Nigeria is the Big Winner
Not even the most optimistic of persons predicted this outcome, that Nigeria would come out of the 2015 presidential elections unscathed, with its electoral and security institutions highly praised and with its image greatly improved internationally. Many pundits had earlier predicted that the elections could be characterized by fraud and the election results could precipitate violence from the losers. On our part we have consistently campaigned in our editorials and also during the Daily Trust Annual Dialogue that Nigeria must be made the winner of this election period. That best of hopes has now been realized.
An indicator as to whether the elections organized by the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] met the internationally accepted standards for credible elections could be gleaned from the preliminary reports of the many observer teams that monitored the elections. The largest local observer team, Transition Monitoring Group [TMG] said Saturday’s election “afforded Nigerians a credible opportunity to exercise their right to vote.” It listed the hiccups that characterised the elections to include “late delivery of materials, a slow accreditation process and the inability of card readers to consistently validate voter’s fingerprints.” TMG, however, said in its preliminary report based on findings from 1,500 polling stations it monitored that “These issues did not systematically disadvantage any candidate or party.”
The Economic Community of West African States’ [ECOWAS] observer team led by former Ghanaian President John Kuffour said the elections met the “criteria of being free and transparent” despite “pockets of incidents and logistical challenges.” Kuffour also said Nigeria’s success made all Africans proud. Leader of the African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM), the former Liberian President Amos Sawyer said the vote was “conducted in a peaceful atmosphere within the framework that satisfactorily meets the continental and regional principles of democratic elections.”
The Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) said “no significant disenfranchisement was observed on election day” despite late delivery of materials and various technical glitches. The European Union Election Observer Mission [EUEOM] led by Mr. Santiago Fisas Ayxela said it was to the credit of all Nigerians that the whole process ended without rancour. Fisas said while there was delay in arrival of INEC officials and voting materials, malfunction of card readers, ballot snatching and Boko Haram attacks in some places, “INEC appears to have executed its duties impartially.” He also said “the mission did not observe any systematic subversion and that nationally people were free to cast their votes.”
Also commending the election was the 10-member Commonwealth Observer Group led by former Malawian President Dr. Bakili Muluzi. He described the polls as generally peaceful and transparent but noted that there was room for improvement. Muluzi said: “The presidential and National Assembly elections were generally peaceful and transparent” though he complained about delays in some areas.
No previous Nigerian election has received such effusive praise from local and domestic observers despite the logistic challenges observed. Many Nigerians will also say that this was the most credible election in our history in the sense that the people’s votes counted. The bane of Nigerian elections since independence has always been the belief that in many areas the results did not reflect the voters’ wishes. In some cases, this was proved in the courts, especially after the 2007 elections when many governorship and legislative election results were overturned by election tribunals.
What made all the difference in this year’s election is the Permanent Voter’s Card [PVC] and its accompaniment, the smart card reader. The latter especially was responsible for much of the delays observed when some of the devices failed to identify a voter through his fingerprints. Yet, between the two of them, PVC and smart card reader largely ensured that our politicians could no longer resort to their old tricks of snatching and stuffing ballot boxes or altering the number of accredited voters in a polling unit in order to stuff the remaining ballot papers. For all these all credit should go to INEC and its chairman Professor Attahiru Jega for asserting its independence and impartiality and for doggedly adopting these technological innovations that outsmarted fraudulent politicians. INEC insisted on their use despite the strident campaign by some people to get them jettisoned at the last minute.
Right now there are charges by some people that votes were inflated in some states, notably Kano, Katsina, Kaduna and Jigawa states that turned out high votes for APC’s General Muhammadu Buhari as well as Delta, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Abia states that recorded high votes for President Goodluck Jonathan. If any of the 14 candidates that contested the presidential election goes to the election tribunal, we expect it to make very good use of the card readers to establish whether there was any inflation of votes.
Some Nigerians have concluded, wrongly, that these elections were credible only because President Jonathan and PDP lost. That is not correct. We must learn in this country to measure the credibility of elections from the process, not the outcome. Apart from the credible conduct of the elections, the single most important thing that made Nigeria a sure winner last week was the phone call placed by President Jonathan to congratulate President-elect Muhammadu Buhari even before the official result announcement was made. By so doing, President Jonathan has earned for himself an honoured place in the annals of Nigerian democracy and has created a precedent that others must learn to emulate in the future.
Finally, we join all Nigerians in condemning the antics of Mr. Godsay Orubebe who melodramatically tried to disrupt the vote collation process in the full view of the world because his candidate was losing. We strongly recommend that Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court [ICC] Fatou Ben-Souda should fulfil her pledge and haul Mr. Orubebe before the ICC at The Hague for plotting to plunge this country of 170 million into chaos. Unless an example is made out of Orubebe, other African copycats may be tempted to emulate his inglorious example in the future.
Apart from the credible conduct of the elections, the single most important thing that made Nigeria a sure winner last week was the phone call placed by President Jonathan to congratulate President-elect
Muhammadu Buhari