Free and fair elections
This is a continuation of a chapter excerpted from a book titled Nigerian General Elections 1959 and 1979 and the aftermath written by Ahmadu Kurfi. The author who is the Maradin Katsina, is a former Executive Secretary of the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO). The Political Parties and the Political Culture s in Britain, there was no provision in the Nigerian electoral law relating to political parties, until the promulgation of the Electoral Decree 1977. Part III of the Decree makes provisions for the registration, control and funding of political parties. But once registered, the parties were free to manage their affairs without interference from FEDECO, except that they are required to submit returns on some of their activities such as changes of their top officials and income and expenditure statements, especially election expenses, incurred. The parties conceive, plan, organise and execute election campaigns and conferences on their own and without interference from any quarters, provided that their utterances and action comply with the law of the land. They are therefore left to determine the ‘rules of the game’ of politics and how these are to be observed. The parties are the custodian of the political culture in the country. In 1959, there were three major political parties, namely the Action Group, the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons, the Northern Peoples Congress. There were also a number of relatively minor ones (in terms of seats secured) such as the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC), the United National Independent Party (UNIP), and the Mabolaje Grand Alliance. In 1979 there were five political parties the National Party of Nigeria, the Unity Party of Nigeria, the Nigerian Peoples Party, the Peoples Redemption Party and the Great Nigeria Peoples Party. How did the parties behave during the election campaigns of 1959 and 1979? Were there any rules of the game and to what extent were the rules observed by the parties?
In his book, Nigeria - The Tribes, the Nation or the Race- The Politics of Independence, F.A.W. Schwarz states that violence is close to the surface in all political campaigns in Nigeria, South as well as North, and he lists a number of incidents about the 1959 campaign which were reported in various editions of the Nigerian Daily Times of October, November and December of 1959. These are reproduced below:
Four NCNC-NEPU supporters accompanying Dr. Azikiwe on his tour of the North attacked; 7 NEPU man hospitalized following fight after the tour stops at Nguru. II Democratic Party of Nigeria and the Cameroons and NCNC man charged with breach of the peace at DPNC meeting in Enugu, Eastern Region following fighting and damage to Action Group helicopter. NPC member of the Northern House of Assembly (Alh. Cigari?) sentenced to two years imprisonment for assault on Action Group organizing secretary; Governor-General Robertson makes broadcast calling for an end
Ato violence; all public processes banned in the Western Region from November 26 to December 8; Governor-General Robertson makes a second radio broadcast decrying violence; troops moved to Bauchi, Bida, Funtua, Jos, Kano in the Northern Region to guard against violence. NEPU supporter killed in Bida Emirate after NPC meeting; 11 Action Group supporters in Calabar charged with being violent with intent to provoke a breach of the peace in that they “did sing and use abusive words” about the NCNC and throw stones and shoot arrows at NCNC cars.
A further indication of the volatile nature of political competition in Nigeria, particularly in the North, can be found in the Report of the Nigerian Police for the year 1959: of 27 “disturbances and major incidents” during the year, 14 stemmed from conflicts between political parties, and of these 12 were in the north’.
The campaign in 1979 was carried out under the watchful eyes of the military rulers and was therefore much more restrained and almost devoid of rank violence. Furthermore, Nigerians appeared to have learned a bitter lesson in 1959, 1964, and 1965 when several lives were lost and valuable property damaged or destroyed and many people detested repeat performances of the ugly episodes of those years. The spirit of politics without bitterness’, expounded by Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, leader and presidential candidate of the GNPP, generally prevailed throughout the country. Only few major incidents such as the stoning and smashing of the windshield of the helicopter carrying Chief Awolowo at Aba, lmo State (a repeat performance of a similar incident at Enugu in 1959) was reported and roundly condemned by most Nigerians. Another incident was reported in Plateau State where a party activist died as a result of a nail being stuck in his skull by an opponent who was subsequently jailed to a long term of imprisonment. It appears, on the whole, that the rules of the game were observed by most Nigerian politicians during the 1979 election campaign.
Nigerian record in this regard compared favourably with some other world democracies as far as the 1979 Elections were concerned. Professor Jean Herskovits, of the State University of New York at Purchase, who was present in Nigeria during the periods of the election campaign and the elections themselves had this to say about the election in an article she wrote in the winter 1979/80 of Foreign Affairs Quarterly: During that (Senatorial} and subsequent elections, a tour of the polling places revealed scenes of impressive order: queues, scarcely an argument, and, most of all, no violence ... Most striking was the contrast with the 1960’s, when thugs frequently broke up political meetings, arson and murder were common, and intimidation was the context for voting itself.
