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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) continued its shoddy conduct of elections with the just concluded governorship supplementary election in Adamawa State. In a show of shame and in total disregard for the Electoral Act 2022, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Adamawa, Hudu Yunusa Ari, first announced the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Aisha Binani, as the winner of the election. According to Section 25 of the Electoral Act 2022, only the state Returning Officer has the power to announce the result and declare the winner of an election for a state governorship election. Ari’s action had sparked outrage across the country.
In its reaction, INEC headquarters invited the REC to Abuja and suspended the collation of results. It later suspended him for his bad conduct. We think Ari should be sacked and prosecuted to serve as a deterrent to people like him.
Binani apparently struggled to make history as the first elected female governor in Nigeria. That was why, soon after she was illegally announced as the winner, she did not waste time to read her acceptance speech as governor-elect. She also went to the Federal High Court, Abuja, to stop further action on the governorship election in Adamawa. The court refused to grant her ex-parte application and adjourned the suit to April 26.
On April 18, the Adamawa State Returning Officer, Professor Mohammed Mele, eventually announced the incumbent governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmadu Fintiri, as the winner of the election. Fintiri scored 430,861 votes to defeat Binani who got 396,788 votes.
We commend INEC for, at least, saving us from another attempt to derail our democracy. If the electoral umpire had behaved in this manner all through the last elections, our democracy would have grown from strength to strength. Rather, Nigerians saw an umpire that seemed unprepared for the task despite spending over N300 billion on the elections.
For instance, during the contentious Presidential and National Assembly elections held on February 25, 2023, INEC looked away while many infractions were committed. Some officials of the commission came late to many polling units. They were completely absent in some other units. Even in some places where they showed their presence, they conveniently forgot to come with some electoral materials such as stamp and ink.
To worsen matters, INEC failed to upload the election results of the presidential election real time as promised. The commission blamed technical glitches even when it was able to upload most of the results of the National Assembly elections. The outcome of the election has been challenged at the tribunal. Hence, Nigerians are waiting and expecting that justice will be done at the end of the day.
It is pertinent to advise that politicians should avoid the ‘do-or-die’ politics that has characterised our democratic journey since independence. Officials of INEC will not attempt to change the outcome of any election if desperate politicians do not compromise them. Election is a key ingredient of democracy and once we fail to get it right, every other aspect of that process will be in peril.
Nigeria must embark on political and electoral reforms if it is serious about entrenching a sustainable democracy. The first thing to do is to make INEC truly independent. A situation where the umpire depends entirely on funding by the government in power does not give room for autonomy. It leaves it to the whims and caprices of that government. This has to change.
Besides, the cost of contesting for elections is enormous. Aspirants are made to cough up millions of naira to contest for primary elections. Even when they win the primary, a lot more resources are required to prosecute the campaigns and the elections proper. A candidate who spends this much thinks more of how to recoup his investment. He embarks on all manner of shenanigans to win the election at all costs.
This is where restructuring comes in. The powers of the executive, for instance, have to be curtailed. A Nigerian president has enormous powers and is said to be one of the most powerful presidents in the world. Even the state governors have enormous powers such that they do whatever they like with impunity because they have immunity. Most of them also siphon the resources of their states to enrich themselves only for a few of them to face feeble prosecution after office. If those offices are made less attractive to greedy politicians, perhaps, there may be a restoration of some sanity in the system. This is when such positions will attract selfless and worthy people to run for elections.
We must guard our democracy jealously. In it lies our hope for a better Nigeria. If we continue to mess it up, the country will continue to go down as a crippled giant; as a country full of potential but perpetually condemned to be one of the under-developed nations in the world.
