No need for Nnamani committee
On Tuesday last week, AttorneyGeneral of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami inaugurated a 25-member committee on the Constitution and Electoral Reform. It is headed by former Senate President Senator Ken Nnamani. Malami said the committee was set up in order to actualise President Muhammadu Buhari’s pledge in his inauguration speech last year “to deepen the country’s democracy and entrench the culture of an enduring electoral system.” Malami also said, “It is important to evaluate our democratic journey thus far with a view to fashioning out a more enduring system that will serve present and future generations.”
The Nnamani committee’s terms of reference are to review recent judicial decisions on election petitions as they relate to conflicting judgments and absence of consequential orders. It is also to review the laws impacting elections in Nigeria, including relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act 2012 (as amended). Many Nigerians were quick to point out that this mandate looks extremely similar to that of a similar committee appointed by the late President Umaru Yar’adua in 2007. It was headed by former Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais. By all accounts that committee did a very good job and turned in a report which made many far reaching recommendations on electoral reform. As usual in this country, the Uwais report joined many others on the dusty shelves of government and most of its recommendations were never implemented.
Many people are therefore asking, why should we have another committee instead of dusting up the Uwais report and implementing it? Setting up another large committee at this time of severe economic recession amounts to a waste of scarce resources on a matter that is no longer urgent and which had been sufficiently dealt with eight years ago. In the light of last year’s very successful general elections in this country, wide ranging electoral reform is no longer a national priority, as was the case in 2007 when President Yar’adua admitted there were flaws in the election that brought him to power. Sure our electoral system is not perfect and needs some changes but a widespread review is not required at this time.
Attorney General Malami addressed these concerns when he told Daily Trust last week that the Nnamani panel is different from the Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee. He said, “Fundamentally, there are two key differences. The first difference is that in the other committee their assignment concluded with a recommendation and no further steps were taken in terms of actualizing it. The whole essence of this committee is that of consolidation. From 2008 when the Uwais committee was put in place, a lot of other issues have come up within the electoral landscape in Nigeria. Those new innovations and events that came on board were not taken into consideration by the Uwais committee; that is why we call this committee a consolidation committee. Consolidation committee in terms of looking at the recommendations made by the Uwais committee over time, looking at the new innovations that came into the electoralspace and then look at them jointly to see how the process can be taken forward for action and implementation. The essence now is taking the process forward by way of seeking the blessings of the Federal Executive Council and National Assembly, and eventually passing it into law. By so doing, moving the process from the point of recommendation to the point of implementation through legislative process.”
With all due respect to the Attorney General, we do not agree that you need a 25 member committee to do any of these. Senator Ken Nnamani is a very distinguished man who earned the respect and gratitude of all Nigerians for his principled handling of the Senate during former President Obasanjo’s ill-fated push for a Third Term. Yet, the task of dusting up Uwais’ recommendations, reviewing their relevance after eight years, drafting bills for approval by the Federal Executive Council and subsequently the National Assembly can be done by the Minister of Justice and his officials. The minister’s charge to the Nnamani panel to consult widely with Nigerians and legislators is unnecessary because the National Assembly will surely hold hearings when the bills are forwarded to it.
The most urgent thing required at this time is to incorporate the Permanent Voter’s Card [PVC] and card reader into the Electoral Act. These were the two technological innovations that radically transformed the 2015 elections. All Nigerians were horrified when the Supreme Court ruled that evidence from these two cannot be admitted in election cases because they are not in the Electoral Act. We expect them to be speedily incorporated into the Act. This does not require a committee.
The other worrisome aspect of our elections since last year has been that many elections were declared inconclusive. The reason in all cases was violence that forced the cancellation of voting in some polling units. This matter should be addressed between INEC, security agencies and political parties. In any case, INEC produced a voluminous report after last year’s elections which contained its observations on all the areas of weakness in the election system. No committee can identify such weaknesses better than INEC did.
For now, we advise INEC to move quickly and carry out both constituency delineation and creation of new polling units. Both exercises become problematic as elections approach so they should be done now. Finally, we frown at the delay in filling up vacancies at INEC. Even though six national commissioners have now been nominated after a year’s delay, there are still more than 20 vacancies for Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs. This is what should occupy government’s mind, not wide ranging electoral reform.