By SKC Ogbonnia<\/p>\n
The desperate attempts by President Donald Trump to overturn a free and
\nfair U.S. presidential election of 2020 ought to create every sense of
\nurgency for Nigeria to explore a bi-partisan body for the conduct of
\nelections.<\/p>\n
Trump’s behavior was delusional and does not represent any good example
\nof a democratic mien, but it can serve as a blessing in disguise,
\nespecially for nations prone to dictatorship and electoral
\ncontroversies. That is precisely where Nigeria comes in.<\/p>\n
Nigeria has seen its fair share of dictators donning a democratic toga,
\nas well as electoral controversies. Instances abound, but the most
\nrelative is the tendency of the Nigerian leaders to pervert the laws
\nthat govern the country’s electoral body, the Independent National
\nElectoral Commission, INEC.<\/p>\n
As the name suggests, the INEC was envisioned as an independent
\norganization in line with item F,14(2c) of the Third Schedule of the
\n1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended). This section states that any of
\nits members must “be nonpartisan and a person of unquestionable
\nintegrity.” The Constitution also vests the appointment of principal
\nINEC officials with the president of the country. Unfortunately, most of
\nthe appointees have been neither nonpartisan nor independent.<\/p>\n
A prevailing example is the case of Lorretta Onochie, who has been
\nnominated as a National Commissioner for the INEC. Not only is she a
\nrabid promoter of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and
\ncurrently the Senior Special Assistant on Social Media to President
\nMuhammadu Buhari, Onochie is also a virally controversial figure and
\nsuper spreader of toxic fictions. In short, her every rhetoric is
\nemblematic of an extremist rabble-rouser who clowns around the country
\nspewing offensive fallacies as federal decrees.<\/p>\n
The objective motive behind Onochie’s nomination, therefore, is nothing
\nbut trumpish\u2014deliberately designed to wreak havoc and stoke
\ncontroversies.<\/p>\n
But the dictatorial intrigue within the INEC did not start with
\nMuhammadu Buhari and the ruling APC. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo
\nand the Peoples’ Democratic Party were no different or even worse while
\nthey were in power.<\/p>\n
Such partisan grip of the INEC has been the major reason Nigerian
\nelections are hardly mentioned in the same breath with the term “free
\nand fair.” However, instead of placing the blame squarely where it
\nbelongs, the INEC Chairman is typically the scapegoat.<\/p>\n
For instance, as the country geared for the 2011 election, the debate
\ncentered on Maurice Iwu, a renowned Professor of Pharmacognosy, who
\nserved as the INEC boss in the controversial elections of 2007. To many
\nNigerians, Mr. Iwu was the problem, and the problem was Mr. Iwu.<\/p>\n
It was generally believed that a mere change in leadership of the INEC
\nwas the sole panacea for a free and fair election in the country.
\nAccordingly, President Goodluck Jonathan appointed a new chairman in
\nProfessor Attahiru Jega, another astute intellectual, a move widely
\nhailed. Yet, after the 2011 general elections, despite the fact that its
\nconduct showed significant improvement, the opposition groups claimed
\nthat the ruling party colluded with the INEC to falsify electoral
\nresults.<\/p>\n
In the words of Muhammadu Buhari, the main opposition candidate in the
\n2011 elections, the magnitude of malpractices in the 2007 elections
\n“eclipsed all the other elections in the depth and scope of forgery and
\nrigging. Initially, there were high hopes that after 2003 and 2007 a
\nsemblance of electoral propriety would be witnessed. The new chairman of
\nINEC, Professor Jega, was touted as competent and a man of integrity. He
\nhas proved neither.”<\/p>\n
Upon gaining power in 2015, President Buhari quickly ousted Jega and
\nbrought in an equally distinguished professor, Mahmud Yakubu, who would
\ngo on to oversee the 2019 elections. But the situation only seemed to
\nworsen. In short, a post-2019 election survey by the International
\nFoundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) found that, while 61% of the
\nelectorate perceived the 2015 elections headed by Jega as fair, only 37%
\nwould say so for the 2019 exercises conducted under Yakubu.<\/p>\n
In rejecting the results of the 2019 presidential elections, Atiku
\nAbubakar, the runner-up candidate, remarked as follows: “the electoral
\nfraud perpetrated by the Buhari administration this past Saturday cannot
\nproduce a government of the people for the simple reason that it does
\nnot reflect the will of the Nigerian people.” An influential
\npro-opposition pundit, Femi Aribisala, was more direct: “INEC is
\nsupposed to be an impartial umpire in elections in Nigeria. However, it
