For votes to count

It sold the candidate and filled the ballot boxes. All would have wished that Nigeria had a pair of aspirants or public servants of the same calibre who could make ripples with their belief in the ballot. But this is most unlikely in 2015.Many people blame our inability to produce dynamic characters in our democracy […]

It sold the candidate and filled the ballot boxes. All would have wished that Nigeria had a pair of aspirants or public servants of the same calibre who could make ripples with their belief in the ballot. But this is most unlikely in 2015.
Many people blame our inability to produce dynamic characters in our democracy to the extreme dislike of the ballot by our politicians. Essentially, our democracy is poisoned by consensus politics. It takes square pegs to round holes. It helps our politicians to replace contests as a team work with group vanity as a panacea. People convert group resolves to personal use while those who should know where to belong abuse party members’ choices. Due processes are deliberately subverted. The rule of demand and supply is negated. The voters’ card is subjugated. In fact, the voter’s card does not give power to the people over the politician but instead is a value chip that the politician uses to widen injustice.
For this reason, most people who are likely to vote in the 2015 elections believe that their votes will, ultimately, not count.  Few believe in the Nigerian ballot. Many insist that voting makes no difference at all. It just fulfils all righteousness, even though they think the ballot would have made all the difference in governance. Unfortunately, this country suffers from political and social excesses that look insurmountable at face value. An extremely influential man who lives off an overdose of ego can decide that he would never lose an election regardless of what voters or even INEC thinks. Our nation is perennially on socio-cultural, financial and political steroids. Yet, during application of the drug, little do we realize that steroids serve for a short-term and that a nation cannot afford to be on it longer than necessary.
Abnormally power-driven, loose-mouthed politicians are in charge everywhere. An artificially inflated and overrated INEC therefore cannot do justice to a nation that needs a safe and shining shore. That is why one often wonders if INEC can ever deliver on its mandate. But why was INEC put in place in the first place? According to the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA INEC is constitutionally empowered to organize, undertake and supervise all elections with a mandate to ensure transparency and accountability. This study which was published in 2010 may not have had the Prof Attahiru Jega INEC in mind when it roundly criticized INEC but looking at the elections of 2011 which Jega and his team midwifed one would conclude that there is still much to be desired. To date, INEC has failed to ensure that each candidate that comes to it to vie for an office does so through the ballot.
After the 2011 elections, the presidential one in particular, many had presumed that the elections were inconclusive. While INEC had been roundly criticized because of the exercise, Jega its chairman had been openly upbraided for its excesses. Indeed, Jega himself had often promised to improve on his 2011 performance out of a modest personal admission that he had fallen below the counter in public estimation. If there were any successes at all, the 2011 elections would sum up to the fact that democracy still exists in Nigeria, in spite of its monumental failure to meet public expectation.
And another round of elections is here. The ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party has been feasting on its endorsement of the incumbent president Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as its candidate while the All Progressives Congress, APC has brought out two contestants for its primaries already. But while many more are likely to declare for the plum job on the platform of the APC the enthusiasm of the country towards the ballot box has been as attractive as leprosy. For those of us who take public opinion and public perception seriously, apathy has dominated the people’s attitudes towards the polls. And the political parties have not helped matters either. Instead of looking like vehicles for the actualization of the peoples aspirations they portray themselves as the political rickshaws of individuals with loaded wallets. Both are struggling hard to avoid the ballot. In the PDP the incumbency factor has settled the matter clandestinely even though there are those who would have challenged the convention of simply allowing the president to have another go at the office.
In the APC as one group asks to face the delegates in the contest, the other prefers a consensus type system of producing the candidate so as to avoid a date with the delegates even if they were to stage the convention. This way of hating the pig but eating the pork tells negatively on the ultimate essence of democracy. Parties indeed may have their rules and house styles, but democracy suggests that ballots be taken so that candidates emerge in the most transparent of ways. But when consensus becomes the norm a huge part of democracy is extinguished. By its design, consensus is the decision of a few people imposed on the majority. There is always a heavy possibility that if the ballots were taken secretly many candidates who emerge through consensus would lose out to even political neophytes. So they weave a mesh around consensus.
The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC must therefore step up to the plate and reenergize democracy by subjecting every candidate that approaches public office to the litmus test of facing his constituency in a secret ballot. When General Muhammadu Buhari declared to the public that he was running again for the presidency, he had squared up to the electoral body and declared that electoral injustices would not endure. He had complained in a rhetorical manner about the conduct of the INEC since 2003 and wished that INEC had behaved differently. But the same Buhari and his TBO have insisted against facing the other candidates in their party including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in a primary election to choose their party’s flag bearer. Many argue that the Generals misadventure at the polls since 2003 in which he has been avoiding primaries in all his attempts to run for presidency have been responsible for his lack of victory in his attempt to rule this country as a civilian. They insist that if Buhari subjected himself to any party’s primaries and emerged as a candidate, he is more likely to reap the fruits of his labour at the presidential. But the rheumatism of our politics has always emanated from the cold ballot box.

Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo

Buy One, Get One Free was the political campaign gimmick that defined America’s presidential politics when Bill Clinton was vying for president with his wife Hillary as a bonus. It sold the candidate and filled the ballot boxes. All would have wished that Nigeria had a pair of aspirants or public servants of the same calibre who could make ripples with their belief in the ballot. But this is most unlikely in 2015.
Many people blame our inability to produce dynamic characters in our democracy to the extreme dislike of the ballot by our politicians. Essentially, our democracy is poisoned by consensus politics. It takes square pegs to round holes. It helps our politicians to replace contests as a team work with group vanity as a panacea. People convert group resolves to personal use while those who should know where to belong abuse party members’ choices. Due processes are deliberately subverted. The rule of demand and supply is negated. The voters’ card is subjugated. In fact, the voter’s card does not give power to the people over the politician but instead is a value chip that the politician uses to widen injustice.
For this reason, most people who are likely to vote in the 2015 elections believe that their votes will, ultimately, not count.  Few believe in the Nigerian ballot. Many insist that voting makes no difference at all. It just fulfils all righteousness, even though they think the ballot would have made all the difference in governance. Unfortunately, this country suffers from political and social excesses that look insurmountable at face value. An extremely influential man who lives off an overdose of ego can decide that he would never lose an election regardless of what voters or even INEC thinks. Our nation is perennially on socio-cultural, financial and political steroids. Yet, during application of the drug, little do we realize that steroids serve for a short-term and that a nation cannot afford to be on it longer than necessary.
Abnormally power-driven, loose-mouthed politicians are in charge everywhere. An artificially inflated and overrated INEC therefore cannot do justice to a nation that needs a safe and shining shore. That is why one often wonders if INEC can ever deliver on its mandate. But why was INEC put in place in the first place? According to the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA INEC is constitutionally empowered to organize, undertake and supervise all elections with a mandate to ensure transparency and accountability. This study which was published in 2010 may not have had the Prof Attahiru Jega INEC in mind when it roundly criticized INEC but looking at the elections of 2011 which Jega and his team midwifed one would conclude that there is still much to be desired. To date, INEC has failed to ensure that each candidate that comes to it to vie for an office does so through the ballot.
After the 2011 elections, the presidential one in particular, many had presumed that the elections were inconclusive. While INEC had been roundly criticized because of the exercise, Jega its chairman had been openly upbraided for its excesses. Indeed, Jega himself had often promised to improve on his 2011 performance out of a modest personal admission that he had fallen below the counter in public estimation. If there were any successes at all, the 2011 elections would sum up to the fact that democracy still exists in Nigeria, in spite of its monumental failure to meet public expectation.
And another round of elections is here. The ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party has been feasting on its endorsement of the incumbent president Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as its candidate while the All Progressives Congress, APC has brought out two contestants for its primaries already. But while many more are likely to declare for the plum job on the platform of the APC the enthusiasm of the country towards the ballot box has been as attractive as leprosy. For those of us who take public opinion and public perception seriously, apathy has dominated the people’s attitudes towards the polls. And the political parties have not helped matters either. Instead of looking like vehicles for the actualization of the peoples aspirations they portray themselves as the political rickshaws of individuals with loaded wallets. Both are struggling hard to avoid the ballot. In the PDP the incumbency factor has settled the matter clandestinely even though there are those who would have challenged the convention of simply allowing the president to have another go at the office.
In the APC as one group asks to face the delegates in the contest, the other prefers a consensus type system of producing the candidate so as to avoid a date with the delegates even if they were to stage the convention. This way of hating the pig but eating the pork tells negatively on the ultimate essence of democracy. Parties indeed may have their rules and house styles, but democracy suggests that ballots be taken so that candidates emerge in the most transparent of ways. But when consensus becomes the norm a huge part of democracy is extinguished. By its design, consensus is the decision of a few people imposed on the majority. There is always a heavy possibility that if the ballots were taken secretly many candidates who emerge through consensus would lose out to even political neophytes. So they weave a mesh around consensus.
The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC must therefore step up to the plate and reenergize democracy by subjecting every candidate that approaches public office to the litmus test of facing his constituency in a secret ballot. When General Muhammadu Buhari declared to the public that he was running again for the presidency, he had squared up to the electoral body and declared that electoral injustices would not endure. He had complained in a rhetorical manner about the conduct of the INEC since 2003 and wished that INEC had behaved differently. But the same Buhari and his TBO have insisted against facing the other candidates in their party including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in a primary election to choose their party’s flag bearer. Many argue that the Generals misadventure at the polls since 2003 in which he has been avoiding primaries in all his attempts to run for presidency have been responsible for his lack of victory in his attempt to rule this country as a civilian. They insist that if Buhari subjected himself to any party’s primaries and emerged as a candidate, he is more likely to reap the fruits of his labour at the presidential. But the rheumatism of our politics has always emanated from the cold ballot box.