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The highly flawed 2023 general election is still attracting comments from local and international observers. Despite repeated promises and assurances by former President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, that the 2023 poll would be the best, it ended up being the worst. Apart from voter intimidation and disenfranchisement, violence and rigging, the process was bungled. After vowing on television that INEC would transmit the election results in real time through its IRev portal, many of the presidential election results were not transmitted in INEC viewing portal. Yakubu blamed the commission’s inability to do as promised on technical glitches. It is so funny that every election season in Nigeria comes with its own peculiar lexicon.
Since Yakubu uttered that word, Nigerians blame anything that does not work on technical glitches, whether natural or man-made. While some Nigerians regard the poll as the best ever since 1999, others believe it is the worst poll ever conducted in the history of the country. Nigerians living abroad have divergent views on the election as well. Members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will always defend the poll as the best so far while those in opposition hold that the election, especially the February 25 presidential poll is the most compromised poll in the country. That is why the outcome of that poll has been challenged at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) by the major opposition political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and their presidential candidates, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and Mr. Peter Obi, respectively. There are other parties that also challenged the poll. Nigerians are awaiting anxiously on the verdict of the tribunal concerning the presidential poll. This is probably the main reason why the EU Mission’s final report on the poll is attracting diverse comments among Nigerians and across party lines. In its report, the EU Observation Mission said, among others, that “the election exposed enduring systemic weaknesses and therefore signal a need for further legal and operational reforms to enhance transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability.”
The EU report contains 23 recommendations the government can consider to improve future elections. The Chief Observer, EU EOM, Barry Andrews said: “We are particularly concerned about the need for reform in six areas which we have identified as priority recommendations, and we believe, if implemented, could contribute to improvements for the conduct of elections.” The six top recommendations are: the need to remove ambiguities in the law; establish a publicly accountable selection process for INEC members; ensure real time publication of and access to election results; provide greater protection for media practitioners; address discrimination against women in political life, and; impunity against regarding electoral offences.The EU observation is not entirely new to Nigerians. Similar things had been said by Nigerians and others who observed the shoddy conduct of the polls. The EU recommendations are far-reaching enough. What the federal government should do now is to implement these recommendations, which will enrich our electoral system. They are not significantly different from recommendations of various electoral reform panels set up by past administrations on ways to deepen our democracy. The federal government’s rejection of the EU Observer Mission’s recommendations is in the usual Nigerian style. The deluge of criticisms that trailed the report from the ruling APC is understandable but unnecessary. Government needs to tolerate criticism and adverse reports. The APC and their supporters must form the habit of tolerating opposing viewpoints. Without strong opposition, dictatorship will be enthroned and therefrom a one party state will emerge and our democracy will atrophy. The APC political family and their supporters are being partisan and reading politics into the report. As soon as they divorce politics from their reading of the report, they will see the light and the urgent need for electoral reforms.
For this democracy to endure, there is no alternative to electoral reforms as well as the review of some archaic laws in the country. We need laws that will improve our electoral process, that will ensure free, fair and transparent election. Reducing our elections to a mini tribal war theatre is absurd and inimical to the health of the nation. We must jettison the culture of electoral violence, vote buying and voter intimidation, impunity and suppression. Every election cycle must not evoke its own peculiar atmosphere of fear and doom. Nigerians should not be killed exercising their right to vote. They should not be discriminated against, molested or ostracized for their political beliefs, how they voted and who they voted for. The seeming disunity in the country and a certain government’s recent vindictive policies targeted at some members of a certain ethnic group in some parts of the country based on their political beliefs is antithetical to the tenets of democrcacy. It also questions the concept of one Nigeria and the right of every citizen to reside in any part of the country. Our democracy is not yet inclusive.
Many Nigerian women are not allowed to participate in our politics. That is why there are fewer women legislators in this dispensation than ever before. Nigeria is yet to elect a woman as a governor. In some states, women are tolerated as deputy governors where they play the role of a spare. In Nigeria’s political system, a spare can be dispensed with. A spare is never reckoned with. A spare is often forgotten. Nigerian governors hardly hand over power to their deputies when they are on vacation or travel abroad for medical tourism. However, there are a few exceptions. The Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu handed over power to his deputy on account of his ill-health. In all, the practice is not common. Apart from once President Muhammadu Buhari handed over power to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, he probably didn’t repeat it till he left office. If we invite international observer missions to observe our elections, we should be bold enough to listen to their views on the polls as well as their recommendations. Launching verbal attacks on them and describing them in unprintable epithets is not acceptable. It smacks of desperation on the part of those in power and their aversion to constructive criticism.
Mmesoma and JAMB’s dilemma
Mmesoma and JAMB are hugging the headlines over her 2023 UTME result. JAMB is a well known entity, Mmesoma is not. JAMB has power, Mmesoma is powerless. The details. Her full name is Joy Mmseoma Ejikeme. She participated in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and scored 362, the highest in the examination. The computer print out of the UTME result indicated it emanated from JAMB. Miss Ejikeme was celebrated for weeks and even awarded a scholarship by Dr Innocent Chukwuma, the CEO of Innoson Motors worth N3million. It was when Anambra State was about to honour her for the great feat and officials of the state government called JAMB to ascertain if she actually came first in JAMB that the exam body claimed that Ejikeme’s score was falsified.
Despite the young girl’s claim of innocence and her previous sterling academic records, JAMB insisted that her result was forged. It said Ejikeme scored 249 and not 362 and banned her from JAMB exams for three years without trial. It sounds draconian. Between JAMB and Ejikeme, somebody is saying the truth and the other is dishing out the lies. Who among the two is telling Nigerians the truth, JAMB or Ejikeme? That is the dilemma of JAMB in this matter. There is urgent need to have an independent inquiry into the saga and find out the authenticity or otherwise of Ejikeme’s JAMB result. If it is forged as JAMB claimed, the panel will find out those behind the forgery, whether it is insider operation or outside. There may be a score falsification syndicate within JAMB. They may also be outside JAMB.
The Registrar of JAMB, Prof, Ishaq Oloyede, should exercise utmost caution in handling the matter. Forgery is a serious matter and the alleged perpetrator is a young girl in her formative stage. Some commentators said Mmesoma is a minor. JAMB disagreed. Her plea for innocence must not be dismissed so easily by JAMB. As an accused, she is presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. That is the position of our laws. The way JAMB is issuing press statements on the saga should stop until the matter is fully investigated and resolved.
If the young girl is found innocent, the embarrassment will be very hard to mitigate. If guilty, she will be sanctioned and be made to disclose the source of the high score result. If JAMB is at fault, it must be sanctioned as well. Let both sides seize fire until a probe panel handles the matter and establish the unvarnished truth. They need technical experts to examine JAMB exam records, systems and their integrity. Those in charge of JAMB’s IT and computer systems should be investigated too. Let JAMB stop using the media to harass and terrorize Mmesoma. JAMB’s spokesman, Dr. Fabian Benjamin ought to exercise restraint in vilifying and criminalizing Mmesoma as no court has tried her and pronounced her guilty as charged by JAMB. Intimidating Mmesoma or attempting to drown her voice through an orchestrated media blitz and make her admit a crime through duress is unconscionable.
It is commendable that the House of Representatives will investigate the matter. Although JAMB under Oloyede has done so well in terms of improving admission process and access to varsity education as well as enhanced the revenue of the exam agency, there are still some areas to be sanitized. There is need for more transparency in JAMB’s scoring system and the the sleaze in some miracle or special JAMB CBT centres across the country.
