NIGERIA IN REVIEW

BEYOND 2007 ELECTIONS: FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINING DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA

Presentation by Honourable Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice M. Iwu at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. August 28, 2008.

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka has a proud record of contributions, both of ideas and human resources, in the development of the Nigerian state through the years. It was this University that successfully pioneered the concept of liberal studies as a component of scholarship and training in the Nigerian higher education system. The Institution has remained faithful to its founders’ vision that Universities must have an intellectual and social purpose by fostering creativity and responsiveness to change. The Department of Political science of the University, in particular, has given enviably of its intellectual and administrative capacity to the nation in the specific realm of nurturing electoral democracy as well as in the general sphere of building up the principles and practice of political development.

An invitation to me from the Department of Political Science of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to speak at its 2008 annual lecture is indeed an honour. I am very appreciative of the invitation. {May I also thank the Vice Chancellor and the leadership of the University for the warm and fraternal welcome accorded me and my team on our arrival to the campus.}

For me, of course, an invitation from this University presents an opportunity to return once more to a community that I will always be a part of. I am happy to be back here. I should always be happy to be here in the fold of academia and intellectuals within the university environment, for this very community, in every wholesome and memorable sense of the word is and will always remain a home for me.

This very fact comes with an inherent implication; a home is not only where the heart is, it is where candour reigns. Home is where one speaks from the heart and harbours no fears of meanings being read into comments. Even for the quintessential diplomat home is usually not the place for the practice of diplomacy. Home is where we speak with kindred spirits, with the family. Home is where we confront reality and the truth. And this, my friends and colleagues is what I have come back home today for us to do; to face reality and speak to ourselves with candour.

In the last three years I have intermittently returned to the universities to raise critical issues about our state of being as a society. I have done so consciously, not only because I feel naturally free and at home within the academic community, but also because I appreciate the depth of the fountain and repository of multi-disciplinary knowledge that can be found in the campuses, knowledge and ingenuity that our society is yet to tap fully from; brilliant faculties and minds that have over time being pushed by neglect and relegation into developing doubts about their very potency.

I return home to the universities to discuss because of my abiding belief that the academia must, as of necessity, be drawn into the full dissection of our national problems and the quest for meaningful solutions to these problems if we are to post any real progress.

The need for the academia and the intellectual guarding lights of the Nigerian society to face the reality of the contemporary society and undertake a profound review of the state of the nation with a view to altering and rechanneling the ethos, the energy and the popular tendencies in the society has become urgent and imperative. We can no longer afford the luxury of waiting for the usual knowledge spill-over from academia to the larger Nigerian society if the universities must continue to play its part in contributing to the vision of a cultured and competitive Nigeria in the post-modern era. My dear colleagues, I have ventured out there in the wilderness of Nigerian politics, the hydra-headed monster does indeed exist and could consume us all.

This need is not informed by any record of diminution in the varied talents and vibrant spirit of enterprise in the Nigerian. Indeed, in terms of enterprise and creativity, the Nigerian spirit remains aloft. The prospects of the Nigerian state rising in due course to attain its full potentials as a political and economic giant remain substantially bright. As a matter of fact, in the last decade, with the return to the path of democratic governance, Nigeria has recorded monumental strides and incremental progress in various spheres of its national life. With more policy stability and avoidance of the temptation to perennially pull down what is already in existence only to commence similar new projects, there is no doubt that the nation will be on a firmer foundation for systemic development.

However, even with this recognition of the resilience of the Nigerian spirit and enterprise which has resulted in some growth in some sectors of our national affairs, the reality on the other hand is that the predominant values and thrust of social relationship and conduct within the Nigerian society are at the moment too wayward for the common good.

Our society is presently being sucked into a maelstrom of social and political disorientation and worse still, there does not seem to be any appropriate concern or response for stemming the grave tide. If we cannot have an underlining political ideology, we should at least strive to nurture and ensure a body of social principles through which the society can have order and regenerate itself.

