THE NATION

Can Nigeria have a worthy electoral commission?    7/1/2009
    
 
The successful conduct of the Ghanaian presidential election has again brought to the fore the need for Nigeria to have an unbiased electoral umpire. What does it take to have one? Why has Nigeria not got it right since independence? Is there hope that one day, an electoral commission will conduct a presidential election in Nigeria and an opposition party will win? OLUKOREDE YISHAU takes a look at the issues involved in the matter.

This morning, there is a change of baton in Ghana. Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills is taking over from John Kuffour, who has ruled the country for eight years. Like Kuffour who took over from Jerry Rawlings, Atta-Mills belongs to an opposing party. This, to many, signifies the unbiased nature of the Ghana Electoral Commission.

The event of today in Ghana, and the others leading to it have seen Nigerians, including a former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, asking the country to learn from Ghana. Gowon even urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to take a cue from the Ghana Electoral Commission. Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka said it was a shame that Ghana had conducted two successful transitions, while Nigeria is still groping in the dark. "Ghana has had two elections now, impeccable elections…Peaceful, respectable national election, the way election should be. The Supreme Court has denied this nation of the opportunity to start all over on a clean slate, to prove what we tried to do during the so-called A4 elections. It is a sad moment," said Soyinka.

But is there anything to learn from Ghana? Many will say plenty. Elections in Nigeria are characterized by abuses such as: compilation of fictitious names; illegal compilation of separate voters list; multiple registrations of voters during the revision exercise, illegal printing of voters’ cards; registration of unqualified persons; illegal possession of ballot boxes, stuffing of ballot boxes with ballot papers; falsification of election results; printing of ballot papers; voting by under-aged children; printing of Forms EC and EC8A; deliberate refusal to supply election materials; results announced where there were no elections; unauthorised announcement of results; harassment of candidates, agents or the electorates; change of list of electoral officials; tampering with figures and switching of votes; and box switching and inflation of figures.

When the country returned to democracy in 1999, the election that ushered in civil rule was conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) led by the late Ephraim Akpata. The election was not without its flaws. Like the 1959 and 1979 polls, in 1999, only two political parties contested the presidential election.

The Alliance for Democracy (AD); All Nigeria People Party (ANPP) alliance fielded AD’s Olu Falae as the candidate, and Aliyu Shinkafi as the running mate, while Olusegun Obasanjo was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The AD/ANPP ticket appealed to the conservative forces in the far North and progressive camp in the South-West. The results declared by INEC indicated that Falae obtained 10.7 million votes to Obasanjo’s 17.6 million. As usual, there was an outcry over alleged rigging and massive irregularities. But, weighed against the conduct of the 1964, 1965 and 1983 polls, the Ephraim Akpata-led INEC and the departing Abdul-Salami Abubakar-led administration are believed to have performed much better.

Also, whatever flaws the 1999 elections had paled in 2003 when the ruling PDP won a landslide. This was at a time when the Obasanjo-led administration was not high on performance in the view of many. The south-west of the country that was controlled by the Alliance for Democracy (AD) was captured by the PDP, leaving only Lagos, then with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as governor. Questions were raised, but nothing much came out from the tribunal, except in the case of Anambra State where the Justice Garba Nabaruma-led Election Petition Tribunal ruled that Peter Obi, and not Dr. Chris Ngige, won the election.

Before the Anambra case was determined, principal players in the fraud that saw Ngige emerge as governor had spilled the bean on how the wishes of the people were perverted. So, many were not surprised when Ngige was shown the exit. The case was not finally disposed of until March 2006. It took the intervention of the Supreme Court after another legal battle to reward Obi with full tenure which means that his tenure would not end until four years after he was sworn in. But then, Ngige illegally occupied the seat for about 34 months, expending public fund and taking key decisions affecting the lives of the people of the state. It is believed that the kind of perversion that took place in Anambra State cut across the country. But the PDP had its way, largely.

By the end of the 2007 elections, the PDP maintained its grip on the polity. For the PDP, it said its victory was as a result of its acceptance by the people. But reports from foreign and local observers said something else. Hardly was there anyone, outside the PDP, who gave the elections clean bill of health. Another thing observers pointed at to show that the elections were flawed is the outcome of petitions before electoral tribunals. So far, fresh elections had been ordered and conducted in Sokoto, Cross River, Kogi, Adamawa and Bayelsa states.

For states such as Ondo and Edo, it is a different ball game. The tribunals in these states ruled that the elections were flawed and thus ruled that the petitioners should be sworn in. In Ondo, the tribunal ruled that Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, and not Dr. Olusegun Agagu, won the election and in Edo, it was ruled that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and not Prof. Oserhiemen Osunbor, was elected by the people. Agagu and Osunbor appealed. Already, the appeal in Edo has been determined and the outcome, which has seen Oshiomhole taking over as the governor of the state, says analysts, is an indictment of the process that led to the declaration of Osunbor as the governor. The appeal court has fixed January 19 and 20 to hear the Ondo case.

