By Sunday Ani
The 2023 general elections may have come and gone but it would surely remain a talking point in the public space for some time. The majority agree that there were high hopes and expectations, particularly among the youth, that the electoral management body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was going to deliver a free, fair, credible, violence-free and rancour-free electoral process. That informed the sudden surge in the number of eligible voters that besieged the INEC offices across the country during the voter registration exercise to get their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to be able to exercise one of their civic responsibilities of voting during the elections.
The INEC on its part gave assurances of a credible election; one that would restore the battered image of the Commission and boost the country’s pride before the international community.
At three different occasions, the INEC chairman had reassured Nigerians that the Commission would deploy its latest technologies, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing (IRev) Portal, touted to be rigging-proof, in the conduct of the election.
The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, at one occasion during the build up to the election, was quoted to have said: “Most Nigerians are more familiar with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which doubles as an accreditation device, as well as uploading of the polling units level result sheets on Election Day onto the INEC Result viewing portal (IRev) in real time. This innovation has increased transparency and public confidence. They are also part of the legal requirements of conducting elections in Nigeria. The combination of BVAS and IRev portal has come to stay as means of voter education and transmission of election results. Nothing will change that.”
At another forum as the election dates inched closer, the INEC boss also said: “Let me once again reassure Nigerians that there is no going back on the deployment of BVAS for voter accreditation. There is no going back on the transmission of results from the INEC Results Viewing (IRev) Port in real time on Election Day. There will be no incidence form that enables any eligible person to vote using other people’s permanent voter cards. We are committed to ensuring that the 2023 general election is transparent and credible, reflecting the will of the Nigerian people.”
Despite the assurances by the INEC boss, there were still some elements of skepticism by people in some quarters, as to the reliability and certainty of such promises. This was carried to the media, prompting the electoral body to react in order to douse the growing tension and reassure Nigerians of its earlier promise and position.
Thus, reaction to the media report that there were clandestine moves by the INEC not to upload the polling unit level results real time on Election Day as earlier promised, Prof Yakubu again reassured Nigerians, saying, “Let me seize this opportunity to respond to a story emanating from a section of the media that the Commission has decided to jettison the uploading of the polling units level results in real time on Election Day. They should please be regarded as fake news. The Commission will upload polling unit level results and citizens will have access to those results in real time as we upload them. This innovation was introduced by the Commission; and the Commission cannot turn around to undermine itself. This technology has come to stay. We will upload polling unit level results from the polling units and citizens will have the right to view these results.”
However, despite all the promises and assurances by the INEC boss, the election fell short of the expectations of most Nigerians. Apart from the fact that Nigerians did not see the INEC uploading polling unit level results onto the IRev on Election Day as promised, there were also reported cases of widespread electoral fraud couched in voter suppression, intimidation and outright violence resulting in loss of lives and property in some parts of the country. There were cases of ballot box snatching as well as destruction of ballot boxes and voting materials in some places. The combination of the foregoing factors led to the controversial outcome of the election, which has left many Nigerians in utter disappointment and a feeling of betrayal of the people’s trust by the INEC.
Expectedly, widespread condemnation has been trailing what has been described as the abysmal performance of the INEC in the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections, as well as the March 18 governorship and state houses of assembly elections in Nigeria, so much that while some Nigerians, civil society organisations and political parties are calling for the immediate removal and prosecution of the INEC chairman for what they called daylight robbery of the will of the people, others are calling for the outright disbandment of the INEC.
Those who want the INEC to be disbanded argue that the body as presently constituted is a criminal enterprise where the highest bidder gets ‘selected.’ They cite the recent Adamawa State Governorship supplementary election, where the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) brazenly usurped the constitutional powers of the Returning/Collation Officer to announce the election results even when results from about 10 local government areas in the state were still being awaited as a fresh case to drive home their argument.
Those pushing this argument equally blamed the INEC for not excusing the Adamawa REC when the opposition raised some concerns about him prior to the rerun election. “When people raised issues against the REC, INEC should have told him to step aside while another person took over from him, but that did not happen. Look at when the issue of Lagos REC referring to Nigerians as migrants in their own country came up, the man was left in his position against pressures from the opposition that he should be replaced. It is total aberration. Although the INEC chairman has no powers to sack the Adamawa REC or any REC for that matter, he has the powers to ask him to step aside. He has the right to strip him of his responsibilities but he never did.”
There is also a segment of Nigerians who are unhappy with the INEC for its failure to complete the election processes since February 25, when the whole process started. “Since February, we are still conducting elections. INEC is now like a fetish priest. How can we be in election since February? How can you explain that? Why did INEC not upload the presidential election results up till today? There is no answer to that till today”, many have said.
Those who hold this view also frown at the INEC’s position that it has the right to decide not to upload polling unit election results contrary to its earlier promise to Nigerians and the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act.
One of the vocal voices of those who want the INEC to be disbanded for disappointing Nigerians is the President of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF), Dr Pogu Bitrus.