The declaration that “today, we must choose what aspect of our way of life we will defend, modify or jettison”[1] seems very apt for the Nigerian situation against the backdrop of the value disorder and excesses which adversely affect our politics and every other aspect of our social relationship. The need to build a new framework for sustainable social growth in our nation is indeed apparent.

Pulling a society away from destructive existential tendencies and pointing the way to enduring values and philosophies of human enhancement have always being the forte of the academia and the intellectuals - “mind managers” in such focused and sober settings as the universities and research institutes.

Alas, the present within the Nigerian society seems progressively disengaged from the past and all that which used to offer hope for a future worth looking forward to. Thus has it become that in place of studied supply of new ideas and solutions to problems that retard the advancement of the society, even the community of academics and intellectuals have found themselves succumbing to the easy penchant for finger pointing and name calling, tendencies which hardly ever elevate, either the individual or the society. Meanwhile, the problems we perennially bemoan remain unaddressed.

It is very doubtful that any modern society can post real progress in a setting in which thinkers and the academia have been consigned to neglect and despondency, with their place hijacked by sundry charlatans and poseurs who reduce everything to gratification of material desire?
Unfortunately, many in the rank of the academia have resigned to a fate of dormancy and repudiated as it were, the inclination to rigour in appraising issues which is second nature to their calling. In place of the profundity that used to be the hallmark of the academic in interpreting issues, quite a number from this class have jumped strangely into the same wagon with the tribe of the base and the uninformed, known more for parroting unsubstantiated stories and recycling banalities more than looking at issues beyond the surface.

Such a setting leaves the society poorer in the general appreciation of real meaning and undercurrent of crucial issues in the public domain. How far can a society go in an environment in which the line between the intellectual and the mundane is getting increasingly blurred?
In returning home today for this discussion, I come for us to reflect and appreciate the challenge of the moment for the academia in Nigeria and for the larger Nigerian society.

The academia and the community of thinkers in our society presently stand at a juncture where they must have to ask themselves a basic question, not about any esoteric subject but about their very essence in the scheme of Nigeria’s struggle to find meaning and order in its national existence.

The notion that the reign of ideas is in the past and that the present belongs to crass mercantilism, to speculators and to carpetbaggers speak not of the tragedy of the moment but of a most worrisome future for our society. Such a notion must be countered most vigorously. But to do that requires commitment and a return to rigour of analysis, to critically looking at issues and event beyond their facade, and to having the strength and honesty to stand even alone if need be, to counter falsehood and propaganda often foisted on the society by individuals with selfish motive.

The 2007 General Elections lifted Nigeria to a pedestal it had never attained – that of a stable democracy, even if to a degree. Having for the first time achieved a successful transition from one democratically elected government to another – something that had eluded the country for so long, but is now easily dismissed by some as nothing - the nation can now move with confidence to address the crucial matter of developing a framework for sustainable democracy.
Almost a decade now after the nation returned to a system of democratic governance with the freedom and space that offers, the academia and the intellectuals must regain the confidence to play the lead role of articulating and enunciating the principles and values standards on which the wheels of social conducts must revolve. The academia must hasten to overcome the hangover of decades of dictatorship imposed on the land by military regimes.[2]

It goes without saying of course, that such a discourse on how to build an enduring framework for sustaining democracy would not have arisen in the first place if the nation had stumbled once more and failed to meet the crucial test of viability of its democracy which the 2007 elections presented.

Now that it can be said with a measure of confidence and assurance that democracy has returned to stay in Nigeria, the critical question is; where do we go from here? What should be the character and underlying structure of democracy in Nigeria? What social values does it articulate at large? How should it function organizationally, legally and behaviourally? How can it be an effective social process? As Professor Lumumba-Kasonga puts it[3]: ‘What kind of democracy can be socially and economically progressive, philosophically and ideologically relevant, and technologically appropriate in Africa? And, how can such a democracy be produced?

The most worrisome feature of the contemporary Nigerian society is not so much the shortcomings in policies and lapses of institutional operations, but a rather strange incapacitating inability of the society to take meaningful steps to address perceived problems and subsequently erect better foundation for a different and better future.
Nations as living organisms must experience problems, what defines a nation in the face of difficulties is what it does and how it responds to problems.

