Impact Of Postponement On Parties, Country

IN response to a question, Prof Attairu Jega, chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC, may have claimed that shifting the general elections by six weeks would not incur any additional cost, he probably did not consider the impact on political parties.

   Asked how is this shift in date is going to affect parties’ campaign programmes and their budgets, positive or otherwise, former Director of Strategy of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Garba Abari, told The Guardian that the shift in date would have minimal effect on campaign strategies of the opposition party. However, he said: “Surely the shift in dates of the elections will affect the campaign of the APC. I do not know in what ways it will affect other parties but for the APC, which was about going into the second week of February with unprecedented level of mobilisation we were thoroughly disappointed and taken a back with this turn of events. 

   “However, given the larger interest of the nation and the fact that the shift in date is still within the time allowed by law, the party will take it in its strides and ride on.”

   According to him, the APC has all the capacity to cope with the shift in election date. “The party through the instrumentality of all its formal and semi-formal organs will sustain its mobilization of voters and even build on the momentum already generated. I need not remind you that this election is not exactly a contest between ordinary partisan institutions but an election that will define the future of this country in more ways than one,” Abari said.

   On the impact on party’s resources, he said it is not so much in financial resources expended in the course of the campaigns, but specifically it is more in the psychological melt down and public disappointment and anxiety felt by the citizens and indeed the entire world. 

   This, according to Abari, can be gleaned from what a broad spectrum of the citizenry said. “For whatever was the merit in the argument that brought about the shift, if at all there is any merit, Nigerians across the divides have been fully mobilised and were looking forward to the electoral contest. The shift in date came as a rude shock with a consequent anti climax. But politics being a game of passion and knowing the never-say-die- spirit of the average Nigerian and the groundswell of the craving for change in politics and governance of the nation, the same enthusiasm and perhaps even more will be exhibited as we get close to March 28, 2015,” he said.

   ALSO, in a correspondence with The Guardian, Nasiru Suwaid, a social justice activist, insists that the shift in election date may be costing the country more than political players are willing to admit.  

   According to him, the cost of uncertainty the shift may have brought upon the value of an exceedingly jittery naira or to the highly volatile Nigerian Stock Exchange could be high. 

 “ Try rationalizing how a foreign investor, already fearful of the Nigerian business environment, will be ‘reassured’ by the likelihood of an evolving constitutional crisis, where elections cannot hold and most importantly, even the set future time for elections is not a virtual certainty.”

   “To put it in a much simpler form, a nation without a government could be what would stare us in the face.”

   As if to confirm that the impression is not just mere scare mongering, by the next working day after the announcement of polls shift, the All Share Index (ALsi) market capitalisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange shed about N208.381 billion naira, to close at N9,796 trillion naira, as against the previous Friday’s which closed numbers of N10,005 trillion naira.

   “Also, in the same Monday the February 9 2015, the naira ratio to the dollar took a bashing, with the naira trading for N196.50 to $1 United States dollar at the interbank market. In fact, by Tuesday business day closing numbers, the naira has fallen to N202.50 naira to $1 dollar. It is most worthy of note, that for the Nigerian naira, one of its key determinants of value is the price of crude oil, which has been going up recently, reaching up to $58 dollar to a barrel of crude oil, thus, normally, the naira should be regaining its value, rather than losing its valour,” Suwaid said. 

   He noted that the National Assembly may have been distracted due to the election fever, for it to sit down and pass the budget, thus leaving all economic forecasts and projections to be hanging up in the air. 

   So, also is the likely harsh, but necessary monetary decisions, which could not be taken in the thick of the election season, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has to keep it in abeyance pending the passage of the elongated time for election. “Besides, which business person can plan when you do not know the value of naira for next week?” as to what this portends for the country, Suwaid said this is very simple to forecast, for an economy slowly creeping into recession, what looms in the horizon is an inadvertent stagnation.

  In the same light the European Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria will require extra 1.8 million euros budget to remain in the country to carry out its assignment following the shift, the Chief Observer of the mission, Santiago Fisas, said. He said that the extra fund would raise the mission’s budget for monitoring the polls to 6.2 million euros.

   On what it amounts to the constitution, he said: “As I watched Professor Jega addressing the press, stating reasons for the shift, the first thought to come to mind, was whether Nigeria is still operating a constitutional democracy, with a single chain of authority and power that flows from the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, or not.”

   He explained that generally and appropriately, a subservient and loyal armed force, only offers advice to the constituted authority, which is either accepted or rejected but, the onus of taking, proclaiming and pronouncing decisions, must lie with the civil authority. According to him, it is the reason why the name of the Office of the National Security Adviser, has a title ending, confirming its role as a personal security advisor to the president, thus only answerable, but most especially, loyal to the individual occupying the office of the President, and not necessarily interchangeable and substitutable with being or always acting patriotically in the greater national interest.

  On effect on public perception Suwaid said, “For any student of philosophy and jurisprudence, there is no word that has greater meaning, than the sociological public opinion measure called perception. indeed, within the more narrow legal jurisprudence, it is said, for there to be an equitable system of the administration of justice, the greater citizenry, must not only feel that justice was done, it must be seen to have been done, thus, it is not only necessary for an umpire (judge) to exhibit fairness, forthrightness and clear impartiality, it should be openly conveyed ‘practically’ unto the viewing and hearing of the interested parties in dispute.

   Thus, it is not just about satisfying the perception of political parties but, according to Suwaid, it must also satisfy the perceptive vision of the hundreds of millions of the citizenry.