Few presidents in our annals have benefited from the conduct of credible elections such as Muhammadu Buhari. All thanks to the muscular introduction of technology by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) such as the Smart Card Reader(SCR) and the Permanent Voter Card(PVC), which game changed the 2015 General Elections, President Muhammadu Buhari was able to defeat the then incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan. To further add luster and ambience to his electoral victory, President Jonathan conceded defeat even before the result of the election had been officially announced by the then Chief Electoral Commissioner of the Federation, Professor Attahiru Jega.
Coming at a time that the African Union(AU) was expressing profound anxiety about the prospects of democracy on the continent, arising from the refusal of those vanquished in elections to graciously and gallantly accept defeat, President Jonathan’s concession made Buhari’s victory even more auspicious and more resounding. The unprecedented concession, in one fell swoop, transformed Mr. Jonathan into a global icon and statesman.
It is against this salubrious backdrop that when President Buhari solemnly pledged to further help in reforming the electoral process and bequeathing a legacy of credible elections, Nigerians, particularly stakeholders in the electoral process, were exhilarated.
Stakeholders assumed that since the President had benefited from a process of credible elections, the natural way to go was for him to add considerable value to it. Alas, three major events, do show crystal clearly, that there is a gulf between the several pledges which the president made to improve our elections and his actions and that his actions do, in fact, knock the bottom out of his clarion, roof top professions to reforming the electoral process.
The first major action which signaled that the president, far from improving the electoral process, was determined to thwart it, was the vexatious and highly provocative nomination of one of his less regarded aides, Ms Lauretta Onochie, as National Commissioner at the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC).
Not only was Ms Onochie, a politically exposed person, she was known to be a card-carrying member of the governing All Progressives Congress(APC). What is worse, as probably the most coarse handler of President Muhammadu Buhari, she was known to have poured rude scorn and invectives on her principal’s traducers, real and imagined.
The second major event that suggests strongly that rather than expand the frontiers of the electoral process, the president is more concerned with constricting it, with a view to asphyxiating it, was his well celebrated dithering and prevarication in assenting to the defunct Electoral Bill 2022. In spite of its sundry progressive provisions, he delayed in assenting to it until he was literally hectored and harassed by the Media and Civil Society. He took, like forever, cynically nitpicking and finding fault with the bill before he grudgingly assented to it.
When he eventually signed, without as much as advancing any cogent reason for his delay, the Commission, which had been waiting with bated breath for the re-enactment of the 2022 Electoral Act, had to adjust its officially appointed dates for the conduct of the 2023 General Elections by one week.
The third major event which shows that this government excels in undermining the electoral process and that, at best,
its pledge to bequeath a legacy of credible elections is a lip service, is the recent replacement of Resident Electoral Commissioners(RECs) whose tenures had lapsed. Out of the nineteen RECs nominated by the President, five were re-nominated while fourteen were fresh nominations. Out of these fourteen(fresh) nominees, some are said, either to be outrighly partisan, others are reported to be too proximate to political office holders while yet others are said to have integrity issues.
A recent joint statement by nine civil society organizations(Yiaga Africa, International Press Center, Center for Media and Society, The Albino Foundation, Elect Her, Nigerian Women Trust Fund, Partners for Electoral Reform, Inclusive Friends Association and the Kukah Center) has called urgent attention to this travesty.
This, in my humble view, is yet another brazen and calibrated attempt to scupper the electoral process by infiltrating the ranks of the Election Management Body(EMB) with partisans and lackeys. I say this advisedly and with the highest sense of responsibility. After its botched and lamentable attempt to foist Ms Onochie on the Commission, one would have thought that any names forwarded to the National Assembly for approval will be those whose integrity is unimpeachable and that such persons shall be neutral and non-partisan as prescribed by the Constitution. Also, the presidency had all the time to do due diligence on the nominees since the issue of the impending nominations had been in the public domain for more than six months before the tenures of the out gone RECs lapsed.
Apart from the fact that the nomination of some of these RECs with blemished track records or sympathy for the ruling party goes against the spirit and letter of the Constitution, it also goes against the grain of at least three of INEC’s core values. Some of the Commission’s principal values are: impartiality, neutrality and integrity. As a matter of fact, and course, each time INEC Staff conduct an election, they swear to an oath of neutrality. It is when INEC Staff are imbued with the pre requisites of impartiality, neutrality and integrity that they can exude and offer them in the course of their duties. It is inconceivable that an Officer who is a partisan and a card carrying member of a political party can either refuse to favor his party(to which he owes allegiance) or allow a level playing field for other contestants fielding candidates against his preferred party.
The fact that the presidency elected to nominate partisans and persons whose integrity are sullied speaks eloquently to an unsavory agenda. And such an agenda is clearly at variance with bequeathing a legacy of credible elections as earlier touted by President Buhari. This is fortified by the fact that an enabler of the president has boasted that this administration shall be succeeded by an APC one in 2023. Besides, this administration has shown a strange predilection to thump its chest and to chime each time INEC conducts a stellar election. It forgets that the Commission is not some department in the presidency and that each time it does that, it gives an impression that the Commission is some marionette, and that it(the presidency) can always pull the strings.
Like the obnoxious Onochie nomination before it, these nominations – of persons blemished with partisanship and utter lack of integrity- must not stand. I commend these civil society organizations for outing these tainted nominees. They have acted as true patriots and in concert with the time-honored saying that the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.
But beyond this eagle-eyed vigilance, we must begin to interrogate the process of appointing Commissioners to the Commission. Should the president be the sole appointee to these very sensitive positions or should they be advertised so that deserving Nigerians are invited to apply as is done in other jurisdictions? This discussion may appear preposterous given our many concerns and pre-occupations with the conduct of the 2023 General Elections. But this discourse appears inevitable post -2023 general elections given the propensity of the Executive Branch to smuggle in partisans and frauds into the Commission and at whim.