INEC’s Bolt from the Blue
When your wife is pregnant and gives birth at the end of nine months, you cannot claim you were caught unawares and so you couldn’t buy items for baby delivery ahead of time. Since 2015, we had known that we were going to hold another general election in 2019. It is every four years. It is there in the constitution. We knew we would need ballot papers, ballot boxes, inkpads and result sheets. We knew the geography of Nigeria. We have meteorologists who forecast the weather all the time. We knew that some locations have peculiarities at a particular time of the year. We knew we would need to fly materials earlier for ease of distribution. We knew. There is nothing new under the sun.
The postponement of the 2019 general election by one week — even if by one presidential election. Obasanjo was virtually day — is yet another spectacular testament forced to pick Atiku as his running mate to the pathological incompetence ruining our for the second term, but he immediately set country. The Independent National Electoral out to neutralise his deputy after the general Commission (INEC) told us a million times election. The killer punch was branding Atiku that it was ready for the elections. Literally as “corrupt” — a nickname that has stuck a million times! Unlike in 2015 when the since then. postponement was forced by the military Obasanjo set up an administrative panel hierarchy who said they needed more time headed by Prof. Ignatius Ayua, with Mrs Oby to “diminish” Boko Haram, most Nigerians Ezekwesili as a notable member, to probe Atiku never saw the latest one coming — a few of over the Petroleum Technology Development hours to the opening of the polling stations! Fund (PTDF) affair. It indicted Atiku and Is there any other country in the world where barred him from holding public office. INEC, elections are scheduled and routinely postponed under the inimitable Prof. Maurice Iwu, quickly every four years? disqualified Atiku from the 2007 elections
The two things we should normally worry because of the indictment. It was at this stage about in our elections are rigging and violence. that the judiciary stepped in and declared We have a history of stuffed ballots, voter that any indictment must be accepted by a suppression, ballot-snatching, violence and court of law. It stopped tyranny on the one killing. Since the colonial masters left our hand but castrated INEC on the other. Today, shores in 1960, almost every election we have INEC cannot disqualify candidates even if conducted by ourselves is filled with all these they present forged certificates. It has to be shenanigans. Only God knows how many the courts. Nigerians have been maimed or killed in Atiku fought all the way to the Supreme electoral violence. Our elections are usually Court to fight his disqualification after the a do-or-die affair. But, increasingly, we now corruption charges against him had been have to add a third worry: uncertainty of quashed by a high court. On the day the electoral timetable. It has become a recurring judgement was to be given, Obasanjo declared decimal. Since 2011, we have been postponing a public holiday so that the court would not elections despite having all the time in the sit. In the interim, INEC had printed the world to prepare. ballot papers without including Atiku. (In
In 2011, we had actually started voting in those days, pictures of candidates were also the federal parliamentary elections when Prof. on the ballot.) A senior government official Attahiru Jega, then-INEC chairman, asked reportedly asked Iwu: “What if Atiku won us to calm down. INEC had discovered, his court case and has to be on the ballot?” midway, that we didn’t have enough result Iwu dismissed the possibility. However, five sheets. The elections were moved twice. Four days to the election, the Supreme Court ruled years later, we did not keep to the timetable that Atiku must be on the ballot. again, this time at the instance of the security Shamelessly, INEC rushed to South Africa to chiefs who curiously requested more time to start printing 65 million ballot papers overnight. fight Boko Haram. Many were convinced The Nigerian contractor instantly made billions that the PDP was afraid of losing the polls. of naira from the turmoil. Eventually, more Senior INEC figures would later confess in than half of the ballots did not make it to private conversations that the postponement Nigeria before election day. In fact, they were saved the umpire from a disastrous outing. later abandoned at a warehouse in South They were not ready for the original February Africa. A South African newspaper made fun date, they said. of us. It is not today that the South Africans
It was more dramatic in 2007. We almost did started disrespecting us. Even the ballots that not have an election. To put it more bluntly: made their way to Nigeria did not have serial we practically did not have an election. What numbers, and many polling units did not we eventually did was a charade, so much so have voting materials. A military aircraft the results were merely written after the selfflying materials overnight crashed, killing inflicted chaos. As it was, President Olusegun the pilot and INEC officials. Obasanjo did not want his vice-president, In the end, Iwu simply blessed Alhaji Umaru Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to succeed him. The Musa Yar’Adua (PDP) with 24,638,063 votes, two had publicly fallen out before the 2003 awarded 6,605,299 to Gen. Muhammadu
THISDAY Newspapers Limited. Buhari (ANPP) and allocated 2,637,848 to Atiku. Iwu also took time out to tongue-lash the opposition parties for complaining about the shoddy elections. He reminded them that only PDP had billboards and posters across the country and they should not complain about Yar’Adua’s 24.6 million-vote windfall. Yar’Adua, it must be said, acknowledged that the election was a mess and promised to carry out electoral reforms. For all intents and purposes, we did not hold a presidential election in 2007, no thanks to INEC. We simply wrote the figures.
