By Chukwudi Nweje

For what it is worth, despite the challenges of 2022, the year will go down in history as the year during which Nigeria’s political space was literarily liberalised.

Although Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 and had practised democracy for 23 uninterrupted years, the longest period in the country’s 62 years independence, the country had not witnessed the kind of developments experienced in 2022 in its entire democratic practice.

In fact, if Nigeria harnesses and improves on the political achievements recorded during the year, the country could rank among the largest and strongest democracies in the world in the next decade.

These events, from President Muhammadu Buhari’s signing of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2022 into law on February 25, 2022, after several refusals to assent to the alterations; to the Prof Pat Utomi-led National Consultative Front (NCFront) adoption of the Labour Party (LP), as the political party platform from which to launch its Operation Rescue Nigeria in the 2023 presidential election, and former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi’s emergence as LP Presidential Candidate, both  in the month of May. There is also the aspect of former Kano State Governor, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s fusion of his National Movement, formed on February 22, 2022, with the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), and his subsequent emergence as its presidential candidate in June and the massive surge in the registration of eligible voters to obtain their permanent voters cards (PVC), and the sudden enthusiasm and interest of youths in who would succeed President Buhari in 2023. All these events awakened a kind of political consciousness never witnessed among Nigerians that could only be compared to the nationalist movement that preceded independence in 1960.

As it is today, 2022 has proved to be not just another post transition election year, but a year that for the first time since 1999 has put political parties and their candidates on their feet and made them aware that the general elections next year will not be business as usual.

Background

Elections in Nigeria have been contentious since the return to civilian rule in 1999, and the reason may not be far-fetched. The Fourth Republic was ushered in hurriedly following the death of Gen Sani Abacha on June 8, 1998.

Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, who succeeded Abacha was under pressure to hand over power to a civilian government and therefore did not prepare adequately for the transition. In fact, he was in such a hurry to hand over power that he told the United Nations General assembly in September 1998, three months after he became Head of State that “Our goal is to return our country to a democratically elected civilian government on May 29, 1999.”

Thus, he merely dusted up, made some modifications, and promulgated the constitution that Abacha had prepared for his self-succession bid.

That constitution, the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been blamed for most of the political problems in the country today.

The unpreparedness of the country for the transition was also noticed in the fact that the first Electoral Act to govern the conduct of democratic elections in the Fourth Republic was enacted in 2001, two years after Nigeria returned to civilian rule.

John Campbell, a former United States (U.S) ambassador to Nigeria alluded to this in an October 2019 writing where he stated that Nigeria’s transition to civilian rule “was the result of a bargain struck by an elite cabal over 1998 and 1999, following the death of the brutal dictator, Gen Sani Abacha. Among the principal points was that the presidency would alternate every eight years between the South and the North. A corollary was that if the presidential nominee was Christian, then the vice presidential nominee would be Muslim, and vice versa…”

The result is that elections in Nigeria have been contentious as those who lost at the polls allege that they were rigged out while the winners insist that the process was free and fair and represented a victory for democracy.

It was only in 2007 that then President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who won the election after his inauguration admitted that the election that brought him to power was flawed and initiated moves to address those lapses through the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reforms Panel that submitted a report on December 11, 2008. The panel made recommendations that would have introduced far-reaching reforms in the electoral process, including the proposal for the establishment of commissions to deal with Electoral Offences, Constituency Delimitation and Political Parties Registration and Regulation among others. Suffice to say that the recommendations of the panel never saw the light of day despite the President Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC), making a campaign pledge in 2014 to implement it if it won the election of 2015.

Nevertheless, the Electoral Act 2001 has passed through various amendments first in 2002, then in 2006, and 2010, respectively before the 2022 amendment. All these amendments were made in the continuous effort to produce an act that would be seen to be fair and guarantee credible elections in the country.

Electoral Act 2022

Although the Justice Uwais Panel’s recommendations were not acted on, the signing of the Electoral Act in February addressed some of the inherent problems in the electoral process.

The extant act makes provisions for new provisions that are expected to leave an impact on the electoral space. These new provisions include Section 3(3) of the act that funds for general elections must be released at least one year before the election; Section 29(1) increased the timeframe for political parties to hold their primary and submit the list of candidates from 60 days to 180 days before the date appointed for a general election.

Under section 29(5) of the Electoral Act 2022, only aspirants who participated in a primary election of political parties can approach the Federal High Court for review where there are grounds to believe that any information given by his political party’s candidate is false. In the previous act, any member of the public can challenge a candidate with a forged certificate.

