•How political parties can rescue the process
•The helplessness of INEC
By Jide Ajani
The
general elections of February/March, 2019, may have been insinuated
into the sphere of jeopardy, if President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to
grant assent to the amended Electoral Act stands.This is not
because President Buhari is set to directly cripple the electioneering
process. However, it is because the amended Act, which packs within it
some provisions which are expected to detoxify the old version, may not
see the light of day.The vacillation of Mr. President over the
amended Electoral Act, which climaxed on Friday, December 6, 2018, some
72 days to the general elections which will commence with the
Presidential and Federal legislative elections on February 16, 2019,
with the President returning the amended version to the National
Assembly, unsigned, raises concerns of possible disruptions to the
elections, if legal changes are introduced so close to the election. But
very mean political observers view this rejection as a corruption of
the process.According to this school of thought, if you examine
the definitions of corruption as described by the World Bank (WB) and
Transparency international (TI), the vacillations and rejection of the
amended Electoral Act, under shallow pretenses, is a form of corruption.
To explicate the latter position, the WB defines corruption as a
situation where “public office is abused for private gain”; while TI
describes corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”.Some believe that the rejection is only a ploy to avoid the use of the
Card Reader and thereby instigate electoral fraud and chaos in the
coming general elections. They, therefore – probably, rightly so – see
the rejection as a major set-back for the Card Reader and the gains made
by Professor Attahiru Jega’s INEC and the electoral system for
ensuring election integrity. Beyond the Card Reader, is the very
significant issue of the transmission of results.The amended
Act provides penalties for a refusal to transmit, just as the direct
transmission of results to the cental point immediately after counting
at every polling unit knocks off the possibility of collusion or
conspiracy to collude.While those who support the President
aver that rather than corruption for personal gain, the President was
only being careful to avoid legal and political tardiness, a
counter-intuitive position insists that it was a tragedy that the demand
by Nigerians for presidential assent to the amendment has been
jettisoned and in its place the President has voted for the type of
chaos and governance uncertainty that befell the APC Primaries where
everyone was allowed to choose their own laws for conducting primaries
while the party determined arbitrarily which of the outcomes it chose to
abide with, to a ridiculous game that will mar rather than improve the
integrity of elections.Anyone following the Presidents
preferences since coming to power may easily predict the current
outcome. From the President’s suspected initial preference to appoint
his Sisters step-daughter, Mrs Amina Zakari, as the Chairperson of INEC,
only to perish the thought when public pressure became too much to
bear, to the type of outcomes elections conducted under this regime has
produced, there are those who, rightly or wrongly, express anxiety at
the type of electoral configuration that is in the offing.From
what has happened so far, it may not be too difficult to come to the
disturbing conclusion that the President may either be blatantly
unconcerned with integrity or ethics when the matter of election is at
issue, or some individuals within the Presidency are the ones pulling
the strings in the name of President Muhammadu Buhari.This
conjures a very strange, nostalgic feeling when interfaced with the fact
that the present administration is a beneficiary of the electoral
reforms – albeit imperfect – engendered by Jega. However, when pitched
against the recent statement of the very progressive-minded First Lady,
Aisha Buhari, that two or three individuals are the ones drawing back
the progress of this administration, it would, therefore, be safe to
conclude that the individuals are now set to draw back the progress of
the generality of Nigerians for their own selfish ends, using the
instrumentality of the legally defective old Electoral Act for the 2019
general elections Despite the excuses given for returning the Bill to
the National Assembly, the actions of the Presidency, prior to this
anti-climax, appeared to have betrayed its reluctance to face a general
elections under an improved Electoral Act.Describing the early
signs of the reluctance that the President raised concerns of spelling
errors, as reasons for earlier refusal to sign the last two versions
sent to him, even though the perceived fear was the Card Reader which
makes rigging on a large scale problematic, it still beguiles the mind.
For instance, the joint collegiate approach to accommodate the concerns
of all was adopted and everybody came on board to develop a widely
accepted document as the draft electoral legislative framework.Further more, it was the Senate Committee, representatives of the
Executive, led by the Presidential liaison officer, Senator lta Enag,
along with other aides, as well as members of civil society, that all
jointly worked together to review the expressed concerns of everyone,
which were addressed in the improved document that was again returned by
the President.Very competent sources disclosed to Sunday
Vanguard that after the necessary adjustments were made, the collegial
copy’s final cleaned-up draft was again given to the Presidential team
in advance to review, just in case there were still further concerns.
Shockingly, none was raised; before it was officially, finally,
transmitted.The presidency accepted it after examining and
evaluating the advanced copy suggesting that it was okay with it. The
President’s excuses for returning the amended copy is only a pretext
that appears to lack weight, when weighed against the potential overall
benefits.The reality is that this Presidency appears to be a
front for a few power brokers who are afraid that their gravy train is
reaching the terminus. And this amended Electoral Act, which is a
legislative bill, is a reminder of that terminus. They appear to be the
ones reading the Electoral Act and telling the President not to sign or
approve it.Whereas those opposed to the Electoral Act as
amended may have a false sense of security in trying to operate an
electoral regime that is fraught with uncertainties, they seem to have
forgotten that they are not in a position to predict what may happen
when things go sideways, as it did in Osun State, where the opposition’s
candidate gave a good, very good fight, in spite of the disappointing
roles, reportedly played by security agencies, acts corroborated by
international observers and which also gave the electoral commission a
black eye.The APC Senate leader, Senator Ahmed Lawan, gave an
inkling of the type of Senate President he would have been when he
openly supported the refusal of Mr. President to assent to the Bill, not
minding the deficit this act will create for the needed progress in
Nigeria’s march towards the enthronement of better election environment.
Worse, Nigeria may be reaching a new low whereby a candidate in an
election determines which laws to operate in an election he would
participate, not minding the larger implications for other elections.
But all hope is not lost.The reason is that within President
Buhari’s All Progressives Congress, APC, there are still individuals who
are of the view that a better election environment bodes well for the
generality of NIgerians with the eventual possibility of building a
trully egaliterian society. By the same token, the plethora of political
parties in the country can force the hands of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC, to sign a binding pact, that promulgates
strict penalties for its staff who violates the intended virtue of
transmitting results from polling units to the central collation point.That way, even without the amended version of the Electoral
Act, it would be diffult for staff of INEC not to abide by the simple
rule of election results’ transmission. But as it is now, without the
amended Act in place, staff of the Commission can choose to disregard
the enviable provision for the transmission of results.This
would be a throwback to the ugly aspect of the 2015 election where the
use of Card Reader was enforced in the observance in some parts of the
country, while it was observed in the breach in other parts, thereby
creating an uneven field of contest, a situation which the amended Act
seeks to banish, but which Mr. President has refused to grant. It is in
the place of the judiciary to determine and interpret which flaws may
arise therefrom, and not an individual participating in an election
determining which rules to follow. 2019 poll:Just as President
Buhari, in his own sphere of thought, has rightly expressed concerns
regarding the timing, it should be stated for the records that former
President Goodluck Jonathan, on March 26, 2015, just 48hours to the
presidential election of that year (March 28, 2015), signed an amended
version of the Electoral Act, which knocked of Section 52 of that
version, which prohibited the use of electronic devise. It was that new
signed version that gave gravitas to the efforts of the Jega-led
Commission in its drive to conduct what has beecn described as a free
and fair election, an election which brought in President Buhari.
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