A senior national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, last week stirred national anger when he tried to justify the performance of the organisation during the 2023 national elections. He said it was unfair to evaluate INEC’s performance during this year’s elections because of the “glitch” experienced during the upload of the results of the presidential election results. For clarity, I take Okoye’s use of the word “glitch” as his synonym for the fraud experienced during this year’s presidential election.
In his reply to the European Union Election Observation Mission’s final report on this year’s elections, Okoye said: “It is not fair to judge the entire performance of the commission on the basis of a glitch in the result upload for the presidential election.” What an evasive, pathetic and unpardonable defence.
Rather than take responsibility for INEC’s shameful conduct of the elections, Okoye shifted the blame to political parties. Hear him: “Almost all the political parties nominated and got accredited at least over 170,000 polling agents. What that means is that they had primary evidence of the results from the polling units. It is those results from the polling units, together with the BVAS as a machine itself that goes to the collation centre. So, it is not true for a political party to rely only on result upload in order to get the evidence with which it wants to prosecute its case in court.”
Okoye spoke like a firebrand preacher on a mission to defend electoral illegalities, particularly the fraud called the presidential election of February 25, 2023, that was supervised and consecrated by INEC to be flawless and commendable. Okoye’s defence of the outcomes of the presidential election is shameful, contemptuous, insulting and disrespectful of Nigerian voters who knew their votes did not count. His arguments indicate an admission that INEC undermined its own processes for electronic collation and transmission of election results and that the results could not stand the true test of legitimacy, soundness and moral authority. By defending what no conscientious person could defend in a public space, Okoye tried to bully Nigerian voters to get them to accept fabrications instead of the truth.
It is dishonourable for a senior official of INEC to attempt to justify the outcomes of the presidential election in which the rules and procedures were abused and violated, as were other elections conducted in 2023. Okoye’s refusal to accept electoral misdemeanours portrays him as unintelligent, absurd, laughable, scornful, cynical, ludicrous and thoughtless. His comments give the impression he was blindfolded throughout the elections. His position flies in the face of reality. It is at odds with the experiences of everyone who was on the ground during and after the elections.
If Okoye hoped that his stubborn defence of the outcomes of the presidential election would infuse confidence into a nation baffled by the results announced by Mahmood Yakubu, he must realise how badly he underestimated public anger and exasperation that trailed that early morning announcement by Yakubu. To put it mildly, Okoye’s defence of INEC’s blunder marked the coronation of idiocy and arrogance by a senior official.
Would Nigeria ever conduct elections that are free, fair, credible, transparent, and free of violence? Many people would respond to that question with a resounding “no”. Part of the reason why we continue to conduct elections in which the rules are violated and disregarded is that politicians and political parties see elections as a do-or-die affair.
As far back as 2007, Olusegun Obasanjo, as President, forecast that the 2007 presidential election would be a “do-or-die affair”. Expectedly, that election was fought vigorously, violently and viciously. All other elections till today have been fought along the same lines with so much intensity, force and deception. This could be because, in Nigerian elections, winners take everything while losers go empty-handed and with bruised jaws.
Unfortunately, the election umpire, the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission, has keyed into this mindset and compromised the election rules, particularly its role as a self-governing adjudicator of elections conducted in the country. Many citizens now believe that candidates who triumph in national elections are those with sufficient money to buy election officials.
In Nigeria, tempting officials with money is a good way to test the moral character of men and women who oversee elections. If you want to evaluate the extent to which men and women are truly incorruptible or principled, you must conduct the basic examination of their level of honesty, trustworthiness and decency. A major tool for conducting that experiment is money. Only a few men and women of character can withstand the challenges of financial inducements.
In the 2023 general election, INEC and Muhammadu Buhari’s clueless and conniving government provoked so much anger across the land. Prior to the elections, voters were encouraged to be vigilant, to ensure they received their voters’ cards and to remain around the ballot centres to ensure their votes were counted. Unfortunately, voters who heeded this dubious advice found that their votes were not counted. They found the election results were manipulated and, in many cases, predetermined. This was precisely what happened before, during and after the presidential election of February 25.
Corruption in Nigeria comes in various forms. Defending injustice in the face of irrefutable evidence of criminal behaviour by election officials is a form of corruption. Declaring the winner of an election when all the results have not been collated and counted openly represents a kind of corruption. Stating arrogantly that candidates who were unhappy with the results announced by the INEC chairperson should “go to court” is the vilest form of corruption, intimidation, denial of citizens’ rights and impunity. That comment by Mahmood Yakubu resonated that attitude of “go to hell if you are not happy”. It is a declaration that has injustice and unfairness written all over it.
How can a presidential candidate approach a court of law for justice in a country in which the judiciary is believed to be corrupt? Presidential candidates cannot expect justice in a situation in which justice is obviously weighted against them. It was Olusegun Obasanjo who enunciated, some years ago, what has become popularly known as his theory of election victory – win by all means and then wait for the loser to approach the courts to prove that you didn’t win.
Senior members of the bar and bench have acknowledged over the years that there is a problem with the Nigerian judiciary. It is not a pretty observation. It is a deleterious comment that sullies the independence and integrity of members of the Nigerian judiciary.
Let’s get these facts right. Years before the 2023 elections, INEC received enormous human, financial and material resources intended to assist the organisation to conduct free, fair and credible elections. Unfortunately, the results of this year’s elections left many people disappointed and embittered. Rather than organise national elections that were fault-free and transparent, INEC demonstrated a high level of incompetence by its failure to uphold the election rules.
INEC’s poor conduct of the 2023 elections made a mockery of Nigeria in the international community. Right now, Nigeria is perceived, at least on paper, as a resourceful nation, a regional leader, and a continental military giant in Africa. How could such a country fail to manage elections that other African countries organise with low level fraud, violence and rigging? In the 2023 elections, Nigeria failed to act in the manner of a continental leader. A continental leader that cannot conduct general elections to select political leaders must be declared a fraud.