Dr. Bitrus agreed that not everybody in INEC is bad but insisted that those who were involved in tainting the image of the Commission, starting from the national chairman, Prof Yakubu, must be weeded out of the system and prosecuted accordingly. “We cannot say that everybody in INEC is bad but the bad ones should be tried and prosecuted, because the Commission should consist of only people of integrity. When you come out as a national chairman on a national television to tell Nigerians something and then go back to do a different thing, you lack integrity. The INEC chairman knew that there was a court judgement in 2005 that said you must get 25 percent of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, before you can be declared as president, yet he went ahead to pronounce somebody as winner of a presidential election at 4am you and gave a certificate of return to a person that didn’t meet up with that requirement.
“He said he was going to transmit polling unit level results real time. It was on national television and it is on record, but he did a different thing. He should not only be sent out, he should also be prosecuted because we need institutions that work. The governments in the western world, whether it is the USA or UK, work because the institutions work. As a president, if you misbehave, the institutions there, whether it is the police, the security services or whatever, will bring you to order because the nation is greater than you, as an individual. But here, we have people who think they can just do anything and get away with it,” he said.
He attributed what happened in Adamawa State during the supplementary election to the impunity at the Commission’s headquarters. He said: “It is possible that the man in Adamawa State did what he did because he felt the national chairman did a similar thing and went away with it. If the national chairman had done the right thing, I don’t think the man in Adamawa State would have done what he did. So, the whole system is rotten; we have the wrong people in place but we are not saying that everybody there is bad because there are good people who stood out and did the right thing. The bad ones among them who committed crimes against the nation should be tried and punished accordingly, so that next time, others will be dissuaded from doing the bad thing.”
Reiterating his support for the call to disband the INEC, he said: “So, I support the disbandment because something that has performed woefully should not be kept. But, I still maintain that it is not everybody in INEC that is bad. There are bad eggs and there are people who stand as people of integrity. Those who stood in integrity and did the right thing should be retained but those who have committed offences against the nation by supporting people who didn’t win, should be weeded out and shown the way out. They should be tried and prosecuted and if they deserve to be jailed; let them be jailed so that others will not repeat it.”
However, this is not the first time that Nigerians have called for the disbandment of Prof Yakubu’s led INEC. Coincidentally, in 2016 after the 2015 general elections, a similar call was equally made by the then Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Austin Tam-George.
In July 2016, Tam-George had urged the Federal Government to disband INEC, alleging that the INEC chairman, Prof Yakubu, had shown incompetence by conniving with the All Progressives Congress (APC) to prevent the legislative rerun election in the state from taking place, thereby denying the people of the state full representation at the national assembly.
“The government and people of Rivers State are shocked by bare-faced connivance between INEC and the APC to subvert democracy in the state. It is completely unacceptable that Rivers State would continue to be denied full representation in the National Assembly due to the incompetence and malpractices orchestrated by the INEC.
“We call on the presidency and the NASS to act urgently in the national interest to disband INEC as presently constituted for incompetence and open partisanship,” he said.
But, there are those who think that disbanding the electoral body at this time is not a wise decision. Those on this divide argue that bad as the electoral body is, it should not be disbanded because there are post election litigations involving almost all the political parties across the country and it is only proper that members of the electoral body stay behind to finish what they have started. In other words, they should not be disbanded because they would be handy as witnesses in several litigations currently going on across the country.
A leading proponent of those on this divide is the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia. He said it is wrong to disband INEC now because almost all the parties are involved in post-election litigation. “The INEC has disappointed Nigerians. The only job left for the Commission now is to offer witnesses in various courts. Let them stay and complete the post-election management crisis,” he insisted.
He traced the problem of the electoral body to the recruitment process of its personnel, lamenting that it is only in Nigeria that the President appoints members of the electoral body and calls them independent. “It is only in Nigeria that state governors appoint members of the electoral body that conduct the local government elections, and call such bodies independent. It is a misnomer. “In other climes, they have a way of constituting neutral independent electoral bodies that manage elections. And if you look at the countries that are doing well, you will find out that it is a function of their electoral bodies because they have a great role to play in the recruitment process into governance. When you have a credible recruitment process into the electoral body, you will have credible people winning elections and coming out in the governance management, but when you have poor electoral process and electoral malpractices, all kinds of people will emerge and that is where the problem begins. So, in countries that are doing well, you find out that they have credible electoral bodies, while the countries with bad economies equally have bad electoral bodies,” he stated.
He wondered why Nigerians have refused to correct the recruitment process into the electoral body right from the second republic, but only to cry foul after each election cycle. “Right from the era of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in 1979 up to the present day, Nigerians have been making this mistake of allowing the president to appoint members of the electoral body only to begin to cry foul after election. It appears to me that people are not sensitive enough to what is supposed to be a democracy. They don’t understand it, otherwise right from the NPN days they would have stopped the system. You don’t give such powers to the president and expect to have credible elections,” he submitted.