A resort to finger pointing and name calling such as has become common in Nigeria when confronted with a problem often speaks of lack of imagination and will to tackle problems.
At the beginning of the second quarter of 2007, Nigeria went to the polls in a scheduled General Election that presented a major test to the country’s capacity and readiness to sustain a democratic system.

The 2007 elections as is well documented were confronted with serious problems that were at once political, legal, environmental, structural and logistics.[4] But the nation met the challenge of the elections and pulled through in spite of monumental odds.
Among the problems that confronted the 2007 elections, there were;
(a) The question of the right of the Electoral Commission to vet the documents of candidates for the various elections and determine who did not meet the Constitutional requirement for standing for an election in Nigeria. The Constitution is very clear on the criteria under which a citizen will not qualify to contest for an office. The Electoral Commission which administers the elections of course has the responsibility to verify the claims of the candidates to determine who met the standard or not.

In the 2007 elections, the right of the Commission to perform this line of duty was challenged in the court. The Court of Appeal upheld the right and responsibility of the Commission to continue along the line of duty. On April 16, 2007, four days to the Presidential election, the Supreme Court countered the ruling of the Appeal Court and declared that the Commission did not have the right to determine who was qualified to contest in an election.

As at the time of the Supreme Court ruling, state elections comprising governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections had been conducted and it was barely four days to the presidential election. With the Supreme Court ruling, if a foreigner submits papers to contest an election in the country in the future and no one goes to court to challenge the candidature, the Commission will be in no position to do anything even if it knows that the aspirant is a foreigner.This, however, should be left for the future to tackle.

The immediate implication of the April 16 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court was for the Commission to embark on the printing of a new set of 64 million ballot papers for the presidential election in four days. The Commission had intended accommodate the image of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the logo of his party by pasting them on the already printed ballot papers, but in the heated and suspicion-infested atmosphere leading to the election the Commission had learnt, including from some of the so-called foreign observer groups that such adjustment will be considered an uneven playing ground. Thus did the Commission embark upon and succeed in printing 64million brand new ballot papers in four days.

(b) Successfully printing 64million ballot papers is of course, one thing. Distributing them across the over 200,000 polling units across the country is another matter entirely. Here, arose another major challenge for the election. But thanks to the various services of the Nigerian Armed Forces, with the kind approval of the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, President Olusegun Obasanjo, the ballot papers were distributed. The enormity of this task can better be appreciated perhaps in the fact that some patriotic service men perished in an air crash in the early morning of the election day while setting out on the assignment to distribute the election materials.

(c) There is, of course, the matter of the political parties and the internal democracy or lack of it within them. The process through the parties select their candidates as the law provides it, are outside the control of the Commission. These processes constitute what is referred to as internal affairs of the parties.

Within the ambience of these internal affairs as it turned out, not few undemocratic things were done. The primaries through which the candidates were picked were in many instances subverted and replaced with rather hazy and contentious parameters which relieved those who ought to have won of their prospect and hoisted some who could not have won.

In an effort to avoid the chaos which had marked the substitution of candidates by political parties in previous elections, the Commission had succeeded through the new 2006 Electoral Act in having a clear and definite time line for such substitution. Even at this, many of the party leaderships could not bring themselves to comply with the law without seeking even surreptitious means to substitute candidates after the expiration of the deadline.

In a nutshell, party administration in the country in the period leading to the 2007 elections constituted a no mean problem for the management of the election. In many of the parties also, there were serious internal divisions and wrangling which boiled over from internal affairs to potential threats to the smooth flow of the electoral process.

Although the political space had been amply expanded, with fifty political parties being in existence as at the time of the election, many of the parties still had leadership tussles .These tussles often stemmed from personality conflict and struggle for control of party machinery and resources rather than disagreement over issues or ideology.

As is apparent, ideology and underpinning philosophy have little or no place in the politics and political parties of the present era. The parties are either personality tied or interest-based, no more no less. This situation presents its own problem for the political system and the electoral process, as no party could claim before the electorate that it was offering any manifesto distinct from the next party.