\nis now obvious that Mahmood Yakubu’s INEC operated essentially as an arm
\nof the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).”<\/p>\n
A salient factor that has not received adequate attention in the
\ncontextual analysis of INEC is that, besides its Chairman, the other
\nprincipal officers who represent the electoral body from the national to
\nthe ward levels are typically the sympathizers or card-carrying members
\nof the ruling party. To that end, even where the INEC was able to
\nproduce a semblance of a free and fair election, the opposition usually
\nhides behind the partisan shade of the commission to occasion a flood of
\nconspiracies to wash away the credibility of the election. This distrust
\nonly goes to undermine the sanctity of the elections and deepen the
\ndepth of the disrepute commonly associated with the country’s democracy.<\/p>\n
To improve the system, Nigeria should explore a bi-partisan electoral
\ncommission. A bi-partisan structure, with members presented by the
\ndifferent political parties, will strengthen the needed checks and
\nbalances within the commission itself. This approach should extend to
\nthe recruitment of electoral officers from the national down to the ward
\nlevels and polling booths.<\/p>\n
A bi-partisan structure can restore confidence and ensure trust
\nthroughout the width and breadth of the commission. This proposal
\nparallels the position of the main opposition party in the 2007
\nelection, the All Nigeria’s Peoples Party (ANPP), where Emmanuel
\nEneukwu, its National Publicity Secretary at the time, canvassed for a
\nreview of the electoral laws to include members of the different
\npolitical parties in the leadership of National Election Commission.<\/p>\n
The bi-partisan electoral model is the core of the American system,
\nwhich remains a paragon of democracy, Trump’s shenanigans
\nnotwithstanding. Members to both the federal and state election
\ncommissions are drawn from the country’s two major political parties.
\nThe apparent political equipoise profoundly promotes internal checks and
\nbalances within the system. Thus, even if any trumpish character in any
\nof the states must nominate someone with questionable integrity to an
\nelectoral commission, the opposition party would reject or counter such
\nnomination accordingly.<\/p>\n
The partisan balance within the U.S. electoral system, more than any
\nother factor, accounts for the widely celebrated vitality of the
\nAmerican institutions. It also accounts for why and how Donald Trump
\ncould not succeed in his asinine scheme to compel some state electoral
\nbodies, including those controlled by his party, to overturn the 2020
\nU.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Nigeria has explored various strategies over the years to
\ncheckmate partisan maneuvers within the INEC. The electoral body has
\nrecruited members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and
\nuniversity professors to assist in recent exercises. There were equally
\npast efforts, for example, the 2008 Electoral Reform Committee (ERC),
\nwhich proposed, among other things, that a neutral body, particularly
\nthe National Judicial Council, should appoint all the INEC officials,
\nincluding its chairman. The ERC also called for the members of INEC to
\ninclude representatives of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the
\nNews Media, etc.<\/p>\n
The idea of a neutral electoral body is superficially attractive. But
\nrecruiting people from a cadre of pliant Nigerian institutions and
\nexpecting them to be impartial is no different from perceiving a stench
\nas an aroma. Not surprisingly, the university recruits are always
\naccused of partiality or being wholly subservient to the parties in
\npower either at the states or the federal level.<\/p>\n
Unlike other institutions, the political party has the potential to
\nprovoke steadfast allegiance from the people\u2014far more than tribe,
\nreligion, and even more than blood relationships, especially in Nigeria,
\nwhere prebendal politics dictates the content and character of
\nsocio-economic wellbeing. True independence or neutrality of INEC is
\nmore attainable in an environment where two or more independent parties
\ncan checkmate each other from acting contrary to the stated objectives.<\/p>\n
A pertinent backdrop is that the American society is by no means closer
\nto sainthood than its Nigerian counterpart. America’s saving grace is
\nmerely the presence of a system that can compel the leaders and the
\npeople to act in line with the law of the land.<\/p>\n
Dr. SKC Ogbonnia writes from Houston, Texas, USA.<\/p>\n
Twitter: #SKCOgbonnia<\/p>\n
By SKC Ogbonnia The desperate attempts by President Donald Trump to overturn a free and fair U.S. presidential election of 2020 ought to create every sense of urgency for Nigeria…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n