It’s Time to Reform INEC, Electoral Process

The recent Bayelsa and Kogi States elections have reinforced the need for a total reform of the nation’s electoral process, writes Olawale Olaleye

A few days to the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States, INEC’s national commissioner for Edo, Rivers and Bayelsa States, May Agbumuche-Mbu, gave an insight into what to expect, when she lamented the degree of violence often associated with elections in Nigeria, saying it was akin only to a war situation.

Agbamuche-Mbu, who narrated as an example, what happened in Rivers State during the recent 2019 general election at a two-day seminar at the Electoral Institute, Abuja, therefore, sued for caution ahead of the November 16 governorship elections in Bayelsa and Kogi States.

Agbamuche-Mba said, “Elections in Nigeria is just like going to war. In Port Harcourt, during the last elections, I saw it all. I was there. INEC staff and sensitive electoral materials were being transported in armoured vehicles yet people threw dynamites at the moving armoured vehicles. Is this not war? What can better be described as war than this?”

Thus, ahead of the November 16 governorship elections, she said, “We are looking unto the political parties that they will be kind to the people of Bayelsa by doing what they are expected to do. We are going to use smart card readers and where it fails, which I believe it won’t, we will come back again, because we are ready for this election and I pray that the political class will allow us do our work”.

She also warned that INEC would record zero votes for parties in areas, where there are violence or ballot box snatching during the elections.
“There will be no hijacking of ballot boxes, because if they are hijacked, the area is going to get zero votes,” Agbamuche-Mbu said, reiterating that the commission would work to ensure that the poll did not result in inconclusive election.

But a fellow national commissioner and chairman of the two-day seminar, Solomon Adedeji Soyebi, put it more succinctly, when he foresaw a heavily monetised exercise in Bayelsa and Kogi, saying there would be intense vote-buying.

As if preparing the minds of the people for certain possibilities, Soyebi said one of the challenges that would mar the conduct of the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States was the possibility of vote buying by the political parties.

“No doubt about it. In the Kogi State governorship election, money will flow like rivers but INEC would be equal to the task. Relevant security agencies will fish them out. We have a strategy to do this. The cat will not be let out of the bag now.”

Unfortunately, everything that both Agbumuche-Mbu and Soyebi feared happened penultimate Saturday in both Bayelsa and Kogi States. From vote buying and selling to ballot snatching, results manipulation and war-like violence, everything had combined to taint the two elections.

And with the way things are, if INEC conducts elections a million times, given the current structure and enabling laws, nothing would change significantly. This is why a total reform is not only imperative at this juncture but sacrosanct.

President Muhammadu Buhari declined assenting to the Electoral Act put together by the eighth senate on the grounds that it was too close to the 2019 election and therefore, implementation might be fraught with glitches.

Although the excuse was general considered inane, because it did not address basics but the political correctness of the place of the ruling party, would it not do the government and its party a whole lot of good if it could make this happen and at least, confer credibility on subsequent elections in the country?

There is no gainsaying the fact that the ninth national assembly is not one to disagree with the executive even on patriotic grounds, at least, Senate President Ahmed Lawan confirmed this recently, when he gave assurances that his senate would approve all Buhari requests, because he was sure they would be genuine.

That also explains why they are rushing everything to please the executive, including the 2020 budget without analyising the details. They seem to be more interested in returning to the January to December cycle than churning out a good job. These are signs that not much could be expected from the Lawan Senate.

It is however not asking for too much from the senate to pick up the gauntlet and address the lacuna in the nation’s electoral process. The process of choosing leaders is flawed and so, wrong leaders are daily finding themselves in positions they are not prepared for, which by implication explains where the nation is today in terms of growth and development.

It is a no-brainer – one of the major steps to getting it right as a people is to properly fix the electoral process. A reform is beyond due. Even if Buhari fails in other spheres, he could score big with the electoral reform, knowing that he has a legislature that would expressly stamp his orders. Nigeria cannot afford any more delays.

The pending governorship elections in Anambra, Ondo and Edo States should kick off with a new INEC, armed with a sound and reformed Electoral Act that could change the Nigerian narrative otherwise hope may be generally forlorn.