But one of the most interesting provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 is sections 47 and 50(2) which legitimises the use of smart card readers, electronic accreditation of voters and any other voter accreditation technology that INEC deploys. Under the act, INEC now has the power to determine the mode of election transmission of result.

It is worthy of note that President Buhari had refused to assent amendments to the Electoral Act four times in 2018, in February, in June, July and December, citing different reasons, including the re-ordering of the sequence of elections, increased cost of conducting elections among others.

With the current amendments in the Electoral Act 2022 including the use of bimodal voter’s accreditation system (BVAS) and the electronic transmission of election result from the polling centre, the tendency to alter results from polling booths while they are in transit to collation centres will be eliminated.

NCFront/ Operation Rescue Nigeria

In May 2022, the National consultative Front (NCFront), co-chaired by eminent professor of economics and management expert, Pat Utomi, after over 15 months of consultations with eminent Nigerians and about seven other political parties and associations, adopted the LP as the political party from which to launch its ‘Operation Rescue Nigeria.’

The operation is targeted at birthing a Third Force political party that will challenge and end the 24 years combined rule of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)(16 years) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) (8 years) at the end of Buhari’s administration in 2023. Many analysts see the APC and the PDP as opposite sides of the same coin.

A statement signed by Bilikis Bello, Communications Executive at the NCFront National Secretariat had noted that the adoption of LP “was made possible by the new rapprochement between the leadership of the Labour Movement and the hierarchy of the Labour Party; an emergent solidarity jointly spearheaded by President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Ayuba Wabba and the Trade Union Congress, TUC President, Quadri Olaleye both of whom have since personally revalidated their membership of the Labour Party by formally registering with the party last week. With the adoption of the Labour Party as our 3rd Force Mega Party, the NCFront has commenced the fusion of its structures of over 20 million members and supporters nationwide into the LP.”

On why the NCFront chose LP out of all the political parties, he added, “We wish to state clearly that the NCFront is particularly enthused by the non-partisan strategic nature of the Labour Party, as a people’s centered, pan Nigerian political platform that can inclusively serve the interests of all Nigerians irrespective of their ethnic, religious, and social inclinations; in uniting the country towards a momentous development that can accommodate and serve the diversities of Nigeria.

“With the novel synergy between the Labour Party and the NCFront, the convening platform of the 3rd Force Movement, which is also today the largest political mass movement in the country, Nigerians can be rest assured that the glorious future we all desire for our dear country, is now achievable by 2023, especially with the brewing implosion hovering over the ruling cartel of APC and PDP, which will soon burst into unpreventable disintegration after their party primaries.”

Peter Obi joins LP

Obi’s joining LP brought life back into the party, which although started in 2002, had been more nominally present on the ballot paper than actively present in the political space. LP which had not made significant political impact in the political space has since May 30, 2022, when Peter Obi won its presidential ticket three days after resigning from the PDP shot into prominence, becoming the official opposition party as far as many political analysts are concerned.

The emergence of Obi as the presidential candidate of LP also triggered a renewed hope in Nigeria as thousands of earlier unregistered voters trooped out during the continuous voters’ registration (CVR) exercise to be captured in the INEC register.

Kwankwaso and the NNPP

Just like with LP, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), a previously dormant party founded in 2001 by Dr Boniface Aniebonam bounced back to life in June after Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso dissolved his National Movement into the party and emerged as its presidential candidate for 2023.

2023, a four-horse race?

Since 1999, Nigerians have had a limited option from which to choose their leaders. The first election of the Fourth republic in 1999 was a choice between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Peoples Party (APP)/ Alliance for Democracy (AD) alliance. In 2003, it was between PDP and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) even though about 20 political parties were on the ballot. Also in 2007, Nigerians had to choose between PDP and ANPP out of 20 parties; in 2011, the choice was between PDP and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) from among 20 parties on the ballot and in 2015, no less than 14 parties were on the ballot, but the contest was clearly between the PDP and the All Progressives Congress (APC).  The same scenario played out in 2019.  Indications are that 2023 will be different; 18 parties will be on the ballot paper during the polls but unlike in previous elections, analysts expect at least a four-horse race as opposed to the two-horse race arrangement in past polls. LP and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) are emerging as strong forces ahead of the polls.

Last line

There is no doubt that the active politicking across the country, ahead of the general elections next year is the result of the combination of the signing of the Electoral Act 2022, the rise in political consciousness within the year, as well as but not limited to the emergence of at least two other strong political parties on the ballot paper ahead of the polls in 2023.