Changing The Order of Elections

Moves by the House of Representatives to change the order of elections in the country are entirely reasonable and it is the right thing to do. On Tuesday penultimate week, January 24, the House voted to amend several sections of the Electoral Act 2010 ahead of the 2019 general elections. The House amended 156 clauses of the Act based upon recommendations by the House Committee on Electoral Matters chaired by Mrs. Aisha Dukku [APC, Gombe].

The amendment that generated the most interest was the amendment to Section 25(1). The amended section states, “Elections into the office of the President and Vice-President, the Governor and Deputy Governor of a state and to the membership of the Senate, the House of Representatives and Houses of Assembly of each state of the federation shall be in the following order: National Assembly elections; state Houses of Assembly and governorship elections; and presidential election. The dates for these elections shall be as appointed by the Independent National Electoral Commission.” INEC has already fixed dates for next year’s election and it retained the order used in the 2015 elections, with the presidential and National Assembly elections coming first while governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections coming next.

The Senate must concur to this change before the bill goes to the president for his assent. The House’s amendment not only sought to change the order of election but also sought to reintroduce three elections instead of the two that INEC conducted in 2011 and 2015. We believe that having two elections instead of three is better for this country in order to reduce the cost, logistics, possible voter fatigue and possibility of violence. However, if we are to have two elections, the natural way to divide them is to have the state elections on one hand and the federal elections on the other hand. When that is done, we believe also that the logical thing is to have the state elections first and the federal elections next.

It makes a lot of sense that voters should be allowed to settle their local issues and choices first before they go to the federal ones. This much was the order of the 1999 elections which the outgoing military government organised. Local government elections were held in December 1998, followed by state assembly and governorship elections together in January 1999, then the National Assembly and presidential elections together in February 1999. The arrangement is also somewhat similar to the 1979 order of elections, the first under the new presidential system of government. That year we had five elections in this order: Senate, House of Reps, State Assemblies, governorship and then presidential elections.

It was in 1983 that the ruling NPN coerced the election commission to flip the order and make presidential elections to come first. The Reps that are trying to tinker with the current order are doing so for the same selfish reasons by proposing to hold the National Assembly election first in order to make officials, namely governors and president, to depend on them for the bandwagon effect. We believe the election order should be changed, but with state elections first and national elections second. Presidential election should be the culmination, not the beginning, of elections because it renders the others anti-climax.

We believe that having two elections instead of three is better for this country in order to reduce the cost, logistics, possible voter fatigue and possibility of violence