Time to get the electoral system right

After all is said and done, Nigeria has to move forward, but not without a strong commitment to advance democracy. Citizens expect President Bola Tinubu to do something revolutionary about the fundamentals that threaten civil rule. He has to radically improve on the system he met to ensure that in four years, citizens don’t have to wait for courts to determine winners of elections.

For a man who has participated in elections since 1993, and a notable pro-democracy activist, he has a duty to ensure that the loopholes politicians exploit to rig elections are blocked. In his tenure, the electoral process should go full electronic without glitches occurring to tarnish taxpayers’ trust and resources. Nigerians who live in foreign countries should begin to vote. What Tinubu owes the country and democracy is to urgently inject credibility and trust into the system. Many have lost faith, particularly young voters, but the country has to move forward.

Conforming to a fraudulent tradition: Last week, the president appointed nine new Resident Electoral Commissioners for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who will serve for a term of five years each, subject to the confirmation of the Senate. And it is likely that before the president’s first tenure expires, more RECs would be appointed as those currently in office serve out their terms or get re-appointed.

This is the tradition since 1999, that allows the president to nominate or appoint the chair of INEC as well as fill other sensitive positions. What has been seen is that since the era of former President Obasanjo, certain persons known to show sympathy for ruling parties have been appointed as Resident Electoral Commissioners. In extreme cases, card-carrying members of parties have managed elections in states. Former President Buhari was so unabashed when he nominated one of his spokespersons for confirmation as a REC by the Senate.

President Tinubu cannot continue in that discredited route if he means well for democracy. One cannot stop referring to the Justice Uwais panel’s recommendation on appointments into INEC. That’s a crucial point, but no president has bothered. Even the National Assembly is not interested. And when the nominees are presented for scrutiny, they will all pass because they are likely sympathizers of the ruling party.

The president ought to know better where to begin the crusade to sanitize the electoral system. The temptation to field loyalists is every politician’s desire, no doubt about that, but at a time like this, when democracy is threatened all around Africa’s most populous country, let it not be business as usual.

With the reins of office now firmly established in the hands of president Tinubu through the instrumentality of the Supreme Court, this is not the time to gloat. The court has done its best but it can never replace the suffrage that belongs to the people, which ought to be willingly surrendered. Vast sections of the country have no trust in a court delivered mandate. They do not believe what INEC packaged as elections and what the Supreme Court has ruled as a finality. But the President can get back that lost trust.

He and his party men should stop boasting about 2023 elections being free and fair. Let there now be genuine efforts to revisit reports of previous panels that were put together to debate how to enhance the electoral system. Such will not derogate this court-decreed mandate, but will enhance it when citizens behold sincere penance. Former President Umar Yar’Adua was not ashamed to confess that the elections of 2007 were fraudulent even when he was the major beneficiary.

For Atiku’s doggedness: Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the 2023 elections deserves a lot of kudos for his efforts. He did not fight in vain. Contrary to the position of the highest court that his harvest from Chicago State University (CSU) didn’t add value because it came too late, let it be known that a good number of citizens salute his courage. Many citizens do not see it as a personal fight or a waste of time and resources, not at all.

With what the CSU revelations have unearthed, candidates for elective offices will be more careful when next they fill forms at INEC. Tinubu was always smart and careful, but he left too many trails. The details he submitted to INEC since he began contesting elections have not been consistent, on account of age, primary and secondary schools attended, including the latest discovery that he owns a Higher School Certificate (HSC).

With the help of technology and resources, Atiku was able to take the inquisition farther from where the late chief Gani Fawehinmi left off. The Internet and ease in communication assisted the search. Nigerians are now better educated on these matters beyond the Supreme Court judgment.

Nigerians outside the country also followed the search with gusto. They wanted to know what was going to happen to their president. Some were partisan and could not be bothered whether forgery was involved. Others were so concerned that Nigeria had washed her dirty linens on the global stage. For a country whose image across the world had not been decent, the recent public shows at CSU worsened the rating.

And that’s not all. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), are said to have files on Mr. President. Since those files no longer add value to the 2023 presidential election petitions, maybe they should just put the lid on them. But forensic investigators and researchers will not accept that. They want to attain full disclosures.
And the innuendos around the CSU files will form great themes and subject matters for script writers.

For INEC, let them take note and seek assistance from Atiku on how to authenticate candidates’ credentials. INEC cannot pocket those billions of naira and fail to properly scrutinize documents. It’s a shame.

Peter Obi and the Obidients: The last one year was eventful and rewarding for the obidients despite the outcomes at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) and the Supreme Court. Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party, made the party stand out of the shadows the owners had consigned it for years. In the past, owners were just content using the party to trade and make money from unserious presidential and governorship candidates. With Obi on the ballot, things changed, even without the mega money other candidates and parties threw into the race. The Obi movement went full throttle in the last elections. Obi didn’t make any impressive commercial outing in the media. No heavy media budget, no outstanding newspaper and television campaigns, just legwork. Yes, off course, the free-to-air social media was agog.

His simple promise to do something different from the old order was sufficient to turn the tables and the tables were turned in Lagos and the South-south. The North-central was poised for change but for limited organisation and inexperience. In the main North, rulers who hold brief for the oppressed distorted the message that could liberate them. They created all manner of dissonance, including tapping into private telephone chats to stir religious hate. Ordinary Nigerians everywhere have been enslaved and cheated by politicians for far too long, change is hard to sell, especially in far north.

In Lagos, it was unheard of that an opposition party could come from obscurity to make such gains. If the presidential and governorship elections were to hold same day, only God knows what could have happened. The Uwais’ committee had recommended that presidential and governorship elections should hold same day while that of state and National Assembly should take place same day. But the federal legislators are too scared of running alone. They prefer to tag along and take advantage of presidential deployments (law enforcement and vote enhancement palliatives).

Shame! Hopefully, the anomaly will be corrected along with other amendments before the next general elections.

In the larger South-west and South-east, many refused to clearly see the Obi phenomenon for what it presented, an opportunity to engineer a new Nigeria. In that short season of myopia, there were no enlightened souls any more apart from young people who are truly fed up with a system that had stopped working. The youths have the numbers and they are made miserable by the older generations that once enjoyed certain privileges when Nigeria worked. In those days, their education was largely free and they had employment even before they graduated.

When you hear the older generation reminisce, they regal you with how they were served chicken in the University. How their accommodation was superb and washermen/women took care of their laundries. Some got bursary and scholarship to attend foreign schools. Yet in 2023, the older folks still claim it is their turn. Millions of youths rebelled against their parents and voted for Obi.

Obi did not set out as a tribal candidate. If he did, he couldn’t have come this far. Unfortunately, tribe and ethnicity dwarfed his message in the South-west and over-amplified it in the South-east. Still, he came third after Tinubu and Atiku. The Labour Party candidate scored 6,101,522 (25.40 per cent). Atiku came second with 6,984,520 (29.07 per cent) while Tinubu scored 8,794,726 (36.61 per cent). He came with little and gained so much. That’s progress.

Come 2027, more lessons would have been learned. The format of electioneering must change. If politicians insist democracy is the better alternative, they are the ones to sustain it with genuine and profound sacrifices.