Where is my PVC?

I WATCHED Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), last Saturday labour effortlessly to announce the postponement of the presidential, gubernatorial, national and state assemblies elections and felt sorry, real sorry, for the country and its people, who were not taking aback by INEC’s action.    

  We are used to state institutions disappointing us. Weeks before the issue of security compounded the situation, the level of preparedness of the electoral body had been in doubt and as the election date approached, the distribution and collection of the PVCs became synonymous with INEC’s poor preparations. 

  The surprise for me was not that the election was postponed but that we waited so late to recognise or accept that our natural organisational weakness and lack of forward planning was at full display in INEC.

  I thought we all knew that the end of one election was the beginning of another election. Now, I know I was wrong. In Ghana, immediately after their last but one election, they embarked on the registration of new voters and those who could not previously register. By the time they got into the real elections, issues of voter registration had long been resolved. 

  Last year, India, a vast country with a voting population of close to 800 million, went through five weeks of voting in a national election that resulted in the installation of a new administration; there were no major hitches. 

  Our last national election was 2011 and a good four years later, we found ourselves not fully prepared for the 2015 elections.

  In the course of my diplomatic career, l have had cause to tell various senior government functionaries visiting my missions that corruption and issues, like human right violations, were not only the cause of Nigeria’s global bad image, but official irresponsibility and our lack of seriousness in the way we do things contribute a lot more. 

  Add this to the joke I make about our fire brigade approach to things and you appreciate my position! Were FIFA or the IOC to offer us the rights to host the World Cup or the Olympics, the two world bodies should resist any temptation of visiting us to inquire about the state or level of preparedness or inspect venues for the games. 

  All they need do is just trust us, as we could be offended and ask them to take their games elsewhere if they become burdensome or meddlesome. Even if they arrive a week to the games, they should stay in and enjoy their free hotel accommodation and prepare themselves for the opening ceremonies. 

  Irrespective of the level of preparedness, the games would commence, we will muddle through but we would end successfully. Because of this, no postmortem is undertaken with the objective of avoiding apparent mistakes for the future. 

  Lest we have forgotten, the 2011 elections were shifted, by one week, on the day the elections were to commence.

  Organising an election is a different ball game and we cannot muddle through. Typical of us, we have left the important issues and focused on the mundane. We have concentrated on violence-free elections as if the absence of violence in an election is what makes elections credible. 

  Every day, especially in Abuja and Lagos, seminars, workshops and symposium are organised by foreign-funded NGOs; yet, the sporadic violence that erupted after the announcement of the result of the 2011 presidential election took place not in Lagos or Abuja, but in Kano, Kaduna, Katsina and Bauchi, I believe. 

  The credibility of an election begins and ends with the process, not with the absence of violence. I learnt that many years ago when I was involved as part of the international observer team that monitored Namibia’s pre-independence elections. 

  After the results were announced, and the South West African Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) won, I had gone to see the leader of the opposition party — the DTA — and was surprised to find him at peace with himself. This was against the backdrop of the posturing of the party, an ally of the then apartheid regime in South Africa. 

  He and his party were satisfied with the election, which SWAPO won — he said because the processes leading to the elections were credible and the elections, in all its ramifications, were free, fair and transparent.

  In Nigeria, an election is deemed to be credible or not credible based on the perception of the winners and losers. If my party wins, it’s credible; if we lose, it is not credible. That should not be so. 

  We must stop ridiculing our country and ourselves and play by the global standard of what is credible, free, fair and transparent. 

  Only a week to the February date, less than 60% per cent of the registered voters had collected their PVCs and some reports maintained that some PVCs were still being printed abroad and expected in the country; presiding officers for the elections not trained; training manual not ready; about 700,000 ad-hoc staff needed for the elections not yet recruited or trained; voting registers yet to be displayed, as stipulated by law; no one can vouch that the card readers are all in perfect working conditions. 

  The list is long and INEC has been subtly admitting its failures. Yet, we all believed we were heading towards credible elections.

  Let’s just focus on the PVS, given that this is, perhaps, the most important in the chain. If 15 per cent or 20 per cent of eligible voters failed due to no fault of theirs to collect their PVCs, the credibility of that election is doubtful. 

  I voted in 2011 — in all the elections. Today, my name is not on any INEC’s list in the three centres I have been directed to in search of my PVC. 

  In all the centres I visited, I met many others in my situation and nobody or centre to address our peculiar situation. There are hundreds of Nigerians all over the country like me, aggrieved that we have been disenfranchised by the electoral body. 

  Worst still, the parties care little about our plight, especially those, which already smell victory and eager to take power. It did not matter to them that in the most enlightened, sophisticated and metropolitan city in Nigeria, with a voting population of 6 million, that only 30 per cent had PVCs. 

  Not even the anguished cry of the state governor that he would not pick up his PVC until substantial numbers in Lagos are empowered to vote made sense. Not at all! The aura of victory and power has blinded us to the fact that injustice cannot and should not be built on the altar of change. 

  So, what do those of us who have been disenfranchised do? Bear our pains, anguish and anger at a system that has denied us of one of our basic human rights — to vote and elect those we want to govern us? 

  Asking the politicians to help us is a waste of time; so, I am left with no choice but to beg Prof. Jega, ‘let this not be a dialogue of the deaf.’

 • Amb Keshi (OON) is a former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat.