BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
The battle to get the country’s electoral processes right and create a very conducive environment for the conduct of not only free, fair and credible but also participatory elections has been on the front burner of the programmes of Independent National Electoral Commission.
The electoral umpire has been fully engaged in so many ways to fashion out the modalities through which the country’s democracy that received accolades from global political watchers in 2015 with its successful civilian to civilian transition could become a yardstick to measure the success or failure of other elections, at least in Africa if not the whole world.
Notwithstanding, the country cannot be said to have got it all right with that singular act as major hiccups still linger in the polity.
Several elections results in this clime have always been flawed by a number of malpractices. And they ridicule the country in a small way even with the tag of being the “giant of Africa”.
Sad and regrettable stories of ballot box snatching, falsifying results, bribing electoral officials, stuffing ballot boxes with already thumb printed sheets, down to the announcement of results under duress, are some of the ills associated the conduct of elections in the country.
All these are very serious electoral issues that have elicited discourse across the country. Politicians, electorate, CSOs, observers and several others continue to call for a paradigm shift, which borders on letting go of archaic electoral methods to a global digital methods hinging on electronic devices.
In this, both voting and counting of votes could be conducted by the electoral umpires without the candidates and their agents having any physical contacts with the electorate at any point in time.
But it is a tug of war getting this to work. INEC has declared it as one of its mandates to ensure that elections are conducted in a very conducive and peaceful atmosphere where the end products would be generally accepted by all the parties; losers and winners alike.
“both voting and counting of votes could be conducted by the electoral umpires without the candidates and their agents having any physical contacts with the electorate at any point in time
But it is a tug of war getting this to work”
Among the steps the electoral umpire wants to take is cancelling all results that were announced under duress regardless of who or what party emerges victorious.
However, this seems a herculean task for INEC to accomplish. Not because the Commission does not know how to go about it or that it does not have the manpower or intellectual capacity, the electoral body is faced with strong opposition from the nation’s lawmakers.
Events in the past elections at all levels have shown that some politicians who at one time or the other served in one or several capacities or are even serving presently emerged winners by forcing the electoral officers conducting their elections to announce the results in their favour under duress.
Some go to the extra miles of writing results for themselves and hand them to the electoral officers to announce without recourse to the outcome of the polls. These perpetrators use guns and other forms of ammunitions to carry out their nefarious acts.
In 2019, Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, publicly renounced the results of Imo West Senatorial results that produced the serving senator, Rochas Okorocha, after the Returning Officer had alleged that he declared the wrong results because he was under duress to do so.
He went further to claim that he took that step to save his life and that of those that worked with him. That was not the only incidence of announcing elections results under duress. In Abia state governorship election in 2007, Osun state governorship election in 2019 and many other places, there have been allegations and counter allegations of being threatened by the powers that be to announce preferred results.
The Executive Director of the Adopt a Goal for Development Initiative, a civil society organization, Ariyo Dare Atoye, emphatically said the INEC has the authority as empowered by the Electoral Act to cancel any result where its officer (s) was/were forced to write results or announce same under duress.
Citing Section 65 (1) of the Electoral Act he said, “Yes that has to do with Section 65(1). I think that’s one of the provisions that were doctored by a session of the joint committee of the National Assembly. But I think that provision has remained so in the Bill that was just laid on the floor of the House of Representatives. Well, I have not seen that of the Senate but I believe that provision will sell which will give INEC the power to review an election result which was declared under duress.
“Because we need this based on the experience we had in Imo and I think in Abia in 2019 and this has been, and also we also recorded just similar thing in Osun state governorship election which result was mutilated, doctored and people couldn’t get INEC to reverse it,” he said.
Atoye stressed the fact that no democracy works with these errors perpetrated by those who should defend democracy and maintained that his organisation in conjunction with other CSOs are working so hard to see that aspects of the Electoral Act that should protect our democracy are not tampered with.
“We have mounted serious campaign to ensure that this Bill captures important provisions. We will not be able to get everything but I think it’s been a well fought battle. However, I believe that that Section 65 (1) that gives INEC the power to be able to review results within seven days shall sell because it is very important to our electoral process to be able to guarantee the credibility of our election.”
Nevertheless, members of the National Assembly whose responsibility it is to make laws that will protect our elections and make them credible seem to be singing a different tune.
Many political watchers and analysts are of the opinions that the lawmakers are beneficiaries of the electoral crimes that are being condemned and because of that, it would be very difficult for them to wage war against them.
This is the more reason why the Executive Director of the Adopt a Goal for Development Initiative is calling for an INEC that is t truly independent which should be one of our focuses in the ongoing Constitution Amendment exercise.
The quest is for to see anand have an INEC which is transparent and open, and also an INEC that is strengthened by the electoral Act to be able to review results, conduct free, fair and credible elections and to be able to transmit elections results electronically.
Beyond these, Atoye also called for INEC that will be able to review and scrutnise candidates to be able to make some consequential statements based on their findings.
The National Assembly has not shifted ground on its claim that INEC has no such power to review results already announced, that it is only Courts of competent jurisdiction that can do so which means the politicians who are capable of snatching ballot boxes can go ahead to force the electoral officers to announce their results under duress and the matter should be left for court to decide.
