Elections: Resetting the countdown timer

In this column four weeks ago I had maintained that postponement of the elections was an option and I listed my fears which I in fact found were not exhaustive enough, but they sufficed for my conclusion. I wrote my opinion in which I told Prof. Attahiru Jega, that postponing the election was inevitable. I […]

In this column four weeks ago I had maintained that postponement of the elections was an option and I listed my fears which I in fact found were not exhaustive enough, but they sufficed for my conclusion. I wrote my opinion in which I told Prof. Attahiru Jega, that postponing the election was inevitable. I looked beyond the four weeks then and did not see an INEC that was ready for the election. Clearly, the voter registration and distribution of the Permanent Voters’ Cards had gone awry. I cited numbers in the opinion, which pointed at dangers that loomed in going ahead with the elections with millions of registered voters rendered without PVC. I cited instability and insecurity in the North East, the indecision on registered voters that were now internally displaced persons. There was also the issue of the inability of INEC to recruit and train ad hoc staff on the election process given the novelty of the pvcs and the use of card readers.
I noted that tension was high because politicians avoided national issues and were bickering on the weak national fault lines of religion, ethnicity and regional cleavages. I wished tempers had cooled.
Then the National Security Adviser spoke in London in the same vein as if echoing me and the politicians ran away with the issue in violently discordant notes. As much as I believed that postponement was the right thing to do, I could not hide the anger that I felt following the assertion of the National Security Adviser. Pertinent questions naturally begging for answers. Why did President Jonathan and his men not work on this six weeks ago just to maintain the sanctity of an election time table? What was the Government preoccupied with to the extent that it neglected the insurgency until now? Six weeks is already five weeks away, and the clock will tick on, whether it is PDP or APC that is minding it.
In reflecting on the postponement of the planned election, I have decided that it is not the time now for the normal blame game, and I am glad that not even the opposition has come out with blaring horns of déjà vu. We all know something untoward has happened with grave implications on the stability of the nation. This is the time to think of the country first, and place its interests first, in place of personal egos and ambitions. It is not a time to give the happenstance interpretation that lends a feeling of victory and celebration or defeat and disgrace. This is the time to rally round the flag and lend a hand of support to the government however we may feel about failures that led to the disgraceful postponement.
Of importance now is the collective will of the Nigerian people to make the best of a bad situation, given no alternative than to support and cooperate with the Government to ensure that there is peace and security, without which the stability required for an election to hold, will not be feasible.
The realities that stare the Nigerian nation have to be confronted with all seriousness. An election in which 40% of registered voters are not participating is definitely a recipe for chaos. Unfortunately, danger signals that INEC was heading towards this disastrous failure were either ignored or even orchestrated, for the outcome that we are now having to live and deal with could not have happened suddenly. Jega’s undoing is that he did not cry wolf when it was necessary, and has now been left with explanations that are neither here nor there. Simply put, you cannot but blame Jega that he allowed a situation where his best was not good enough for his employers. When it was obvious INEC had not performed satisfactorily, he should have said so and on that score secured approval from President Jonathan to postpone as it was within his powers to so do.
According to Jega at his press briefing, all security chiefs had written to him that they would not be available to provide security should the February 14 and 28 polls proceed as planned, and that input from the security agencies are paramount to the election. It was left for Jega to thus brief the nation and give a new date, and this would have prevented the issue from ballooning into a political ball of confusion.
As expected, the national and international community has continued to tongue-lash the Jonathan Administration for the abortion of the election timetable, and rightly too. Government held all the controls and cannot be absolved of blame for the failure. To in fact deduce that the failure was intended is only a natural conclusion. It was in the interest of the Jonathan Administration that the 2015 election date was adhered to religiously; that this was aborted is a further deficit to a government that is suffering from a perceived lack of credibility and seriousness. The politicians around President Jonathan may engage in the pyrrhic dance of some victory, but they cannot hide the fact that the opposition is more than noticeable, and that there is panic, for that is how the postponement is viewed. It is a panic measure.
President Goodluck Jonathan himself pointed out in the election campaigns, that although he had done much good for Nigeria, his inability to deal decisively with the insurgency had smeared all his achievements. This is true. Government has moved the nation forward in many remarkable respects, but there is never a time that being a Nigerian has been as perilous as now and all due to Boko Haram, and the shameful fact that the Nigerian Armed Forces were beaten, with the country losing territory that was their sworn duty to defend. Thus whatever compliments you paid President Jonathan pale in the face of the failure with our security challenge.
Indeed in the failure of our fight against the Boko Haram insurgency is where President Jonathan’s deficiencies as a leader manifest the most, and the reason his support diminished to such an abysmal low.  We are told the insecurity in the North East is to be disposed of in 6 weeks, so the government has assured. The Nigerian nation has no choice but to accept the assurance, more from empathy than from confidence in the Government. Every day is some tomorrow that inevitably turns up.