It is not difficult therefore to see why and how the politicians kept floating from one party to another without qualms. It is, afterall, a matter of where a politician is able to negotiate a better patronage for himself and “his people” – a euphemism for a politician and himself.

(d) Because the parties did not have distinct beliefs and ideologies, they found it difficult to have selling points before the electorate. This affected voter education – a duty assigned by the Electoral Act to political parties and the Commission. Now, if the electorate did not have any clear idea of what one party represented as distinct from the other, it is obvious that the parties did not expect to win by convincing the people.

This situation presents a clue to the foundation of the subversion of elections through either material inducement or deceit which many of the parties and candidates can be accused of. A framework for a new and sustainable democratic order simply has to repudiate this old order and replace it with a more wholesome system that will place premium on what a party is offering and that which makes it different from the rest. Fifty political parties just cannot believe in the same thing. If they do, then there is no logic for the multiplication of one into fifty, our belief in liberalizing the political space notwithstanding.

(e) As crisis within political parties go, that in the fold of the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP) presented the biggest threat for the nation and the preparations for the 2007 elections. The split between an incumbent President and his Vice had never been experienced in Nigeria’s eventful political history.

The irreconcilable difference in the Presidency which saw the exit of Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar from the government and the ruling party was bound to present additional burden to the management of the 2007 elections. Although Alhaji Abubakar had earlier been indicted by a government White paper, a development which automatically excluded him from contesting for president, his determination to contest all the same raised further challenge in managing the election. Could the Commission have ignored the Government White Paper and the reminder from the relevant law enforcement offices in the land concerning the provisions of the Constitution on those who were barred by law from contesting for public offices?

Was the Commission also in a position to pick and choose which Government White paper it should comply with and which one it should ignore? Put in another way, when is a Government White paper not qualified to be what it is meant to be? It was, of course, up to the judiciary to decide on the issue and the Supreme Court eventually gave Alhaji Abubakar the leave to contest which he did.

(f) The externalization of the 2007 general Elections for reasons that were more selfish than patriotic presented another major challenge for the management of the process. Even before the actual election commenced, a legion of foreign groups parading themselves as observer teams had been procured and arrayed, breathing down the Commission and seeking literally to point the way they prefer for the elections. One group had the temerity to ask for a copy of the national register which in its new format contain the finger print and biometrics of all registered voters in the country.

Yet another offered a heavy sum to the Commission to assist it in conducting the election. When this kind offer was not accepted, because we insisted that Nigeria has the resources to pay for the conduct of its elections, the good Samaritans took offence and never forgave the Commission.
Side by side with the army of so-called foreign observers were their local equivalents, a motley crowd of emergency civil society groups and programmed non governmental organizations whose primary mandate was to tackle the Electoral Commission and present the electoral process as flawed even as it was still fine-tuning the process for the elections.

How far can citizens go in undermining their own country for the sake of wining power? Where should the quest for personal gratification end and the consideration for national interest take over? Who was paying for the hordes of so-called election observers that thronged to Nigeria for the 2007 elections and what was the motive? The dynamics of the 2007 elections and the peculiar problems that confronted the conduct of the elections present clear outline for the foundation of a new framework for sustaining democracy in Nigeria. There were various other structural and environment problems which managing the 2007 elections contended with.

There was, for instance, the issue of timely release of already appropriated funds for the elections. For a long time in the course of preparing for the elections, the Commission was engaged in an awkward battle with the agency in the Ministry of Finance which in the name of ensuring due process was determined as it were, to delay every procurement schedule for the election. The larger society did not seem to care while the wrangling went on about the import of such delay in meeting the logistics plan of the exercise.

