Former President Goodluck Jonathan and erstwhile chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega recently made suggestions on how to improve Nigeria’s electoral system. This came a few days after former military President, Ibrahim Babangida, admitted that the late Moshood Abiola won the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election. As a cornerstone of any democracy, election presents us with a choice to either retain or reject a sitting government. People rejoice when it is free, fair and credible. But when it is flawed, crisis that can mar a country erupts.
In Nigeria generally, elections are greatly flawed. Jonathan and Jega attributed this to politicians, the judiciary and the INEC. Speaking recently in Abuja at a conference tagged, Reflection Conference on Democratic Elections in West Africa, organized by a pro-democracy and advocacy group, Yiaga Africa, Jonathan said “every human being has the tendency to cheat. Even if you are born from heaven, as long as you are human, the feeling that you must exploit, you must cheat, is there. But if the environment does not permit it, then you become careful.”
Comparing elections to football, the former President adds that a referee and a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) that tolerate nonsense encourage players to play anyhow. Similarly, if the INEC, which plays the role of referee, and the judiciary, look the other way when electoral malpractices are being committed, then the politicians will do whatever they like because they want to win by all means.
Jega, in his own submission, called for urgent measures to protect the integrity and independence of the electoral commission. He lamented the continuous exploitation of citizens by the ruling classes in West Africa, a situation that has occasioned military interventions in some countries of the sub-region such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger. He also decried political interference in the appointment or removal of electoral commissioners and other election officials.
We are living witnesses to what Jonathan and Jega said. The 2023 general election is a typical example. The government of Muhammadu Buhari invested a lot of resources in the election. Nigerians were told that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was the game changer in the election. Sucked in by the assurances of a better technology, millions of people trooped out to exercise their franchise. But the majority of them were systematically disenfranchised.
Some integrity-challenged politicians engaged in vote-buying and recruited thugs who destroyed ballot boxes, harassed and beat up perceived opposition party supporters and engaged in some other acts inimical to the success of the election. They also compromised the electoral umpire and the judiciary.
In some cases, some officials of INEC arrived late at the polling centres or came without the relevant electoral materials. In some polling centres, voters waited for hours to be accredited, but INEC officials failed to turn up. This was partly why the percentage of voter turnout in the last general election (28 per cent) was the lowest since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.
Nigerians had hoped that with the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), the era of announcing fake results was gone. The electoral umpire had promised that all election results would be transmitted electronically from each of the 176,606 polling units to INEC servers. Midway into the announcement of the presidential result, INEC claimed there were technical glitches. When the final results were announced in the wee hours of March 1, 2023, many cynical Nigerians cried foul. They lost hope in the electoral system.
They also lost hope in the judiciary. Some of our courts gave judgements that relied heavily on technicality more than justice. This questioned their integrity and impartiality. Jonathan is right to say that no matter how elaborate or sophisticated the deployment of technology is, it may not deliver the desired outcomes without the proven will of the authorities and the citizens to do the right thing.
For us to move forward as a democratic nation, we must have a truly independent INEC and the judiciary as well as non-partisan security operatives. For INEC to become truly independent, the appointment of its officials should not be done by the executive.
Besides, Nigeria should learn how elections are conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom and other advanced democracies. We can also learn from some of our West African neighbours that have had credible elections in the recent past. Ghana, Liberia and Senegal are good examples. Senegal witnessed a pre-election protests and arrest of opposition politicians, but the election eventually held peacefully and freely with the opposition candidate, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, winning the election. In Ghana, opposition candidate, John Dramani Mahama, defeated the then ruling party candidate, Mahamudu Bawumia, to return as President after the December 7, 2024 election. In Liberia, then President George Weah lost to the then opposition candidate, Joseph Boakai in 2023.
Though effective use of technology, especially electronic voting, is essential in conducting a credible election, we agree with Jonathan that the human element needs to be considered as well in order to have a seamless election. Hence, we need a new constitution that will encourage devolution of powers and discourage the struggle by politicians to win elections at the centre at all costs.