by half. It is not an act borne out of altruism or originating from concern for common good, independently of personal benefit. Instead, it is a cold political calculation with the ultimate goal of legitimising fraud. He knows that low voter turn out robs those in authority legitimacy. President Bola Tinubu garnered only 8,794,726 votes, a fraction of the 93.47 million registered voters, and only 37 percent of the 24.9 million that actually voted. He has no national mandate to govern, which explains the legitimacy crisis that has dogged his administration in the last two years.

This is the malady that Abbas wants to cure with this bill. To be sure, he is not interested in credible, free and fair polls in 2027. If anything, the 2027 elections will be worse than 2023. After all, voters from a section of the country have been warned beforehand not to bother coming out to vote on Election Day in some parts of the country unless they will vote for particular political tendencies. It will be a miracle if the voter turnout in 2027 exceeds 15 percent unless consequential steps are taken to restore the integrity of the electoral system. Abbas knows that he and his colleagues are doing nothing to fix the country’s broken electoral process. So, the idea of the bill is to cajole Nigerians to vote so that the weak mandate stigma will be circumvented.

But it won’t be as easy as he thinks. If he insists on making a law that will make voting a legal obligation, he should also strive to make law(s) before the 2027 elections that will make the votes count. If not, the Tinubu government should build more prisons to accommodate the millions of otherwise eligible voters, including my humble self, who have decided to become conscientious objectors in 2027.

*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com)