Mbutor O. Mbutor urges the electoral body to put its house in order before the next election
Restraint is one virtue that the Nigerian citizenry have shown on so many tragic national events, as the world wonders how a people crammed in the abyss of poor governance and infrastructure decay are mentioned among the happiest people on earth. That roads are poorly maintained, or workers are owed myriad months of salaries could be explained away – government does not have all the resources all the time, and restraint and understanding have helped keep the peace. Nigerians have refused to reckon the possibility of flimflam of the government in power with respect to delivering suitable well-being to citizens, rather awarded the concession that resources are scarce compared to competing uses. The aforementioned restraint, overtime, has been built on hope, hope that if current government is not able to deal with the socio-economic challenges, elections would usher in a new administration to continue the effort.
Continuity of government efforts at achieving set macro- objectives explains why hitherto poor nations become rich, rich ones become richer, and the absence of continuity is responsible, in part, for poor countries becoming poorer. However, continuity by itself may not deliver the goods except it is in the path that carries majority of the population along and optimizes the utilization of resources.
The ability to choose the consummate personnel for governance is one key difference between the first, and the second and third worlds. In the former, power belongs to the people, democracy is grass roots, while in the latter, power often tilts to the highest bidder – he that pays more or wields the most thuggery. As shameful and open this point is, it is the reality in most developing countries. Prevalent illiteracy and wanton poverty tend to normalize the high score in this corruption index. The experience in Nigeria has roughly oscillated this path. During the era of military government, the hope was that enthroning democracy was the end of the nation’s political woes, after all the worst of democracy is better than the best of military rule (at least so we were told in basic government studies). Thus, there seemed to be concerted effort to wear out the military, yes wear out because the military had the guns so NADECO and other prodemocracy entities organised civil movements the much resource and capacity could carry.
Thank God 1999 came, sighs of relief filled the air in Nigeria, as conscious effort of the new government was assigned to ensuring inclusive government. That administration looked for personnel all over the country, with emphasis on round pegs in round holes. It really looked like democracy was better than militocracy. However, there was a shock in the middle of the tunnel, that shock had to do with the transition to another administration. The issue of who would be umpire, and how fair the umpire needed to be assumed a life larger than life itself. It appeared the aero plane carrying the Nigerian democracy was going to crash. So there was Iwu, there was Jega, and there was ballot snatching, there was falsified results, there was voter suppression, there was a battery of selected winners, and there was not much people willingly elected at all levels of government. The good thing about national life is that decay is gradual and seemingly painless, but pain certainly eventually comes. We toed the same path now and again and again, then the result of the incapacity of the electorate to choose began to show. Near collapse of infrastructure – energy, water, name it. Security architecture fell off the cliff all over the place (BH, kidnappings, assassinations, arsons, again, name it). In fact, in the seat of power in Abuja, the government in power ran away from the Eagle Square, instead hiding in the State House to celebrate important national anniversaries, and friends needed to scan friends’ trousers to be allowed into their houses. Sister security agencies openly go to fight against one another and the populace applaud the winner. If you have a case with the police, just call your military friend, you are one step to winning the case. The education sector, the health sector, oh my dear country.
Fortunately, the looting sector remained intact with the government’s cow milked dry. Merit disappeared from all spheres of national life, just anyone could be anything. We have heard about fake lawyers, so what? A lawyer now seems to mean one who wears a wig, not necessarily who has undergone that rigorous training. Rampant building collapse, some of them built by ‘qualified’ engineers. It is easier for the medical profession because, when mistakes are made people die, and when people die they go to hell or heaven and case closed. Yes, even if they wait in purgatory there still go somewhere, only God cares.
Enough, so in 2015 the country elected a known no- none-sense General. Not only being a General, the victory was celebrated as triumph of democracy as the incumbent president was defeated. We hoped insecurity, corruption and other challenges would be challenged. Above all, we were told elections would thenceforth be free and fair. We believed this with the signing into law of the new Electoral Act. The BVAS and IREV had arrived to cleanse our electoral woes.
But did we make a mistake to believe? NO. It worked in Anambra, Osun and Ekiti States. It really worked, we applauded, and the world applauded. The electorate was encouraged and began to believe in the system. However, enter February 25 the Presidential and National Assembly elections, enter INEC. The frenzy, the enthusiasm, we went to vote. The major ingredient in the credibility garnered by INEC was the immediate transmission of results from the BVAS to the IREV from the polling units. There are about 176,600 polling units across the federation. Voting and counting commenced with optimism still sustained, never mind reports of electoral crimes here and there. Enter the INEC Czar, the celebrated transmission from the BVAS ceased. In that moment the country melted into disgrace in the eyes of the world. INEC said it was technical ‘glitch’. This is understandable, after all its technology, but what has baffled everybody is that the glitch happened at the same time in all the polling units. Voting closed at different times in different places, but that did not matter, rather what mattered was that as soon as it was time to upload the results, the BVAS failed. People offered all manner of support to polling officers just to make the process smooth. Some brought power generators others gave ‘data’ from private hotpots. From our experience, networks do fail, but hardly does it fail all over the space. Network failed in Lagos, in Kafanchan, in Sokoto, in Maiduguri in Calabar, everywhere at the same time, even when we heard, not from the horse’s mouth, that the Nigerian Communications Commission said there was no network failure through the period of the election. Really, the force against the INEC’s BVAS and IREV was omnipowerful, omnipresent and ubiquitous.
In the midst of the confusion all over the country, to show INEC was in control of the situation, the Chairman, at the inauguration of the Situation Room for the collation of results in the International Conference Centre Abuja, warned that no one should spread any results other than the ones announced by INEC. But who else had the authority to issue results?
Well, we will not discuss the validity of the Presidential election results here, it will be sub-judice as the opposition have obeyed the instructions from INEC and others to ‘Go to Court’. However, the advice for INEC is to note that the electorate have exercised non-pareil restraint about what happened on the 25th, and this must not be taken for granted in the next elections.
Dr. Mbutor writes from Abuja
