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It is so encouraging that the 9th Senate has taken up the issue of electoral reforms, especially the review of our voting system, a venture which the 8th Senate attempted but failed to accomplish. We commend the Senate leadership for its early start, but we must warn of the complacency or the false confidence that comes with early starts. Before long, we would be in 2022, and if we must do e-voting, a most logical decision, the time to get serious about it is now.
We urge the Senate to use this opportunity to re-examine our system and to reinvigorate it, to make it interesting again to our citizens, to reduce the process pain, the tedium of spending days, trying to pick up permanent voters cards, to remove the underlying feeling that ‘my vote would not count.’ Our elections can be made free, fair and transparent in order to win back the confidence of Nigerians who, although they support democracy, are suspicious of those, who subvert our democracy.
We clearly need a marketing man, not a bureaucrat as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). A little historical reflection makes this imperative. The last time our general election seemed interesting to more than half of our registered voters was in 2003. That year, 69 per cent of our voters thought it worthwhile to go to cast their ballots. Last Sunday, Hong Kong, after 23 weeks of uninterrupted violent protests that pushed the city into recession, had a local council election. For once, the hotheads, the ‘area boys’ and the anarchists left behind the Molotov cocktails and went to line up to vote. Given the chaotic state of Hong Kong in the last few months, it was unbelievable they recorded 71 per cent turn-out.
Since 2003, getting Nigerians to go out to vote has been an uphill task. In 2007, the percentage dropped from 69 per cent to 57 per cent. In 2011, it fell further down to 54 per cent. It got much worse in 2015 when in spite of all the enthusiasm of the Buhari voters, he polled 10 million votes less than Goodluck Jonathan did in 2011. That ought to set off alarm bells that the system is losing popular support. But on a closer look, what was missing is efficiency, ease of voting and faith in the ballot box. Then in 2019, the turn-out was a paltry 35 per cent. A 35 per cent representation is not always acceptable as equitable; it is barely more than a third of registered voters. The National Assembly should, therefore, give the issue the seriousness it deserves. E-voting would turn the situation around, but it needs a lot of work, testing, education and investment. Everything must be done to halt the slide of voter participation. The key is in providing opportunities to enable Nigerians register with ease, keep registration open all year round, clarify the method by which registered voters could receive their voters’ cards.
There is a tacit deterioration of the elections conducted by INEC since 2015. All the governorship elections were either declared inconclusive or had ended up in court. Elections are expected to be decided at the ballot box, not in the courts. Each time the courts decide an election, our electoral umpire must realise it has failed in its duty. Hundreds of elections are held in the United States with none of them ever seeing the court room. The last time a presidential election went through the courts was in the year 2000 during the Florida Recount, when poorly designed ballot papers led to a misunderstanding.
When the US Supreme Court intervened in the Bush v. Gore case, therefore, and when its decision seemed to have been influenced by the Conservative majority in the Court, it severely dented the esteem and legitimacy of the Court. US courts do not want to touch political cases because those decisions are supposed to be made at the ballot box and in 99 per cent of the cases, political decisions, the choice of leaders are made at the ballotbox.
We appeal to the National Assembly to take our elections out of the courts by ensuring that they are violence-free; that they are transparent and that those who endanger our elections in any form are severely punished while those who did their duty are recompensed. The electoral officer who rejected N50,000 bribe in Kogi State a fortnight ago should be celebrated. The offences in the Electoral Act are grossly inadequate to forestall electoral malpractices. Therefore, we call for stiffer sanctions for electoral offenders.
