Yakubu’s acid test in Kogi, Bayelsa

New Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu has the unenviable task of consolidating the election body and taking it to greater heights following its successful outing in the last general elections but even before he properly sits down in his chair, he must grapple with the task of conducting two […]

New Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu has the unenviable task of consolidating the election body and taking it to greater heights following its successful outing in the last general elections but even before he properly sits down in his chair, he must grapple with the task of conducting two scheduled gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States. The Kogi elections are already around the corner, due to hold next Saturday November 21, while that of Bayelsa holds a forth night after on Saturday, December 5.
Even though most of the preparations for the two elections were done before he got his new job, these two upcoming polls will still be a baptism of fire and an acid test for the new INEC Chairman and for the Commission. For Yakubu it will offer him the opportunity to appraise firsthand the rugged terrain of administering elections in the country, with all the manifest and subterranean issues that go with such. As for INEC the polls provide the theatre for testing whatever new strategies that may have been evolved from the experience of the last general elections.
INEC’s former Chairman Prof Attahiru Jega inaugurated a Committee last April headed by Dr Chris Iyimoga to produce a report on the 2015 general elections. This was intended to provide guidance for subsequent polls in the country. The report was launched two months ago, so the Kogi and Bayelsa polls should offer the Commission its first opportunity to test the new insights in Iyimoga’s report. Nigerians therefore expect the forthcoming polls to mark an improvement in Nigeria’s election management. 
In the wake of the general elections, many contests ended up in the law courts. However, these were less than the cases that ended up in court in any previous election, according to INEC. This reduced number of post-election litigations is a sign of general improvement in the polls’ conduct and we expect to see even fewer cases after subsequent elections. 
The fine highpoints of the 2015 polls have been associated with several factors including the remarkable reforms by INEC. The most significant of these was the use of the smart Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and the card reading machines. The success of these in turn was facilitated by the transparent manner in which the exercise was handled through effective deployment of technology and more significantly, the leadership of Professor Attahiru Jega. As successor to Jega, the least expected of Yakubu is to lead INEC to match the existing standards and even surpass them. Hence the forthcoming Kogi and Bayelsa gubernatorial polls are the theatres for the exercise.
However even as the forthcoming polls may prove challenging, the new INEC Chairman needs to extend his gaze beyond them towards addressing the numerous other institutional shortcomings of the nation’s electoral umpire. These include the issues of voter education, capacity enhancement of both permanent and ad hoc staff of INEC, internal democracy in political parties, along with the management of political parties in between elections. 
Elections are processes through which the electorate is provided the opportunity to exercise their individual choices of who they want to run the affairs of government. That is why elections are not supposed to be life and death struggles. In this country however the exercise has degenerated into periods of intense play out of acrimony and blood-letting. This is the barbaric element that must be excised from our electoral culture, starting from the national and progressing to the local government and ward levels. And it is the brief of INEC with Professor Mahmood Yakubu in the driving seat to address itself to this challenge. In this respect INEC needs to collaborate much more closely with state electoral commissions to facilitate uniformity in electoral exercises nationwide.
The contest in both Kogi and Bayelsa States are expected to be hot because political adversaries are staging rematches. Still, we expect them to ensure proper conduct of their supporters during the polls. Just as has been demonstrated in the case of the last gubernatorial polls in Taraba State and other places, the courts provide effective relief for candidates who are not satisfied with polls results. There is therefore no need to fight to death at the polling booths.