Things have certainly improved between 2007 and 2019, but we are still far from getting things right. Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chairman, has given us cause to worry and doubt his pledge to conduct credible elections. For a man who told Nigerians again and again and again and again that INEC was ready and that nothing would make him postpone the elections, this is nothing but a big let-down. His budget was passed as presented to the National Assembly; nothing was cut. This was to forestall excuses. I also understand that all his requests to the president were treated within 24 hours. He assured all of us —Nigerians and foreigners alike — that all was set.
What does it take to get materials to locations? Do we need God to come and help us take ballot papers and result sheets from Abuja to Kaura Namodia and Ikot Ekpene? It is all about logistics. It is about meticulous planning. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and even Plan D. It is all about painting scenarios, simulating movements and asking the big question: WHAT IF? Someone said Nigeria is very big, geographically, so it presents a logistical challenge and I am asking: so how many years do we need to distribute voting materials across Nigeria? We continue to advertise our incompetence to the whole world. It is one of the reasons we are hardly respected in the comity of nations.
The best way Prof. Yakubu can compensate for this disappointment is to organise a transparently free and fair general election. I agree that he deserves a second chance. After all, Prof. Jega started on a shaky note but ended up on a creditable note. I will not write off Yakubu just yet. But he has to realise that he has dropped the ball. We should be getting better with every election, not going backward. The town is filled with rumours over Yakubu’s motives, with both the ruling party and the opposition accusing him of working for one side or the other. Millions of Nigerians have also suffered economic losses because of this postponement. We deserve much better.
This unfortunate turn of events has, predictably, provided a golden opportunity for fake news entrepreneurs. One of such is that Mrs Amina Zakari, President Buhari’s “blood niece”, is the INEC commissioner in charge of electoral operations and logistics and — you know it — she was the one that sabotaged the elections. In fact, the commissioner in charge of logistics committee is Mr. Okechukwu Ibeanu, not Amina. The re-assignment was done as far back as October 2018! For me, I want the general election done and dusted so that we can face other national issues. It has become a serious distraction. Let’s just do it and move to the next phase of our lives!
How can we have credible elections when security agencies continue to participate actively in intimidating and harassing the opposition? In Lokoja, Kogi state, on Friday, police surrounded the home of the former governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, who was playing host to PDP leaders across the senatorial zones ahead of the now-postponed elections. The street was cordoned off. In Akwa Ibom, same day, the army withdrew soldiers from the government house — a clear signal of “you are on your own”. On Thursday, in Niger state, the EFCC arraigned the PDP governorship candidate, Mallam Gado Nasco, and Dr. Aliyu Babangida, exgovernor, for fraud. Level-playing field? Indeed.
The postponement of the general election has elicited a lot of comments from the social media. No matter what, Nigerians will always find something to cheer them up in the midst of the gloom and the anger. Indicting INEC, one Twitter user wrote: “They should just sack every one at @ inecnigeria and hire 10 event planners from Lagos, you will see how the elections will happen today today!” Another user said: “INEC, with its ₦189 billion budget and four years to prepare, managed to behave no differently from a Nigerian tailor who collects ₦15,000 for your wedding outfit but switches off his phone on the day he is supposed to deliver.” Comical.