Then there is the far reaching structural issue of the relationship between the Commission and the Resident Electoral Commissioners. These key officials in the management of the electoral process in the country are appointed by the President to whom they owe their allegiance.
The Resident Electoral Commissioners operate within the Commission, but strictly speaking they are independent of the Chairman and the Commission. They are at the helm of affairs in the offices of the Commission in the states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. They conduct elections in the states and an election result announced by them cannot be altered by the Commission or its leadership. Only an Election Tribunal can tamper with an already declared election result. But these officers who represent the Commission in a most critical dimension cannot be sanctioned or relieved of their office by the Commission.

The worst that can be done to a Resident Electoral Commissioner is that he will be moved from one state to another. However, the Commission and its leadership are held responsible for whatever the performances of Resident Electoral Commissioners are in the conduct of election across the states. Such is the curious structure. In the months leading to the elections in 2007, the Commission had repeatedly called attention to issues it identified as problems in the environment of elections in the country. These issues were categorized under four broad heading;
(i) Excessive use of money in politics. This phenomenon has continued to subvert both the will of the people and efforts to establish a level playing field in electoral contests.
(ii) Threat and actual presence of violence in elections
(iii) Gender inequity in effective political participation and
(iv) Badly skewed mindset of Nigerians about elections.

Did these factors both collectively and individually exert adverse impact on the 2007 elections? The answer is of course, yes. Indeed, much of the problems which dog elections in Nigeria whether in 2007 or prior to that are hinged on these identified environment problems.
But how have the society and its various social observatory groups and institutions such as the media, the civil society groups and the academia perceived and responded to the existence of these negative factors in the political environment?

There is very little evidence that there is yet any concerted concern for these issues, not even from the larger society that is often bearing the brunt of the problems. When the situation exerts adverse impact on elections as they are bound to do, however, the society tends to express surprise and disapproval. Sooner or later as it often turns out, the Electoral Commission is held responsible for not ensuring a flawless election. How far can a society go with such insensitivity to core problems confronting its aspiration for development?
The Declaration on criteria for free and Fair Elections as articulated and adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Council at its 154 Session in Paris in 1994[5] is quite clear and was not in any material sense breached by the conduct of the 2007 elections.

One year and four months after the 2007 elections, contentions and counterclaims pertaining to the elections still constitute major subject of public discourse in the country. Viewed from a positive perspective, it is well that the citizenry is interested enough and engaged in the system to keep alive an election of almost one and a half year ago. Viewed critically however, much of the discussions till going on about the 2007 elections are as shallow and bereft of analytical depth as they are unhelpful to a better future for the country and its electoral democracy. It is not a matter of keeping a matter in public focus; it should be a matter of what is being discussed and how these address the core issues and problems that have consistently impaired the progress of the nation in the scheme of development.

The temptation for democracy to be seen as a seasonal event and for elections to be viewed as periodic opera staged intermittently to enthral the society till the next round of public performance seems to inhabit much of the present discussion on the 2007 election.
Nothing can be more unhelpful if not dangerous for the long term sustainability of democracy in the country than the present proclivity to deny glaring problems and resort instead to finger pointing and bandying of propaganda lines thrown up by partisan groups.

Now that Nigeria has broken the jinx of democratic transition from one elected government to another, the challenge of developing a grounded framework for sustaining democracy in the country should commence with candour and sincerity of purpose. This is a national undertaking that will be as embracive as it should be thorough and gradual. It is not a task for one session of law making or for one workshop. Today it can be said with renewed confidence that democracy has recorded remarkable progress with the success of the 2007 elections. To appreciate the basic challenges that must be met to set democracy on a solid and sustainable foundation in Nigeria and to move thereafter to evolve a new set of values and norms on which the wholesome new order will rest should now be the focus.

One of the good features of liberal democracy as the scholar Antonoio Codeville postulated is that “it depends on the character of the people” and “the people’s character depends so substantially on how they freely choose to mold it”[6].That is to say, the character of Nigeria’s democracy depends essentially on what Nigerians want it to be. The pretension by some that the character of the present democracy in Nigeria is different from the character of the society or that a select few super humans have the capacity to twist the character of the Nigerian democracy is at best an attempt to avoid the reality.