The calm atmosphere prevalent during the 1979 elections was not brought about by the existence of fine political culture in the Nigerian psyche but was due to the veiled threat of immediate military retribution should law and order break down - and worse, the possibility of postponement of the date of handover of power to the civilians. The basic shortcoming in the average Nigerian politician is his reluctance to accept defeat in a political contest and his propensity to ascribe defeat or failure at any endeavour to some extraneous, irrelevant and imaginary forces that were bent on his ‘destruction’. These forces could be political opponents, government or any of its agencies or officials, unspecified enemies or even juju. Failure at an election, admittedly, is not usually ascribed to the fault of the defeated candidates or his agents but sometimes ‘to one or more of the forces referred to above. The defeat is not always accepted calmly and with equanimity but is vehemently resented and resisted with a vow to settle scores immediately or in the ‘future, or to go· the. courts. The court action is usually pursued until the verdict of the highest court, whether the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the British House of Lords (1959) or the Nigerian Supreme Court. The political power struggles become so bitter. Because as Mr. Schwarz observes: ‘politics in developing countries is concerned with sharing out a pitifully small national cake’, and the attitude adopted by contestants is summed up in the saying, ‘Winner takes all,’ whatever the constitutional provisions for fair sharing of the national cake. Parties join hands in a coalition or sign an accord, if election results provide them with no other alternative. The ‘rules of the game’ can go to the dogs and let the game itself disappear amid the wreckage of the whole system - to use Professor MacKenzie’s metaphorif one’s party fails to achieve its goals at the election. However, there are signs that this attitude of mind is changing as the admiration of Alhaji Waziri’s ‘Politics without bitterness’ showed. Unhappily, the proponent of this laudable political philosophy made a volte-face and became the advocate of extreme bitterness and bellicosity when he failed to achieve his goal of becoming the President of Nigeria. It is hoped that other political leaders will take off from where Waziri left, that is, before his right about turn!
The voters freedom and the suffrage
The suffrage in 1959 was limited to adults aged twenty-one and above, except in the Northern Region where women were excluded. This restriction was lifted in 1979 when all adults aged eighteen years or above got the vote. Not only that, the value of each vote was equal to any other in that each voter was entitled to cast one ballot only in a single member constituency. All constituencies for each election were, by and large, equal in population, except where administrative convenience, community of interests, communication or geographical peculiarities dictated otherwise. There was no gerrymandering to favour one candidate or political party against another. Equality of the ballot was absolute in all respects and adequate arrangements had been made to cast the ballot in secret. Not only that, the voter was free to-cast or not to cast his vote without let or hinderance and he had a number of candidates or parties in each constituency from which to make his choice in the privacy of the polling booth. In other words, the conditions for free and fair elections were fulfilled as far as the voter was concerned - there was no constraint whatsoever limiting his freedom or restricting his choice.
Factors inhibitive to free and fair elections
The factors inhibitive to free and fair elections, as pointed out earlier, include bribery and corruption, intimidation, physical violence and moral or spiritual pressure on individual voters. Other factors include violation of freedom of expression and right of free assembly, and a host of other such impediments. These inhibitions are present in all societies in one form or another either in a crude or a subtle way, depending on the degree of sophistication of the society which practises them. In Nigeria and other countries with relatively undeveloped political culture, the inhibitions may manifest themselves in crude forms such as physical combat, feasting voters or denial of permits for holding meetings or staging political rallies: others include threat of, or infliction of moral force on a voter by a village priest or imam, or imaginary oracle of juju- all intended to influence the voter in the way he casts his ballot.
In other societies, the inhibitions take subtler forms hardly recognisable by the uninitiated. The news media newspapers, radio and television- top the list in manipulating the voters, through suggestions, ‘opinion’ polls and denial of advertisement space to some candidates while offering it profusely to others (for example, denial of such space to candidate Jimmy Carter by one of the U.S. television networks during the 1980 U.S.A. Presidential campaign which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in July 1981 ); other forms include skewed “forecasts” and “projections” of election results, which are but a few of the strategies employed by the news media to .influence election results. The impact of the press on the voters, which is ostensibly meant to educate, entertain and inform the public, can be such as to virtually arrogate to itself the right to represent its readers, audience or. viewers, to the extent that one can speak of ‘media mandate’ being the prime mover for electing certain candidates to high offices.
Physical combats or restriction on holding public rallies arc rare in Western democracies or in the Soviet block, but there are subtle pressures - moral, social, economic, etc, which when exerted on candidates or party leaders, can produce better results than their crude counterparts.
It is believed that under all democratic electoral laws, there are provisions for the prosecution and conviction of persons found guilty of the crimes of bribery and corruption, intimidation, cheating and similar offences, but the trouble is that law enforcement agencies find it difficult to detect commission of such crimes, much less to prove them in a court of law. Bribery, corruption and cheating take various forms in different societies, that there is no standard yardstick for identifying or measuring the extent to which a particular society is afflicted by this cancerous ailment which defies treatment and cure.