WHAT IF THE ELECTORAL UMPIRE IS PARTISAN?

AYODELE OKUNFOLAMI argues for the decentralisation of INEC

On the eye of the storm is the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN. Actually, whoever sits in Plot 436 Zambezi Crescent, Maitama of the electoral body sits on an electric chair. This shouldn’t be but elections in Nigeria are almost like civil wars. I can’t forget my earliest assignment with INEC in 2007 where the presence of armoured tanks and military personnel in the local government in which I was posted were seen everywhere. I asked severally if elections is a civil exercise or a military one.

The neutrality of INEC chairs has always been called to question because people have queried why a president, who has partisan interests, should be the one to nominate the head of the election management body. It is like the CEO of Rangers FC choosing the referee in a match between his team and Shooting Stars. Albeit the ref exercises his duties with utmost professionalism, there would be suspicions of bias.

I won’t immediately call for the Nigerian president to be striped of the powers to appoint the electoral umpire. We have a Commander-in-Chief who has the powers to make hundreds of other appointments from ambassadors to ministers to heads of departments and agencies. So why take away one from him?

The judiciary, police, security agencies, anti-corruption agencies and even the Central Bank where sensitive materials for elections are kept all have critical roles in elections yet the president is given powers to appoint their respective heads, so why single out INEC? Even a nongovernmental body like the National Union of Road Transport Workers have an impact on how elections go.  And if we then go as far as seizing the presidential powers to appoint heads of those agencies are we not just existing for elections? Have we reduced our citizenship to election commodities? If the president doesn’t have powers to make some appointments, won’t we have weakened that office? What happens when we have a Pharoah that knows Joseph and we have whittled all the powers from him to do us good just because of our fears of the past? How will the non-partisanship of the body that picks the electoral boss be sustained overtime if the appointment of the persons that make up an independent board is devoid of politics? How are we going to pick this jury any different from how we pick persons into the National Assembly?

What we should have as a bumper sticker is that we can’t have democracy without politicians no matter how we pretend. Therefore, almost everything about us will have political shades to it. The president appoints a Central Bank governor, for example, that would be aligned to his economic and fiscal policy temperament. This in no way takes away the monetary independence of the reserve bank. Recently, President Tinubu appointed Tunji Disu as the Inspector General of Police, with the task of getting state police going. Don’t forget, Tinubu has been known to be championing state police long before he got into office. What this reminds us of is that elections have consequences. Presidents will always appoint people that support their temperaments across board to push their personal philosophies, perspectives and programmes. So, what makes it different from electing a dictator? Checks and balances.

It is these checks and balances that the Constitution foresaw that makes it mandatory for the INEC Chairman nominee to go through the Council of States and the National Assembly. The Council of States consists of former Presidents/Heads of State, former Chief Justices of Nigeria, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, all State Governors, and the Attorney General. These are elder statesmen who should rise above political, ethnic, religious and other considerations. While the National Assembly serves as the nation’s town hall. In addition to this two-factor authentication system, we have political parties, civil society organisations, election observers, media and the public to ensure INEC and its operations are independent and neutral in its affairs.

Adding another wrinkle. Each state has a Resident Electoral Commissioner who had been nominated by a governor. Just as the president nominates the chairman, the 36 state governors nominate supposed technocrats to serve in INEC. Correspondingly, each geopolitical zone is each represented in the leadership of the Commission by two National Commissioners. These geopolitical representations in appointments, although under the delegation and supervision of the Chairman, serve not only for fair depictions, but also as oversights to the civil service staffed Commission. So, with all these supposed vigilances on INEC, why the fuse for Amupitan to resign?

