Professor Chinua Achebe, the famous author of Things Fall Apart will
\nprobably not be happy in his grave today. In twice rejecting the award of
\nnational honours in 2004 and 2011, the Nigerian literary icon said he was
\nprotesting against the handling of governance issues in the country,
\nespecially in his native Anambra state. Before he died last March in
\nBoston, United States, however, he was happy that things were looking up
\nonce again. He had singled out President Goodluck Jonathan\u2019s electoral
\nreform for commendation, saying that the conduct of the 2011 general
\nelection was a clear indication that sanity was gradually returning to the
\nnation\u2019s electoral process. For this, he gave credit to the Independent
\nNational Electoral Commission (INEC) led by Professor, Attahiru Jega. In
\nthe book, There was a Country, he had written \u201c\u2026the last general election
\nin Nigeria was not perfect, but overall it was an improvement over past
\ntravesties that were passed off as election in Nigeria\u201d.<\/p>\n
The appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega as Chairman of the Independent
\nNational Electoral Commission (INEC), in June 2010, had understandably
\nraised expectations that the much-desired credibility would return to the
\nnation\u2019s electoral system. Coming after the general elections of 2007
\nwhich even the winner, President Umaru Yar\u2019adua acknowledged were flawed,
\nthe Nigeria polity was yearning for fresh ideas. Nigerians had good
\nreasons therefore, to place their hope on the former President of the
\nAcademic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), who famously engaged the
\nmilitary governments of the 1990s in running battles. With impressive
\nacademic and civil society credentials, Jega seemed to appeal to all
\nsections of the polity. He was the best man to deliver on the promises of
\nelectoral reform which President Jonathan had promised, or so we all
\nthought.<\/p>\n
Jega may not have disappointed, especially with the 2011 general elections
\nwhich were his first test case. The election was generally free and fair
\nand even the worst critics of the Jonathan administration acknowledged
\nthat it was an important step in the electoral reform process. However,
\nsubsequent elections have raised questions about the man, his capability
\nand his conduct as the nation\u2019s chief electoral umpire. His reputation
\nand integrity are increasingly becoming doubtful and more importantly,
\nprojections are already being made that the all-important 2015 national
\nelections may end up a sham.
\nIf the conduct of the recent governorship elections in Ondo and Edo states
\nwere criticized for their observable lapses, they pale into insignificance
\nwhen compared to the charade that is playing out in Anambra state. After
\nmonths of preparations, the November 16 governorship polls in Professor
\nChinua Achebe\u2019s home state have indeed become a metaphor for INEC\u2019s
\ngrowing official ineptitude. Not only were the elections which Jega
\nboasted would be the best ever in the country declared inconclusive, the
\nINEC last Monday ordered supplementary election in 208 polling units in
\nthe state with a combined registered voter strength of 113,113. After
\ncollating results from the 21 Local Governments Areas, the returning
\nofficer, Professor James Epoke could not announce the overall winner
\nbecause of widespread irregularities in some parts of the state.
\nThough the Anambra drama is still unfolding, Jega has come under severe
\nfire from many Nigerians on the shoddy handling of the polls with many
\nalready casting doubts on his competence and level of preparedness for
\nnext year\u2019s governorship poll in Ekiti as well as the 2015 general
\nelections inch close. Jega had admitted that his staff engaged in
\nunprofessional conduct and sabotaged the gubernatorial election,
\nespecially in Idemilii Local Government Area where electoral materials
\nwere willfully withheld or delivered late, while in some cases INEC
\nofficials and materials were totally absent at some polling units. The
\nsupplementary election therefore becomes necessary because the total
\nnumber of votes cancelled is much more than the difference between the
\ncandidate with the highest number of votes and the runner up. The other
\nareas involved in the supplementary election include parts of Onitsha
\nSouth, Ihiala, Ayamelum, Oyi, Orumba North, Aguata, Idemili South and Awka
\nNorth.<\/p>\n
In spite of the ample time for preparations, Jega\u2019s INEC did not make
\nadequate logistics provision for security officers while in many
\ninstances, his staff were openly hostile to observers who complained of
\nbrazen acts of electoral fraud. The complaints were so serious that groups
\nlike the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) and the Policy
\nand Legal Advocacy Centre, have called on him to resign immediately, and
\nfor the Anambra governorship election to be cancelled entirely. The CNPP
\nsaid the INEC chairman betrayed the Anambra electorate and Nigerians in
\ngeneral by conducting a sham election with serious implications for 2015.
\nSimilarly, the Executive Director, Civil Societies Legislative and
\nAdvocacy Centre, Auwual Musa-Rafsanjani described the Anambra election as
\na bad advertisement for INEC\u2019s preparation for the 2015 general elections.
\nThe Nigeria Civil Society Election Situation Room, in its final report on
\nthe election, described INEC as incompetent, stressing that its handling
\nof the Anambra contest provided worries for the much bigger 2015
\nelections. The position is shared by the Transition Monitoring Group, a
\ncoalition of over 400 civic organisations that have been involved in
\nelection monitoring in Nigeria since 1998.
\nJega should have known better than to defend such acts of his staff \u2013like
\nlate arrival or non-arrival of staff and voting materials, late
\ndistribution of materials, inadequate training of electoral staff and late
\ncommencement of accreditation — that led to the bungling of the polls, in
\na state that has little or no transportation challenges. As a member of
\nthe Justice Uwais Committee on Electoral Reform, Jega had variously made a
\ncase against persons that commit electoral offences, yet he was not bold
\nenough to identify the staff he alleged were involved in such offences in
\nAnambra. It is a paradox that the several failings of Jega\u2019s INEC bother
\non issues that were clearly identified in previous elections and
\ndocumented by monitors and observers, yet they have repeated themselves in
\nthe governorship polls in Edo, Ondo and now Anambra.
\nWas Jega that palpably inept or was he negligent of his responsibility in
\nthe election that even he had declared was a litmus test for him? The
\nirony of the Anambra polls is that all the political parties except the
\npresumed winner, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, are complaining
\nbitterly about the conduct. The most vocal of them, the All Progressives
\nCongress demanded a total cancellation of the election, citing massive
\ndisenfranchisement of voters throughout the state. Not only has the whole
\ndrama become a reflection of INEC\u2019s failure to respond to challenges in a
\ntimely and effective way, the larger implication of Anambra\u2019s bungled
\nelections is that there is a growing perception that the gains recorded in
\nthe 2011 elections have been eroded. With the widespread
\ndisenfranchisement of citizens due to their names missing from the voter
\nregisters and other shortcomings by INEC, the inevitable low voter
\nturn-out has invariably undermined public confidence in the electoral
\nprocess.<\/p>\n
Within his two years as head of the Commission, a lot have happened to
\nseriously dent Jega\u2019s high reputation. The statements from certain
\nquarters that he may have been compromised to deliberately sabotage the
\nprocess, may be taking the argument too far, but it will suffice to say
\nthat he has disappointed most Nigerians. The image he creates today is
\nfar from the credibility we envisaged in our electoral system two years
\nago; definitely a far cry from the optimism that the usually critical
\nProfessor Achebe expressed. Two questions readily come to mind: for how
\nlong can we tolerate the systemic organisational failures as witnessed in
\nthe conduct of recent elections by INEC? Can Nigeria still trust the fate
\nof 2015 general elections in the hands of such a man whose integrity and
\ncapacity to conduct acceptable elections has taken such a beating?
\n\u00b7 Ozoene, former newspaper editor, contributed this piece from Abuja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professor Chinua Achebe, the famous author of Things Fall Apart will probably not be happy in his grave today. In twice rejecting the award of national honours in 2004 and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n