But significantly, even President Yar’Adua knows that he was a product of a flawed process, and not even the Supreme Court’s validation of his election has changed that. This was why on assumption of duty on May 29, 2007, he undertook a survey of the political process that threw him up as Nigeria’s president. His conclusion was that the system stinks. The electoral stream has remained polluted for so long and the result has been a regular diet of poor governance and consequently, underdevelopment.

The president had said in his inaugural address "we acknowledge that our elections were not perfect and had lapses and shortcomings… I also believe that our experiences represent an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Accordingly, I will set up a panel to examine the entire electoral process with a view to effect reforms and ensuring that we raise the quality and standards of our general elections to meet international standards."

His setting up of the Justice Muhammadu Uwais Committee on Electoral Reforms is a further confirmation that all is not well with the country’s electoral system. The terms of reference of the committee, which had since submitted its report, also gives credence to the fact that the trouble with Nigeria’s electoral system is beyond the mindset of Nigerians, as argued by Professor Maurice Iwu, chairman of INEC. The six terms of reference are: review general elections in Nigeria and identify factors that affect the quality and credibility of the polls and their impact on the democratic process; examine relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution, the Electoral Act, and other lawsff that have a bearing on the electoral process and assess their impact on the quality and credibility of general elections; examine the roles of institutions, agencies and stakeholders in shaping and impacting on the quality and credibility of the electoral process; examine electoral systems relevant to Nigeria ’s experience and identify best practices that would impact positively on the quality and credibility of the nation’s electoral process; and make general and specific recommendations, including but not limited to, constitutional and legislative provisions to ensure: a truly independent electoral commission imbued with administrative and financial autonomy; an electoral process that would enable the conduct of elections to meet acceptable international standards; legal processes that would ensure that election disputes are concluded before inauguration of newly-elected officials; and mechanisms to reduce post-election tensions, including the possibility of introducing the concept of proportional representation in the constitution of governments.

The panel has since submitted its report and it remains to be seen if at last it will lead to Nigeria having a truly independent electoral commission.

Significantly, the Uwais committee was not the attempt to reform the electoral system.The 1983 election showed that Nigerian politicians had learnt nothing from the 1964 election fiasco that ultimately led to the collapse of the First Republic. The administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari regime ordered full-scale probe into the factors that led to the widespread malpractices that attended the election. The Judicial Commission of Inquiry under Justice Bolarinwa Babalakin, a retired Supreme Court Justice, made far reaching recommendations. The Commission looked into issues that have remained the scourge of electoral administration in the country such as recruitment of staff, snatching of boxes, compilation of a credible register of voters, time frame for the election and actual polling on election day.

Babalakin said in his committee’s report: "The Commission observes that enough attention was not paid to the issue of electoral staff and how they can be easily identified. The Commission therefore recommends that on account should anybody serve on electoral duties without an easy identification. It also recommends that recruitment of electoral staff should be involved at every stage. All advertisements for staff recruitment and the recruitment exercise itself should be completed at least two months before the elections to allow enough time for training. The Commission further recommends that Chief Electoral Officers should submit report on the recruitment exercise within a week of the completion of the exercise."

The Babalakin Panel also said: "The Commission observed that many of the political parties as well as individual politicians did not have much faith in FEDECO as was desirable. The Commission finds that this was partly because the mode of appointment prescribes was such that it could be argued that appointees were simply persons who enjoyed the President’s favour. The Commission considers that it is desirable to prescribe a procedure that would increase the confidence that both politicians and the electorate would have in FEDECO."

It recommended that, "there is a need to be fully aware of some of the factors in our national setting which influence those involved in abusing the electoral process. These factors include the winner takes all syndrome in our politics, and the consequent overpowering desire to win elections; the absence of a well established political culture which enables even discredited politicians to stay in power; the fact that for many, politics has been an unfailing avenue to wealth; the factor of rural and urban poverty; and the related phenomenon of political thuggery and, finally, the very low level of political awareness among the bulk of the population. The commission recommends that these factors should receive the attention of Government as part of the fight against election rigging."

It also had other recommendations such as: the law to govern future elections must be enacted at least three years before elections are due, and that the electoral commission must similarly be appointed three years before elections are due; that all elections be held in one day and that the logistics to make this practicable be carefully worked out; that the prescribed form for recording all election results (i.e. including Form EC8A, the form used at the polling stations) should be regarded as security documents; that such forms be serially numbered so that what goes to each booth or collation centre can be checked and accounted for; and that election results forms should contain space for writing the results in both words and figures.

