Beyond the Uwais Committee’s Report
By Baba Aye
The Justice Mohammed Uwais-led committee of 22 distinguished Nigerians submitted its 297-page report to the Federation’s presidency, in the twilight of 2008. This was the culmination of its onerous task of positing the way forward to a credible electioneering process in Nigeria, which started in August, 2007, barely three months after Umar Yar’Adua was sworn-in as President, on the heels of one of the most farcical elections in the history of humankind. Shortly before the Uwais committee’s report was submitted, the outcome of that general election; which it seems had become a fait accompli anyway; had the supreme unction of the law anoint it in a four to three Justices’ upheld judgement read by Justice Niki Tobi, declaring the election of Umar Yar’Adua as the President of Nigeria and Nigerians, as valid, prim and proper. These two political and judicial events in December have much more than a symbolic relationship, bearing on elections. While the Supreme Court’s ruling settles the past electorally for Yar’Adua and Nigerians, the Electoral Reforms Committee’s report present recommendations to ensure, hopefully, that a Hobbessian state of elections would only be something in the political history of Nigeria, marking a period of immaturity of the country’s political elites. We shall however be concerned here with the Uwais Committee’s report; not being able to change the past we are constrained to engage more with that which is forward-looking, if our future is to be constructed – with the past though, as reference. Our concern properly put, would be more beyond the Electoral Reforms Committee to: situating it in our body polity’s history and; underscoring issues beyond, actually before elections, such as the dearth of discourse, which engender the blandly roguish hues that colour Nigeria’s electoral politics.
Why would a President who was the beneficiary of a nationally and globally condemned charade of a general election, which even he admitted was filled with irregularities to say the least, include electoral reforms in his much touted Seven-point agenda and set up a committee charged with identifying means for the reform of elections –the sort which brought him to power – to boot? And why would he do this within less than three months of his ascension to power? It could not be a matter of a penitent heart, surely. As not a few commentators pointed out, if it were so; he could just as well have returned what was considered and despite the Supreme Court’s judgment is still considered by many, as a stolen mandate. The answer as Bob Dylan’s 1963 smashing song which Scorsese described as the anthem of the ‘60s civil rights movement puts it is; “blowin’ in the wind”.
We have to listen beyond the howling of the wind to hear the beats to which this government is dancing. It is the beat of manipulation of a national psyche as a technique of and for power. In the simplest of terms, Yar’Adua’s government had to institute legitimacy on the illegitimate birthmarks of April 21, 2007. At stake here, it must be pointed out was not just the legitimacy of Umaru Yar’Adua’s government. It was the competence, the “credibility” and political space for Nigeria’s political elites to further their grip on the state of a fallen house, which was being rebuilt, that was being questioned in the first civilian-to-civilian transition in the country. The very possibilities of a democratic project in Nigeria, on the basis of the agenda of its elites; had been posed as a possible impossibility. The “international community” realized this. Slowly but surely, from North America to the European Union wherefrom such bodies as the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute and the Max Ven der Berg-led EU Observation Mission, which had condemned the April elections farcical came, positions on Nigeria moved from condemnation of the election to an accommodation of its product. This move was further quickened with the reiterated commitment of the then emergent government’s commitment to the neo-liberal policies its predecessor had pursued
The pivotal task of regime-legitimation for the Third-and-half Republic (I always wonder why IBB’s evil-imperial diarchy is ever considered a Republic, really) after May 29, 2007 was not abroad as was the case for it at inception, after the military hiatus in our country. It was at home, its strategy innocuous as it seems; featured the Electoral Reforms Committee as the opening gambit of a “rule of law mantra” game on the chessboard of power it found itself. With these it sought a vitiation of its existence as much as its conception in sin; the sin of being “our” government without us as the Nigerian people seeing it as our own.
Accomplished and distinguished Nigerians representing constituencies of the “people” such as labour and “civil society”, professorial and technocratic men of letters, acumen and with unsoiled respect in their chosen fields or the eye of the public whose soul now had to be stolen after their votes had been, where constituted as the Electoral Reforms Committee. The Nigerian ruling elites’ fragile hegemony which was fragmented with the April elections was thus restored. Much more than any other thing, this in our view is what the Electoral Reforms Committee represents; a reassertion of the fragile Nigerian state’s rule, as it seeks its self-institutionalization, in the midst of its suicidal do-or-die power-mentality.
