Time for INEC to wield the big stick

By Nick Dazang  Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy, when he presided over the United States between 1858-1919, was framed by one mantra: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Roosevelt dutifully explained his style as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis”. […]

By Nick Dazang 

Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy, when he presided over the United States between 1858-1919, was framed by one mantra: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Roosevelt dutifully explained his style as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis”.

Since 1999, when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) started conducting elections, it would seem the Election Management Body (EMB) had been carrying itself with deference to Roosevelt’s famous mantra but with slight modifications. Consider: In spite of its high-minded mandate and its broad powers, INEC has related with our political parties in two pivotal ways: the Commission has treated the political parties, who are the pre-eminent stakeholder in the electoral process, with paternalism and benign neglect.

Perhaps because it feels ours is a fragile democracy that requires delicate care and nurturing, the commission in its wisdom has treated the political parties with tenderness in the hope that our democracy will grow and blossom. Arising from its tenderness, the commission, over the past two decades has benignly overlooked the failings of the political parties, which are legion. Imagine some of them: Political parties seldom observe inter party democracy or follow due process in the manner their candidates emerge. Often, valid primaries are hardly conducted. The political parties are not ideology driven. They defer only to deep pockets and the highest bidders. They do not consult with their members. Neither do they explain to them why the agendas they canvassed before assuming power failed. Some of the parties, particularly the so-called big ones, hardly audit their accounts timeously after an election cycle as demanded by law.

These unstated policies, of paternalism and benign neglect, unfortunately, have resulted in a coddling and a latitude which the political parties have exploited with abandon. Whereas INEC has strenuously reformed itself and over the years has introduced sundry innovations, which have significantly improved the delivery of elections, the political parties continue to luxuriate in their comfort zones. The political parties have not made any effort(s) to improve themselves. They hardly do serious introspection about the parlors state of the country. And they have failed to appreciate that the delivery of good governance to their compatriots is in their self-enlightened interests.

As it has turned out, as indeed in any situation where people are pampered and no sanctions are visited for bad behaviour, the political parties and their candidates have latched onto this latitude, on the part of INEC, to carry on willfully and in breach of the law.

It is clear that thus far, coddling is giving way to arrogance and impunity by the political parties. In spite of the Commission’s widely reported entreaties to the parties to comport themselves decently and to eschew incendiary pronouncements as demanded by Section 92(1-6) of the Electoral Act and the Peace Accords which they signed, what we have seen are acts of violence, intemperate and uncouth pronouncements issued by some of the candidates. Instead of harping on issues and marketing their agenda(s), candidates have since found recourse in calumnizing their peers or the primeval politics of identity and religion.

These are certainly bad auguries for our democracy. For it means that such politicians, who resort to ethnicity and religion, are intellectually vacuous and they have nothing to offer. It means also that our democracy is imperiled. This is because followers take their cue from their leaders and the values to which such leaders subscribe. Thus, if the values espoused by a leader are low-brow or primitive, they have the capacity to be amplified by the followers who assume that such pronouncements or bad behaviours are alright. By the same token, if such a leader were to inadvertently canvass violence, or pander to the ethnic or religious card, his/her followers are likely to follow suit in the thought or belief that it is good behaviour.

As if incendiary campaigns were not bad enough, some Governors are reported to unearth old grievances and to proceed either to deny some candidates access to public arenas or to instigate armed thugs to disrupt their campaigns. This is petty in the extreme and should not be allowed to stand. The security agencies should play their roles professionally and robustly as espoused by Section 91 of the Electoral Act which stipulates that: ”The Commissioner of Police in each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, shall provide adequate security for proper and peaceful conduct of political parties and processions in their respective jurisdictions, and for this purpose, the Police may be supported by the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps and any other security agency of the Federal Government”.

It is against this unwholesome background that one is canvassing that the time has come for INEC, as the statutory regulator of the electoral process, to begin to wield the big stick. It is clear that its speaking softly and nicely to the political parties is not working and the process is coming to grief. Recourse to moral suasion in the hope that one is dealing with adults who would see the sense in respecting themselves and doing the needful is not working either.

Like most advanced democracies, ours is work in progress. But we have trodden this path for 23 years. Besides, given the daunting challenges that confront us, we cannot be delayed or arrested by the shenanigans of adult delinquents or allow them to render us as the butt of cruel jokes.

This is why, once in a while, and where there are breaches with the campaigns, INEC should draw on its powers in Sections 92-97 of the Electoral Act and to apply sanctions on erring political parties. Such sanctions should moderate the excesses of the political parties and their candidates; they should put back our political contestation on the realm of ideas and issues;  and they should remind the political parties of their onerous responsibilities. Above all, they should situate INEC appropriately as a regulator imbued with powers.

Leaders and office seekers should be distinguished by uplifting carriage and issuing sublime pronouncements. They should not be defined by incendiary comments or statements that diminish the country or its long suffering people. 

 

Nick Dazang is a former Director at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).