Nothing came out of the Babalakin panel, as subsequent elections have been considered worse off.

Former boss of INEC, Dr Abel Guobadia, in 2005, identified factors militating against the conduct of free and fair elections in the country, and came out with measures that would wean the commission from executive control. He canvassed the staggering of elections. He blamed much of the misdeeds of the Commission in the past on the too many elections it had to do within so short a period. With specific reference to the 2003 general elections, Dr Guobadia identified constitutional encumbrances as the major factor that affected the outcome of the elections.

He said: "By the 1999 Constitution, all the five elections conducted by the Commission fall due within approximately the same period every four years. Thus, the Presidential and Governorship elections must be held between March 30 and April 29 in the election year.. The parliamentary elections into the two arms of the national Assembly and the Houses of Assembly of the 36 states must be held around the same period.

"The arrangements pose a great load on the Commission. Besides, with every elective offices of the entire federation falling vacant every four years, the few months covering the nomination process, the campaigns and the polls are particularly a tense period in the country."

Dr Guobadia also spoke about the revision of the Voters Register in 2002, which he said ought to have been conducted in 2001. This was not to be until June 2002 because money was not released for the exercise."The impact of this is that the programme of two years was squeezed into six months. People may see this as sheer excuse but they contributed greatly to the lapses that attended that election", the former INEC boss said.

 Dr Guobadia advised that the jurisdiction of normal courts of the land be ousted from all election disputes, starting with the nomination process. He blamed some of the controversies that surrounded the 2003 polls on the roles played by some courts that granted last minute injunctions compelling INEC to recognize certain lists of candidates, even on the eve of elections.

He said, "election connotes the entire process which starts with the issuance of notification calling the election and ending with the declaration of the result of the election. The whole process can be broadly divided into four phases, namely, nomination of candidates, campaign period, polling and counting of votes…The regular courts seem to have powers to entertain disputes which arise at the nomination phase. Such intervention is in violation of Section 285 of the Constitution. Besides, the intervention constitutes a severe distraction on the planning and implementation tasks of the Commission during the most critical period in its preparation for elections. The intervention of the regular courts should cease the moment the election timetable is released by the Commission."

He also said that the powers granted the President to appoint Resident Electoral Commissioners and the Secretary to the Commission had negatively impacted on discipline and the smooth running of the organization. His words: "The Resident Electoral Commisioners are appointed under the provisions of paragraph 14 (2) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the Constitution. They are directly appointed by the President and they have no fixed tenure. Though they function under the superintendence and direction of the Commission, they are not subject to discipline by the Commission. Experience has shown that they can be removed at will by the President without reference to the Commission."

He added that "a Commission composed of members drawn from partisan interests is unlikely to be timely in its decision making. A Commission whose membership is large even if not of divergent interests may also be very slow in its decision taking."

Iwu, who succeeded Guobadia, also once argued "if, for whatever reasons we refuse to challenge and change the existing troubled system and values which we insist do not meet our collective needs, then we must learn to accept what is available. To contend and loudly too as many do, that our electoral process and politics are flawed, but at the same time insist through both utterances and action that change must not be effected to the flawed system is to manifest a preference for anarchy."

He said that before the 2007 election and declared that "the challenge of the 2007 General Elections in our dear country is to uproot what is flawed and decadent in the electoral process and in its place raise and ensure values of democratic contests that will in the end leave no doubt about the actual will of the people."

Not a few believe that he could not live up to the billing. For this reason, Soyinka believes "Iwu is a dishonest individual. He lacks the moral integrity to even pronounce on the mindset of Nigerians. He is impudent for commenting on the mindset of Nigerians. This is a man who failed, who from the beginning programmed the elections to fail. Look at the rigmarole over, for instance, electronic voting. We don’t even know how much equipment was bought for electronic voting. He came to the National Assembly, demonstrated this new, ultra electronic voting in a place where you are lucky if you can reach internet within a few seconds. For him to have even attempted that, does he have a mind at all? He and Obasanjo plotted the downfall of democracy in this nation together."

It is not only Soyinka who has such strong opinion about the INEC boss and many have called for him to be removed, as part of the efforts to reform the electoral system. Iwu has written critics off, saying he did his best and that the fact that many an election had been nullified did not query his commission’s credibility. As far as he is concerned, the nullifications were largely on technicalities.

But whatever Iwu feels, it is the view of not a few that as Ghanaians today rejoice on the occasion of the swearing-in of their new President, Prof. Atta-Mills, it is a moment for Nigeria to reflect and for Mr. President to ensure that the Uwais panel, which recommended a complete overhaul of INEC, is not left to gather dust like Babalakin. Things, many argue cannot just continue the same way, especially with 2011 elections just two years away.