Unfortunately, this National Assembly, that should serve as the chief check to the executive arm, is today a rubber stamp. In fact, the Senate President in an INEC-unrelated public event defended Amupitan’s partisan tweet. When did Senator Godswill Akpabio become Amupitan’s spokesman?  Akpabio, Tinubu’s Special Assistant on social media and other APC stalwarts have been playing the devil’s advocate for a tweet Amupitan himself denies ownership of. How ironic. That Amupitan’s imagemakers responded to the call for his resignation following that tweet 22 hours after a presidential aide response gives the wrong optics.  Changing the date for the general elections, postponement of the revalidation of the voters’ register, skewed interpretation of a lower court’s ruling on ADC’s leadership and now this affirmative tweet to a bigotedly coloured partisan social media post in so short a time in office, all portray a man who speaks the shibboleths of the ruling party. Funnily, the netizens that had traced his digital footprints linking that X account to him have already started sending transport money into his Opay’s account for him to leave that office.

I join my voice to those, home and abroad, calling for his resignation, not because he would conduct a biased election or because he has ulterior motives, but because perception shapes trust. Public confidence has been completely undermined. Amupitan is cumulatively losing confidence with the Nigerian electorate. Besides the infamous glitch of the last presidential elections, Amupitan’s predecessor, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, did his best to do his assignment above board even as far as redeploying the then niece to the former president from heading the National Collation Centre after public outcry and rerouting sensitive materials away from the CBN following Godwin Emefiele’s involvement in partisan politics. Those and others by the then Yakubu-led INEC was to get the optics right and give the electorate faith in the process unlike Amupitan’s INEC that became a judge in its own sake, exonerating their boss. How absurd.

Let’s be clear, the outcome of elections is not all in the hands of any election body. Parties or candidates that lack the spread, messaging, finance, fight, popularity, competitive difference or even the ability to sell a good product cannot cheaply blame the rules or the refs. Secondly, elections are far beyond INEC. The electoral act, court judgements, election calendaring, executive manipulations, media coverage, campaign permit, fight against corruption, currency redesigning, declaration of unexpected public holidays, curfews, infrastructural decrepitude, insecurity, gerrymandering, zoning and many other things can sway any election. These can affect if or how parties campaign or contest. It can determine the turnout on voting day which can give on unfair advantage to any group. So, wrapping everything about elections where graduates count the votes, lecturers collate the results and professors return the winners is on INEC is too much. It is all these extra-electoral gimmicks that influence the freeness, fairness and clearness of elections before any vote is cast. 

Moving forward. I will first implore our elected leaders to govern us aright. If the newborn is unsure of education, educated unsure of employment, employed unsure of pension, businessman unsure of patronage, old unsure of healthcare, citizen unsure of justice and traveller unsure of safety, people will continue to question leadership leading to increasingly volatile and hostile elections. The economy needs to expand. Government should not be the biggest social and financial rewarder. Democracy is not supposed to produce winners and losers, it is supposed to make everybody winners. There are societies where elections are conducted by regular civil servants that are invisible. That is what it should be.

Secondly, constituted authorities must do their jobs. Why for example should an INEC boss go through parliament and security checks and it would be ordinary citizens that would forensic his tweet? Nigerian institutions have become law to themselves and loyal to their employers instead of the Constitution and the nation that they swore on oath to serve. America is notorious for having openly partisan appointments to head election commissions, sit on their benches and head security agencies, yet there is no suspicion of bias in running their assignments. First off, they appoint competent people, secondly, the institutions of state impartially and faithfully ensure the will of the people is upheld.

Finally, have we thought about decentralising our elections? Those who are used to my views on issues before now know I am a privatisation hawk going as far as suggesting that our prisons be privatised. Since we can’t always have a Jonathan that appointed an INEC boss he had never met and if Amupitan resigns Tinubu is likely to replace him with another ally, why don’t we in future decouple INEC the way we did PHCN? Instead of having one hegemon that conducts elections, can’t we have, preferably private enterprises, that would be saddled with conducting elections in the different political districts? What it means is that one glitch won’t spoil the entire system, there won’t be one Chief Returning Officer that the whole nation is holding its breath to announce results, and constituencies can choose based on performance or peculiarity the way they want to vote or the election company they want to count their own votes. This is another reason that despite being partisan, America’s election officers have little influence on the votes of the people.

 Okunfolami writes from Festac, Lagos