The recommendations of the committee’s reports are definitely critical for the institutionalization of electoralism in Nigeria. Its views on a number of issues such as the mechanism for the appointment of the INEC Chairperson, proportional representation, independent candidacy, state funding of parties and ‘Option A4’ are largely progressive, at this juncture of our national polity. Quite a few insightful analyses of these recommendations have been made by commentators. We will just add here on the ‘Option A4’ that it goes beyond being an ‘open-secret ballot’ method as INEC seems to put it across as simply being, at a workshop shortly before the Uwais committee’s report was submitted. The beauty of the option –despite faults in it, as well – lie in ensuring that partisan engagement within the parties right from their basic cells precede the parties’ selection of alternatives to present to the electorate. While that can be no guarantee for deepening of discourse and with it the strengthening of participatory practice, it does present a possible avenue for popularising or at the very least diffusing the power-engagements that generate electoral slates. This will contribute to our quest as a nation for the establishment of a democratic ethos.
How far the Yar’Adua government will be ready to enact the recommendations into law remains to be seen. Will the government of a party that has “prophesised” its hold on power for the next sixty years, be expected to have the will to institute a credible and transparent electoral process? What of the National Assembly and the bills submitted by the Uwais Committee which it would have to enact to turn the noble recommendations into binding law? It is with trepidation that any sane person would place his or her fate in the hope of enactment by a Senate that could dispense with just eight out of one hundred and twenty (that is 0.06%) bills, before it in 2008. Matters are not helped by the sneaky suspicions of most Nigerians that not a few of the country’s legislators are beneficiaries of electoral malpractices.
The nation as also been alerted that, powerful vested interests-bearing “charlatans” within and outside the state apparatus tried to influence the work of the Committee and might be inclined to frustrate its recommendations enthronement. These charlatans are elites caught up in the maelstrom of a contradiction between their immediate, tactical, partisan and sectional interests of holding on to state power and the longer term, strategic, structural and class interest of the ruling class which the institutionalization of procedural democracy in the countrywould guarantee.
One thing though is clear; this year is the year we will know if or not the Yar’Adua government is ready to save the country’s political class from its suicidal streak, in the electoral avenue. The discourse, or lack of it on the matter must however not be left to the whims and caprices of the government and the national legislature. The Nigerian populace and public must start now, from January, to place “after the Uwais committee” on the front burner of popular discourse.
This brings us to the relationship between national discourse and the electoral process. In our view, electioneering in Nigeria is not merely compromised during electioneering periods by cash, thuggery, rigging, and diverse other unethical and condemnable acts. “Election is at the heart of democracy” as President Yar’Adua put it. Thus, a dearth of discourse, the absence of sustained platforms, and the emptiness of ideological contention in our political ethos which mark the general political atmosphere and the electioneering process specifically, subvert both elections and democratisation. “Victory” at the polling booth in such a scenario can hardly be summed up as mandate for a socio-economic and political programme. Why then won’t it boil down to being an avenue to “grab” whatever the “elected” executive or legislator at any of the tiers of governance can lay his or hands on, especially if the party and party stalwarts also benefit from this?
Nigeria has probably the most robust press in Africa. It exposes kleptocracy in high places and is vigorous, with brilliant journalists and well seasoned editorials. It also has a vibrant civil society voice with articulate lawyers, political scientists and a myriad of ngoist interests. It is therefore hardly surprising that when an issue that is offensive to the national psyche crops up, we have very heated talk and lots of ‘black and white’ in the media print shops. But once it is over, hardly ever drawing or establishing principles that further the democratisation of our country, that episode is more or less closed for a new topic (often still of sleaze and graft) to become the next topic. It is almost impossible for the necessary democratic culture that would sustain elections based on issues and programmes to emerge from such an atmosphere.
It is in the process of political discourse that alternatives for Nigeria’s future path can be constructed and fundamentals for a democratic republic, such as “justice”, “rights”, “power”, “mandate”, “electorate” and of course “elections” , be made to have meaning. Discourse stirs civil society and its organisations, trade unions, students unions and other organised elements and sectors within the polity and the political parties into practical action as part of it.
The Uwais Committee’s report thus presents us with possibilities beyond electoral reforms. It is a touch stone for discourse and a possible point of departure for the institutionalization of political discourse in the dynamics of the struggles within and between the classes in contention in the country. This would be a huge leap for the democratization process in Nigeria, the benefits of which would go well beyond that of the recommendations of the Uwais committee’s report.
Baba Aye, National Auditor of the Labour Party wrote from the Global Labour University, Kassel Germany.
