Just as you have expressed fear over the bluntness of Uwais Report, do you think the ruling parties can still allow such to come into effect in Nigeria?
Do you remember the administration of former President Muhammdu Buhari? They had to dilly dally and play around with the INEC electoral reforms until they left office. This is because they were the beneficiaries. No beneficiary wants to throw away the sweetness that comes through it, but it requires statesmanship for the kind of people to rise, and that was what former President Yar’Adua did. In memory of his administration, he admitted that the election that brought him was flawed and the flaws could be made better for the sake of the nation. He didn’t say let me retain this so that next election I will be re-elected. No, he said let’s make this work and that is what we should be talking about, but those who should drive this process are themselves beneficiaries of the fraud, the corruption and that is why it is difficult. So, the civil society organizations need to up their game, they need to advocate for these reforms to take place before any other thing otherwise you cannot be doing the same thing the same way and expect a good result. Part of the recommendations of the Uwais committee is that the political party matter should be self-regulated by an agency outside INEC. There is a lot of corruption going on there, INEC is the referee, the player, and the team manager. How can this work under the doctrine of natural justice, not even to talk of separation of functions. Somebody should be able to manage their functions. The report recommended that there should be a separate body called the Political Party Registration and Regulations Committee. This is the number one recommendation of the committee on unbundling INEC. This committee can be anywhere as far as the registration of bodies is concerned. It can be in CAC, and it can be called the Department of Political Party Registration and Regulations and the CAC will now professionally monitor their activities so that INEC can be free from being accused because what they have done is to get favourable leadership to cover political parties and that is why whenever there is a crisis within the party and if INEC is approached they keep mum because they do not know. For example, when there are two parallel primaries, people rely on INEC to know which one is automatic. The INEC should not be relied upon to determine the authenticity of an election it conducted. The truth is that whenever there is a problem, INEC shouldn’t be the one to determine the winner of the election they conducted. Legally what it means is that INEC is coming in to be a judge in a matter that will come before it. The Uwais committee went ahead to recommend that there should be an independently recognized electoral offenses commission and they have been against that; even the Senate passed the bill for the Electoral Offenses Commission, but the House of Representatives did not pass it. Do you know why? Those who were likely to be victims were the agents of themselves, the political class, but I can tell you that the impunity going on is because there is no punishment. Look at what the local government elections are throwing up. Look at what the state electoral commissions are doing, and they are not aware that by the express position of Section 150 of the Electoral Act, the regulation made by INEC for the conduct of elections in the FCT is applied to all the 774 local governments in Nigeria, they are not aware and offenses covered in the Act apply to them and the prosecutors of the offenses by Section 145 are INEC and the same Act says that any offenses listed shall apply to SIECs as if they were INEC. And the Act says that any election not conducted in consonance with INEC regulations is invalid. Paragraph 11 of the Second Schedule says that any regulations INEC shall make apply to all the states with equal force. For that section, state commissions shall be deemed to have and exercise the powers of the commission in respect of the procedures regulating area council elections under this Act, and it says any election to the local government conducted by a state commission in violation of this section shall be invalid. So, it requires political will to take a state like Kano or Lagos, be it anywhere, to court to nullify the election, and who will do it? It requires will to say that this state conducted a fraudulent election and take it to court, and it shall be nullified.
The power to prosecute is that of INEC because Section 45 says all prosecution under this Act shall be undertaken by INEC legal officers or any other person appointed by it. Now, can you see the caveat they have left? But the question is how do we move INEC to save the local government because the local governments are very important in democratic governance? That is the level that is being most bastardized, and it is because that is the place people have lost interest in the Nigerian electoral processes, not at the presidential level, not in those that connect communities, the one that touches them. Nowadays, we witness situations where the chairman of a council is not from the community because the governor imposed him on the people, and how do you want the people to be governed if their people are not leading them?
The Supreme Court has pronounced judgment in favour of local government autonomy. Do you think such can work if the governors still appoint state electoral umpires?
That is a problem and that is again where the court will come in. By that single judgment of July 11, 2024, on local government autonomy, look at what has happened; the states are all scampering, trying to beat the deadline of October. It doesn’t matter whether elections were conducted to beat the timeframe, but the next line is to determine whether provisions of the law were obeyed. Now is to check if they have done some against the Electoral Act so that if anyone voids them, they will sit up. That is why something has to be activated. If we want to sanitize the local government, we have to invoke what is already in the law, and I can tell you that we don’t need new laws because they can be activated to deal with the infractions we are witnessing across the country. Can’t we see what it has become – a situation where a state will conduct elections in 44 local governments and the ruling party in the state will win all the chairmanship seats? What a shame! It is not possible in a diverse society like Nigeria, which is not a democracy. So what I am saying, in effect, is that there has to be a way because INEC does not have the means because of the manner of appointment of RECs, who are card-carrying members of the ruling party, who will always bow and bend the rules. It is not supposed to be so because in some countries they have Chapter 8 institutions, those institutions you don’t want to belong to the executive, legislature, or judiciary, you put them under a particular chapter of the Constitution and that is where the INEC should belong to be free from the control of the executive. That way the appointments, the powers, and procedures, the budget, and everything would be separated from both the legislature and executive. As it is today, the executive will appoint, and the Senate approves, and these are the two political organs that appropriate for themselves and approve for themselves without anyone’s contributions. On the appointments, there is no public hearing or the qualifications, and the eligibility of the would-be leadership of INEC. There is a problem and it is a problem of lack of will to do the right thing.
Looking at the outcome of the Edo election, CSOs observed an increment in vote buying. Who are these sellers and buyers if INEC claims innocence?
This is a double-barreled question, and this has occurred so many times, and it is a matter of interest. It is a result of collapsing collaboration of interests. The ruling class interests have gone beyond the voters and the other political parties. They have seen that if you want to get the votes and control, the instrument of the process is the game, and that is what they are doing, from the planning to implementation, the ruling party and other political parties are ahead of the commission. If I can ask you, what are the logistics of conducting an election? It is men, materials, and security, and that is what INEC would plan. Then ask yourself, what are the logistics of voters or politicians? It is snatch, smash, capture the results. Can you see the variants? INEC does not plan to rig an election that it is about to conduct; no, it doesn’t, but what does the candidate plan to do to capture it? It is do or die, and INEC will declare me a winner. They do everything, including holding opponents hostage. Have we forgotten so soon how young corps members were killed for refusing to do the wrong thing?
Check this story on Part 4
Revealed: How Nigeria’s elections are rigged (4)