By Tonnie Iredia
On Saturday June 29, 2013, an election was held in Oguta constituency of Imo State. The umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says it could not declare a winner because the contest was inconclusive. This time around, those who are usually fast at commending the Jega led INEC have been a bit cautious. The truth however is that INEC has never performed above average.
As one newspaper aptly opined the other day, those who praise our elections are "those who lower standards to accommodate mediocrity". It was thus a relief to hear that President Goodluck Jonathan has himself showed disgust over the outcome of the Oguta election – an event which in reality was not in any way different from our other elections. Against this backdrop, we agree with the President that those who made the rerun election in Oguta to be inconclusive must be brought to book.
History tells us that we have never been able to bring our political thugs and their sponsors to book. Therefore, is it not time to go beyond the usual focus on the ignoble roles of our politicians during elections? While not condoning such unwholesome posture, the rationale for the conduct of our political class which is to win an election at all cost is easy to identify. But how do we place the other actors in the game who are supposed to be neutral? Do they too have an election to win? Relevant here are (a) Security operatives, (b) the Judiciary and (c) the electoral body.
Ensuring that malpractices do not mar an election is no doubt rational. It is ostensibly for this reason that an election venue in Nigeria often takes the pattern of a battle field with far too many armed personnel hovering around. Unfortunately, the so called security operatives often become the problem as many voters for fear of being molested or indeed of becoming victims of 'stray bullets' keep away from the sacred civic duty of voting.
In Oguta, security operatives armed to the teeth were everywhere. They reportedly rounded off a batch of thugs numbering about 20 at Agwa community, disarmed and arrested them, yet; there was still ample snatching of ballot boxes. Considering the numerous stories of how security personnel act scripts of the highest bidders by intimidating likely opponents, what would be the fate of the 2015 elections?
As for the Judiciary, the handling of election controversies has become the weakest point in its constitutional mandate which is the settlement of disputes. There are by far too many examples of how politicians often used the judiciary to win elections in Nigeria. For the 2015 elections, will our judges refrain from the trend of using technicalities to supplant substantive justice? In earnest, it is often quite difficult to comprehend the type of joy and peace which society can enjoy from certain judicial pronouncements.
For example, the Ondo State election tribunal had declined jurisdiction to look into the petitioner's complaint that several unlawful names were injected into the voters' register which was used to conduct the election. To the tribunal, the 'frivolous' complaint was only a pre-election matter.
How does a candidate get to know that fake names had been surreptitiously injected into the voter's register until their votes have been counted when in Nigeria even INEC does not know the authentic voters' list? Put differently, do the defects in a voters' register become good because attention was drawn to them after the casting of ballots?
Luckily, the Court of Appeal overruled the tribunal. It would not have been strange if it did not. After all, the same Court of Appeal which also ruled that it was a breach of the electoral law for INEC to have failed to display the voters' register for the public to scrutinize properly before the election could not be persuaded that the issues were strong enough to have adversely affected the conduct of the election.
Why should INEC not follow the law? Meanwhile, the most fundamental element of an election is the voters' register because the number of polling stations, ballot boxes, ballot papers and other materials are usually determined by the numerical strength of the register.
When it is over listed, the extra ballot papers arising from the supposed figure in the register can be used to rig elections through multiple voting. When the register is under-listed, those excluded can cause chaos and general disruption of the voting day process. Thus, if our subsisting inaccurate voters' register and INEC's temporary voters' cards would be in use in 2015, should we expect success?
The injection of fake names into the Ondo voters' register could only have been done by INEC – our electoral umpire that is permanently overwhelmed by any type of election. Did the returning officer actually endorse the Oguta election result as alleged? No one knows.
Whereas the Imo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor Celina Okoh, eloquently described how the election was violently disrupted in certain polling centres which made INEC to declare the event as inconclusive, she made no mention of how election materials were as usual late to the centres. When it is a general election, people tend to sympathize with INEC for having to withstand some daunting logistics of elections associated with Nigeria's difficult geographical terrains.
When it is an election in only one State, the story is the same. In Oguta – just one local government area, the election was in only 4 out of 11 wards for only one seat in the Imo State House of Assembly, yet media reports revealed that many voters became restive after waiting in vain for several hours for the election process to commence. When will INEC conduct an election where materials do not arrive late to an election centre?
Even smaller issues call for concern. As of today, the commission as a referee uses only the green card. It does not appear to have a red card. The last time it summoned courage to wave a yellow card at the ruling party about defects in its National Convention, it did so one year after the event! What a referee for the all important 2015 elections!!
