There is a school of electoral jurisprudence which believes that electoral reforms are unnecessary. In fact, it believes that they are superfluous. And it hinges its position on a number of cogent reasons.
First of all, according to this school of thought, reforms only inspire and birth a feeling of deja vu. That they repeat or compound challenges that bedevil the process to the detriment of electoral integrity and the conduct of exquisite elections.
Second, and reinforcing the aforementioned, reforms are a classical case of what Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr refers to as:Plus change, plus c’est la meme chose(the more things change, the more they remain/stay the same). To buttress this argument, it is quick to point at the fact that in spite of the recent electoral reforms and the promulgation of the Electoral Act 2022, which repealed the Electoral Act 2010(as amended), the conduct of the 2023 General Elections has not significantly improved our elections. Instead, it has plummeted our elections to the level of garden variety. And rather than for the Election Management Body(EMB) to take advantage of the recent off-cycle governorship elections conducted in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa States to begin, in earnest, a journey of redemption, it has set on a smug and complacent course.
Third, this school of thought is of the view that in spite of the sundry challenges of the repealed Electoral Act 2010(as amended), it was the law that was used to conduct the 2011 and 2015 General Elections. Though these two major elections were not perfect, they were adjudged, by international and domestic observers and the media, as transparent and credible.
Fourth, this school further posits that there is more to the conduct of credible elections than reforms. It insists that integrity, character, a sense of mission and commitment by the leadership are key.
Cogent as the above arguments may be, the case for further electoral reforms is compelling. And this too is informed by the conduct of the 2023 General Elections, the recent off-season governorship elections and their less than luminous aftermath.
The conduct of these elections provided us with a propitious opportunity to further test the Constitution, the Electoral Act 2022 and the Guidelines and Regulations for the conduct of the 2023 General Elections. The Guidelines and Regulations draw their strength and afflatus from the former documents. A close examination of the conduct of these elections betray a number of challenges and lacunae. These need to be addressed ahead of the 2027 General Elections. Besides, reforms are urgently required to salvage our embattled democracy project from mortal threat. Democratic countries in the West and Central African regions are suffering reversals.The regions, which used to be havens of democracy, have morphed into Coup belts.
It is a measure of the quest for electoral reforms that our media have been awash with editorials and commentaries on the electoral process and a bevy of civil society organizations has recently convened seminars and townhall meetings for critical stakeholders to reflect on and identify areas that call for electoral reforms.
In spite of the fact that the Electoral Act 2022 has sundry progressive provisions such as giving the Commission the latitude to deploy technology as it deems appropriate, it came short by not insisting that election results be collated and transmitted electronically. The upshot of this failing/gap is that the Commission suffered a severe trust deficit. Matters were not helped by its inability to transmit, real time, Polling Unit(PU) results to the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal(IReV) in the presidential election as it pledged in paragraph 38 of its Regulations and Guidelines. Going forward, this gap needs to be filled up and backed by law.
Election petitions, especially as they concern governorship and presidential elections should henceforth be concluded before the inauguration of Governors-elect and the President-elect. This will ensure that persons elected to these positions are not encumbered by legitimacy issues and that they do not use their offices to arm-twist or influence the various Election petition courts/tribunals in their favour. The Courts will also enjoy some modicum of freedom and to adjudicate in an unfettered and untrammelled manner.
The electoral offences being perpetrated, and the impunity with which they are being carried out, speak eloquently to the fact that sanctions are not being visited on offenders with vigor and remorselessness. Consequently, we continue to witness vote buying, voter suppression, ballot box snatching, attacks at collation centres and abduction of election officials being perpetrated with abandon. In addition to the recklessness with which they are being carried out, they visit devaluation and diminishment to our elections. The establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission and Tribunal which INEC, other stakeholders and the Justice Mohammed Uwais Committee had canvassed/recommended, should be brought about forthwith.
Even though the recommendations of the Justice Uwais Committee do not amount to a holy grail, many of its recommendations are ennobling. They should therefore be implemented without delay. The cause of credible elections will be better served if the Commission were independent in the true sense and if its members were not appointed by the President, as is present practice.
In concert with international best practices, members of the Commission should be appointed via a process that is competitive and transparent and that is outside the purview of the president. The president is a politician and is therefore an interested party in the conduct of elections. By the same token, and in congruence with the Constitution, only non-partisans and persons of unimpeachable integrity should be appointed to serve as National and Resident Electoral Commissioners. Partisans are most likely to pay allegiance to their political parties and to carry themselves haughtily. Also, persons bereft of integrity are likely to view their appointments as having jumped onto gravy trains thereby compromising the Commission or its statutory mandate.
For the electoral process to be properly honed, reforms must encompass other critical stakeholders such as the political parties, the entire gamut of the political class/elite and the judiciary. Apart from articulating and aggregating all the interests that obtain in the country, political parties must be informed and guided by high-minded ideals. They must lay premium on delivering good governance. In a country where not less than 133 million people live in abject poverty, it is in the interest of the political class that political offices are made unattractive and that considerable store is set by service rather than an over-arching desire for filthy lucre and the perquisites of office. Party tickets should be made available to persons of ability and gravitas rather than the highest bidder. The preference for the highest bidder leads to plutocracy(government of the rich) and narrows the political space in favour of the inept and privileged.
The framers, of the Constitution, warts and all, were far-sighted. They made the judiciary part of the electoral process. By so doing, they ensured that aggrieved contestants can find recourse in our courts for adjudication instead of resorting to self-help or violence. Unfortunately, our laws, steeped in technicalities and etched in precedent, do not augur well for fostering or engendering electoral justice. Thus, in what commentators are increasingly referring to as “judicial Coup d’etats”, the will of the people, freely expressed through the ballot box, are being subverted and sacrificed on the alter of abstruse technicalities. As if that were not bad enough, opportunistic politicians are exploiting this tendency and they are having a field day. To be relevant and to etch itself positively in the consciousness of Nigerians, the judiciary must reform itself and it must pre-occupy itself with delivering justice. To obsess itself with arcanity is to imperil our democracy.
Much more important, the Commission must understand that it is the chief driver of the electoral process and the custodian of its cherished values. The buck of elections and its conduct stops at its table. Its members must thus carry themselves constantly informed of this onerous responsibility. They must comport themselves with the highest sense of integrity and duty. Once the Commission carries itself with integrity, it can then demand the same standard of its staff. In addition to this, the governance system and welfare of its staff must be uppermost in its considerations. That way its staff will proceed on Election Duty with high morale and insulate themselves from the shenanigans and mischief of desperate politicians.