Iliyasu Gadu
Ilgad2009@gmail.com
08035355706 (Texts only)
Within the past one year we have had elections in this country and the familiar narratives of electoral malpractices featured prominently. Those who were declared winners waxed lyrical about the outcome praising the it as ‘’ the beauty of democracy’’. You can hear them praising the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct and asking the losers to accept the ‘’wishes of the people spoken through their votes’’. Amid the din and cacophony of celebration they will cockily tell the losers to go to court if they are not satisfied about the conduct and outcome. And by that we will once again mark yet another familiar outcome of elections in Nigeria where the ‘’winners’’ and ‘’losers’’ having both engaged in the dark arts of election skullduggery will sing songs of discordance.
And when the narratives on elections in Nigeria come to be made including even the ones from local and foreign observers most of the blame will be heaped on INEC and very little focus will go to the political figures and parties whose roles have often been responsible for the electoral malfeasance. Indeed, the news headlines will expansively lionize the political actors variously as ‘’Consumate strategists’’ etc and celebrate it as ‘’proof of his political and electoral sagacity’’.
And when the Media, Civil Society Organizations and Electoral monitors come to focus on the flip side of the election the attention will be directed harshly and whoever is the boss of the electoral umpire as the scapegoat for most of the infractions in elections that quite literally are a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.
Through the years from the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) of Michael Ani to Justice Ovie-Whiskey right down to the present Professor Mahmud Yakubu election bosses have had to carry the brunt of our electoral malpractices rather unjustly even if they were known to have done their best to improve the electoral system and process.
The typical accusation is that electoral bosses have been bribed to produce results. Virtually all who occupied the position from Michael Ani to Professor Yakubu have been so accused. I still remember Justice Ovie-Whiskey who on being asked whether he did receive money as electoral boss to determine the outcome of elections he supervised during the second republic, he remarked in exasperation that ‘’If I see one million naira, I will faint and die’’.
As the clock winds down on the tenure of Professor Mahmud Yakubu the outgoing Chairman INEC, many people will expect me to be critical of him in keeping with the popular narrative that he performed poorly.
There are many persons in Nigeria who believe he not only bungled 2023 elections it by his poor preparations, but more importantly they accuse him of favouring the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) during the elections.
Of course, such persons are entitled to their opinions just there are those who despite the adverse narrative on Prefessor Yakubu’s tenure as INEC’s boss would want to take a nuanced view and give him the benefit of the doubt in all fairness.
I count myself as one of those persons. It is rather ironic that on the basis of my experience as a Senatorial candidate in the last elections especially considering the omission of the logo of my party on the ballot paper despite a court order directing INEC to do so, I should be taking this view. Bitter as my travail was I will not yield to follow the herd instincts in totally condemning Professor Yakubu for the ills of our electoral system.
Essentially there are three major areas that a country’s progress is measured in our contemporary world. These are the attitude to corruption and performance of its anti-corruption agencies; the transparency and integrity of its electoral processes and lastly the performance and accountability of its economic sector.
Our anti-corruption agencies we all know leave much to be desired. Most Nigerians are inclined to believe that they the anti-corruption agencies tend to operate as an enforcement arm of the government in power going after those it perceives as its inconvenient opponents. This much was confirmed by a prominent member of the government who openly said that once any prominent political figure in the opposition crosses over to the ruling party his sins will be forgiven.
On the scale of economic performance, we need not look further than the leading Nigerian corporation the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). For comparative analysis we need not look further than the likes of Petronas of Malaysia, Petrobras of Brazil, Saudi Aramco and PEMEX OF Mexico who are in the same league as Nigeria as oil producers. Unlike the NNPCL they have all gone to carve their own niche in the global oil and gas industry impacting hugely to the overall Gross Domestic Performance (GDP) of their respective countries.
It is well known that our electoral system and process are strewn with tasking issues. On top of all these issues are the powerful political figures who prefer to circumvent, sabotage and disrupt the electoral process rather than follow the guidelines laid out for free and fair elections.
Right from its metamorphosis from Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) to the present INEC our electoral institutions despite all the best intentions and efforts have had to contend with issues that they do not control in the electoral process.
Against this background when Professor Yakubu was appointed in 2015 by late President Muhammadu Buhari, we all knew he was walking into perhaps the most trying job in the country. He took the appointment under a cloud of the 2015 elections that produced the most unprecedented outcome of an opposition political party defeating the ruling party. Yet even with that feat which could not have been unfair considering that the outcome vindicated the process, the narrative still persisted in some quarters that it was not free and fair. And Professor Attahiru Jega who was the INEC boss at the time still faced accusations of manipulating the election.
So, when Professor Yakubu was appointed to the job it was certain he was going to inherit the stigma of accusations like his predecessors and the onus was for him to work towards improving the process for better outcomes.
It is to his credit that he completed some of the programmes and projects he inherited like the Bio-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which has greatly helped to improve voting accreditation which was cumbersome and prone to abuse previously. He also improved the process of voter registration making the process of continuous registration easier and more manageable. Also, under Professor Yakubu the Card reader and uploading of electoral results in the electoral portal were both recognized in the electoral process.
Although many have heaped blames on Professor Yakubu for the outcome of the 2023 elections, the facts on ground showed some dramatic results. In the presidential election results, the much-touted power of incumbency was torn to shreds in some notable instances. In Yobe, Katsina, Kaduna and Lagos states, the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) lost to the opposition PDP and Labour Party respectively. In Lagos in particular, Peter Obi of the Labour party spectacularly defeated current President Tinubu in his home state where he was governor for 8 years. That Peter Obi is riding on the crest of a genuine presidential contender today can be attributed to some on his performance at the 2023 elections which Professor Yakubu supervised.
Many may slag Professor Yakubu for the 2023 elections for their own reasons, but we must not forget elections in Nigeria is a collective national duty involving INEC, the security agencies, political actors and political parties and Nigerians as a whole, as civic participants. To heap the blame on one man for whatever infractions and failures identified in our elections is grossly unfair.
Next time when somebody tells you that whoever is the INEC boss at the time should be held responsible for the unsatisfactory outcome of elections, ask them about the role of their local, state and national politicians, the security agencies and all of us Nigerians.
