INEC: Umpire on pyre

“Don’t fix it, if it ain’t broke!” In other words, don’t repair it if it is OK—or you will only land yourself in greater mess.The 2015 election timetable released by INEC chairman Professor Attahiru Jega last week has drawn universal condemnation—and it is only proper that it has; because it has violated the basis of […]

“Don’t fix it, if it ain’t broke!” In other words, don’t repair it if it is OK—or you will only land yourself in greater mess.
The 2015 election timetable released by INEC chairman Professor Attahiru Jega last week has drawn universal condemnation—and it is only proper that it has; because it has violated the basis of its own raison d’être. Under normal circumstances, the basis for the design of an election timetable should be its ability to contribute to the development of a more efficient and more practical election administration system and facilitate and enhance participation by the electorate. If only for this reason, it must be acceptable or at least not too disadvantageous to any of its stakeholders—voters, candidates or political parties.
In the end, the objective of any electoral commission should be to administer the electoral system with impartiality and efficiency, promote understanding of the electoral system, and enhance participation in the entire process, in a way that doesn’t give undue advantage to any side.
While it may be perfectly legitimate for the government to try and maximise every legal advantage within its grasp, including, but without abusing, incumbency; it will be perfectly dishonourable for INEC to re-jig the schedules of the election timetable to give it another undeserved advantage.  And Jega might have to tell the nation whom he consulted or from whence the request or order for this came. Especially in view of what he himself said.
At an INEC-civil society dialogue on November 27, 2012, Professor Jega made promises which his current handling of the election timetable will seem to have broken. “In administrating elections, an EMB [election management body] has responsibility and obligation to be professional, transparent, and non-partisan. Since its establishment n June 2010, the new Commission sought to achieve these objectives by ensuring that the manner by which elections are prepared and held will be more inclusive, participatory, and transparent,” he said, giving assurances of “the Commission’s resolve to professionalize, to create a level playing ground for all political parties and contestants, and to do all it possibly can to have free, fair and credible elections in 2011. It is this same resolve that drives the Commission’s planning towards 2015.”
And suddenly without the promised inclusivity this awkward timetable surfaced without anyone knowing how or why. If in 2011, the presidential election was conducted last, INEC  would certainly need a good reason to bring it first—and this reason must be shared with the nation; because, going by the experience of that earlier election, there are at least two good reasons why the presidential election shouldn’t be put first.
With this coming after the debacle in Anambra, there are those who argue that because of the problem encountered in that gubernatorial election in last year, INEC is incapable of conducting all elections nationwide in one day. If true, the implications can be quite serious: if it really can’t do this, it doesn’t deserve to be the nation’s electoral commission. And if it can, it hasn’t demonstrated that capacity—yet; and its incompetence there shouldn’t be an excuse to allow—and expect—it to have to redo the wrong thing in future elections elsewhere.
One, governors of the ruling party will be forced to use their powers of incumbency to rig the election in favour of the president just to procure astonishing levels of turnout and block-vote in the East and at least the mandatory 25% in the North. If they don’t do this, the president will use his own powers of incumbency to ensure that they lose their own. Two, the bandwagon effect associated with the politics of corruption, will then only go on to help the president because politicians here equate success in democracy with being with the winning party, which is why incumbents are always able to rig themselves back to office.
So, why should Jega singlehandedly decide to change the schedule and force its adoption by INEC, which should really have no reason to prefer one schedule over the other—unless it represents an interest other than that of the commission and the Nigerian public?
If, without input from the electorate, without a demand for it by political parties, apparently without consultation with its own field staff; and, paradoxically, without even the knowledge of its most senior officials, INEC changes the order of the elections, the nation will be entitled to assume that this is done at the behest of the only one who stands to benefit from the move—the president.
It is not unreasonable to assume that there is no direct personal interest involved in the timetabling, because Jega is not likely to become a presidential candidate between now and February 14, 2014. So, why should he place the presidential election first when this has not been openly requested by any stakeholder? What has been canvassed for is to have all the elections on one day, or at least keep the presidential election last. Unless Jega has become a hostage in the new tactic of government-by-blackmail, it is difficult to see why, in a departure from the 2011 schedule, he should root for this one. It defies all logic and just doesn’t make sense.
It couldn’t have been a question of concern for cost; because if that was their motive, they would automatically have gone for the cheapest alternative and accepted to conduct all the elections on the same day even without anybody’s prompting.
It couldn’t have been necessitated by a lack of logistics, because, if indeed that were the case, still the holding of all the elections in one day would have been a solution; but has never been starved of funds. It couldn’t have been for lack of time, because INEC knew in advance the date of, and had four years within which to prepare for, the election. And it couldn’t have been because of any need to avoid crisis; for, this arrangement, more so than the one it replaced, is likely to create an electoral logjam that will lead to an even greater crisis.
The ball is now in the court of the National Assembly and the nation’s precious few non-aligned statesmen of goodwill to intervene and call INEC to alter, and the president to order over, the election timetable.
But in view of the desperation and determination of the ruling party, the president and his coterie of advisers to do anything imaginable to cling to power, it is unlikely that the government will ever willingly let go such a godsend from Jega. Is the nation then irrevocably saddled with the likely consequences of Jega’s big mistake—the Mistake of 2014? It remains to be seen whether men of the legislature will be able to rise up to the occasion; or whether the ephemeral and illegal demands of partisan politics will override the abiding and legitimate demands of our people; whether pecuniary expectations of carpetbaggers will eclipse the prospects and destiny of our nation; or, indeed, whether the National Assembly will look the other way; aid and abet the plan to push the country along the path of self-destruction—all on account of a government noted only for its incompetence.
Obviously, the requirement for integrity and political neutrality in election managers is and must not only remain indispensable, it must be enforced, and queried by the nation if it is not; because, without it, there will never be a proper, free, fair and acceptable election in Nigeria.
That is why members of the electoral commission need to be men and women of unimpeachable integrity, who are totally apolitical and able to inspire confidence that they are will be impartial in the discharge of their duties. And in some places, it is like this even in some nations of our so-called Third World. For instance, in 1996, India Today, the leading newsmagazine in India, conducted a national survey in which India’s Electoral Commission was voted by people as the most trustworthy institution in the country, ahead of all the country’s political parties, the executive arm of government, the judiciary and even its civil service, which used to be the best in the world. Unfortunately, it is not so in Nigeria.
It goes without saying that an election in Nigeria can never be free unless INEC itself is; it will never be fair until the commission is independent; and it will not be credible if the credibility of INEC is called into question, as it has by this unsolicited change to the status quo.
If there was integrity and impartiality in INEC, the manifest partisanship behind the new election timetable is enough to smash them to pieces. The issue of political neutrality in INEC is perhaps no longer a moot question now: some of them may have already started dancing in a tango with the new leadership of the ruling party, as they did with the old. In its deadly and determined march to necropolis today, the electoral umpire has put the nation on an electric pyre; but there is no need for pall-bearers, because there will only be a scattering of ashes.