For a ‘nation’ that trudges under the yoke of politics, it is understandable that the process of amending the guiding electoral law of the land should attract such broad interest and concern, as has been the case in recent times with the Electoral Bill.
The interest really makes sense, considering, for one, that the ability of the political class to retain strangulating manipulative grips on Nigeria is, to a large extent, dependent on the provisions of the electoral law. The many lords and masters resident in various crevices of national politics require laws with loopholes they can exploit to maintain their hold and easy lifestyle.
Anyone who knows the ways and methods of politics and governance in Nigeria ought to know the jagged road through which electoral laws come into being. The road is deliberately made difficult. To many of the political class, so much is at stake for them that no subterfuge is too much to deploy to resist changes. Many of the reasons given officially from both the executive branch and the legislative section for delaying the strengthening of the electoral law of the land are, therefore, nothing but a façade, delay tactics in defence of the status quo.
The issue of electronic transmission of election results, for instance, remains something of an anathema to many politicians essentially because it promises to checkmate manipulation of election results at source. Of course, you do not expect those involved to own up to their actual fears. What they do is to latch on to and try to make a mountain of poor communication network services in their villages.
There was nothing exactly prophetic, therefore, in the knowledge that President Muhammadu Buhari would not assent to the electoral bill before him, at least, not that fast. What actually would have been remarkable was if the fate of the bill was different.
Even with such chequered trajectory of electoral law amendments in Nigeria, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, took up the task of alerting the public of what he believed would be the fate of the electoral bill sent to the President for assent. Of course, Wike was neither the first nor the only person to say emphatically that President Buhari would not assent to the amendment of the electoral law when it was placed before him not long ago.
In going about his task of informing Nigerians of the real reasons why he believed President Buhari would not assent to the bill, Wike was Wike; trenchant and unsparing of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). He dissected and deconstructed the ruling party to show that they have no basis for any pretensions to progressive tendencies. Eventually the Electoral Bill has been sent back to the drawing board, as Nigerians would put it. Experience has shown over time, though, that once Nigerians declare a return to the drawing board, nothing remarkably new ever comes out of that drawing board.
In truth, the present travails of the proposed new electoral law is not new. Such has been the story and the lot of electoral laws in the country. When it comes to such issues as the making of new laws, especially the ones that will constrict their room for pranks and manipulations, politicians are at once predictable and constant. In the minds and hands of politicians, the agitation for strengthening of the electoral law is, at best, an irritation. Who needs such irritation?
One of the pranks that have been visited on the making of electoral laws in Nigeria over the years is to ensure that a new law, always long in making, is not passed until the eve of a general election. That is not by default. The lawmakers and their cousins at the executive branch, usually brought under pressure by the election management body and stakeholders in the electoral process, always ensure that the public may have their say in asking for tightened electoral law, but as much as possible the new law leaves everyone sufficiently confused for some time.
By design, therefore, and not by mistake, electoral laws in Nigeria are always passed and assented at such a time that the election management body is occupied with preparing for general elections. That way, the election management body is caught in the middle of a busy schedule and will the find it challenging to apply some critical provisions of the new law. The media and the civil society groups are left on unsure grounds as well and so do not have sufficient knowledge of the nuances and fine points of the provisions as to pontificate on the new law. Even the judiciary is left gasping for air, as it tries to properly understand the law it now has to interpret in election matters around the corner.
Against this background of confusion, the political class is left substantially alone to swim about in chaotic political waters, something they love to do. That is the way it goes. Check it out. The 2006 Electoral Act passed this route. The 2010 Act did. The 2022 Act will face no different fate. As a matter of fact, it is already done. For all those who are fretting about the fate of the Electoral Bill, they should just relax. The new electoral law will come when it will come. Expect an accented copy less than 12 months before the 2023 elections. That’s the way it goes in Nigerian politics.
Unfortunately, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does not seem to be helping matters. A few hours after the President withheld assent to the bill, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu at INEC declared once more that INEC would continue to expand the frontiers of technology in the electoral process, to enhance the integrity of elections. He reeled out the technological application introduced by INEC to strengthen the integrity of elections.
Prof. Yakubu may be doing his job the best he can, but it may not have occurred to him that every time he makes such emphatic statements on how new technology additions have come to stay in the electoral process, he pushes up the blood pressure of not a few politicians. They naturally don’t like that one bit. And there lies part of the problems in passing new electoral laws over the years. Faced at any time with the prospect of losing grip on the system they live to exploit, the politicians are always determined to buy more time and push further the day of reckoning.
The disappointment here is that President Buhari who, both administratively and chronologically, is in the departure lounge (apologies to Olusegun Obasanjo) and who has made firm promises to bequeath a heathy election on his way out, should be found wittingly or unwitting being part of the cog in the wheel.
It is so easy to forget. The chaos and unfairness found in the indirect primaries within the major political parties leading to the 2019 general election alone was enough weighty evidence against that option. It is inconceivable that a tacit preference for that same option will now be a reason for refusing assent to a new electoral law. But then, as has earlier been pointed out, the new law will come when it will come.