INEC: Why The Silence Over Zakari?

THE recent squabble between Governor Adams Oshiomole and ex-governor Sylva in the Bayelsa APC primary, which was cancelled and rescheduled has vividly made clear to even the most undiscerning, the dangers of structural capture in deciding electoral victory in present electoral process.

Sylva’s alleged capture of the Bayelsa APC election accreditation/nomination process brought to the fore the important question of: why electoral opponents should feel secure if elections will be conducted under INEC, by a woman who is known to be a relative of the President.

That Governor Oshiomole, needed the services of the Defence Headquarters, IGP and several top security agencies to leave Sylva’s electoral enclave, brings home the thorny issue of, if electoral opponents including those within his party, the APC are cornered by the President, under his relative’s supervised election, where can such opponents turn to? Will they be rescued by the Department of State Security (DSS), the National Security Adviser (NSA), or the Police? Given the fragile political relations even amongst the ruling party and other political parties, would it not be in the best interest of the nation to prevent the possible disaster that awaits us in the 2019 elections? Apart from The Guardian, Vanguard, Punch and Tribune newspapers that have written very strong editorials on this matter, Civil rights advocates and election monitoring groups have accepted, and willing to make excuses for, or condone the appointment of an individual, confirmed to have grown up in the same home as the president, as the chief Electoral Umpire?  Until this writer logged on to Youtube (inecchairrelationshipwithbuhari) that has gone viral now on the internet, no one could believe that such a development is possible in this country. The less than ten minutes interview clip of Alhaji Tanko Yakassai on Channelstv revealed that a relationship indeed exists between Mr. President and Mrs. Amina Zakari.

Since this information was made public, it is sad to note that no one has spoken up about Mrs. Zakari’s appointment as acting INEC chairman. So loud is the silence on the matter that one is tempted to assume a spell has been cast on Nigerians. Or how else can one describe this silence in the face of future elections in the country. Several decades ago, Alexander Pope declared that “political corruption is the worst beginning of all other forms of corruption in a society”.

The present scenario raises a moral question: that a man who is a beneficiary of an electoral process midwifed by a sitting president who appointed an INEC chairman of the calibre of Prof. Attahiru Jega and others totally out of the circle of his family, friends, political party and even outside his geo-political zone of the South-south that made it possible for Buhari to win the 2015 general election on the fourth attempt. It is shocking that the same beneficiary could turn around after victory to now appoint a relative as “Acting chairman” of INEC and worst still, unconstitutionally in total disregard to the mandatory consultation with the Council of State and more importantly the confirmation of such appointment by the Senate. What would have been the fate of the 2015 presidential election if Chief Orubebe who is not related to President Jonathan except that he is an ljaw from Southsouth was appointed INEC chairman? Is Nigeria under a spell of some sort?

This is not only bad because it offers one party an advantage, it is bad for all and wrought with dangers in a multi-party democracy. We recall prior to the 2015 elections when there were speculations that ex-President Jonathan was contemplating a replacement for Professor Jega, to replace him with Professor Mimiko, there was intense anxiety, several advertorials, TV programmes and radio discussions on why Jega’s replacement was unacceptable, President Jonathan had to speak on the matter both to national and international media and the international community on the need for the Electoral Commission to be Independent.

Without prevarications, it is difficult to see how INEC can gain the confidence of political actors if the president, a participant in elections directly or indirectly as the leader of a political party is the presiding officer of such elections. This is the dilemma that INEC must live with as long as INEC has Mrs. Zakari as the Chairperson, because under her, all elections conducted by INEC will carry a taint of partisanship, an egregious flaw for an independent Electoral management body. Whether Nigerians are under a spell to accept this arrangement, or sympathisers of the President are paid to spin romantic spiels to make such arrangement look acceptable, this arrangement is a disaster waiting to happen for future elections in Nigeria.

• Dr. A.A. Adebisi is of Yoruba Study Group, Ibadan.