The total absence of ideology and principle in contemporary Nigerian politics; the abdication by the citizenry of their primary responsibility of choosing the best candidates and sticking with them even when they are not handy enough to distribute money and material inducements during campaigns; the awkward institutional arrangement that still finds the Electoral Commission arguing and pleading for its funding to be released for its operations; the unrestricted ceiling of expenditure during campaigns; the ready willingness of individuals and groups to be recruited by foreign interest for the purpose of undermining public institutions; the mindset of an average Nigerian politician and even voter that election cannot be won unless it is bought; the corrosive corrupt tendency that manifests in ad-hoc electoral officers seeing elections as opportunity to rake in money from unconscionable politicians; the practice of public officers in government using the resources and might of the public station to advance their political interest; the apparent willingness and readiness of a broad section of the media to be bought over during election by the highest bidder, whatever the source of the money may be, the continued perception and indeed actual interpretation of political offices as easy source of wealth – these are still prevailing expressions of the character of democracy and elections in Nigeria. These represent the character and dominant tendencies within the Nigerian society of the day. These are the factors that informed the description of the Nigerian situation as ‘Voting without choosing’[7].

A new framework for sustaining democracy in the Nigerian society must methodically tackle these tendencies that adversely affect the process and system of electing leaders and governments. For the society to accommodate and often promote glaringly unwholesome values and inclinations in its citizens and social conducts and turn round to expect that its democracy will have a different texture is the worst form of delusion. The legal framework for the conduct of elections must as of necessity change. The rules guiding elections; who should contest and who is not qualified to contest must be clear and firm. While the outcome of an election must not be certain before the polls, the rules for the contest must be clear and well known ahead of time.

With the benefit of the experience of re-run elections in the wake of the 2007 General Election, the time may have come for Nigeria to adopt the system of staggered elections. Such an arrangement not only ensures better focus and optimal application of standard in the conduct of elections, it reduces the logistics challenge attendant to the conduct of a general election at fell swoop in a country as vast as Nigeria.

Above all, a new value system and sense of civic responsibility must consciously to nurture to propel the framework that will sustain democracy in Nigeria. This is not a matter of establishing new and parallel structures of state. It is a matter of sincerity of purpose that will take a combination of forces and initiatives; of government, the academia, the media and sundry institutions of change, acting on an accepted plank of re-orientation and genuine determination to make sacrifice and build a new order.

Creativity has no boundary. If Nigeria is blessed with the spirit of enterprise and determination, it can turn this to positive end. It is my belief that deconstructing and restructuring electoral democracy in Nigeria must not stop at the paradigmatic and policy assumptions and analysis, and even of their implications but should lay the framework of inventing alternatives. It is for this reason that INEC established The Electoral Institute to underscore the need to train professional election administrators; this is what has informed our introduction of technology in our electoral process, and it is the same reason that has encouraged the Commission to embark on a project that will lead to a fair and equitable delimitation of constituencies. The achievement of the 2007 General Elections has released a fresh verve and opportunity that must not be lost. This is the time to raise a new framework for the better future we yearn for. There is no segment of our society that is better equipped than the universities to reconstruct the road map for the new Nigeria. That is why I am here.

Thank you.

Nsukka, August 28, 2008.

[1] Codevilla Angelo M. (1977); The Character of Nations. Basic Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers
[2] Iwu Maurice(2006);Democracy and Constitutional Governance in Nigeria: Paradox of the excluded Middle. 5th distinguished faculty of Social Science Public Lecture, University of Benin



[3] Lumumba-Kasonga Tukumbi (2005) The problematics of liberal democracy and democratic process: lessons for deconstructing and building African democracies. In: Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasonga (Ed.) Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa. Dakar, CODESRIA Press. P.1-25.
[4] The Official Report of the 2007 General Elections. INEC,Abuja.Page 10
[5] Goodwin-Gill (2006);Free and Fair Elections.Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva
[6] Codevilla Angelo M. (1977); The Character of Nations. Basic Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers
[7] Alade Fawole, W. (2005), Voting without choosing: interrogating the crisis of ‘electoral democracy’ in Nigeria In: Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasonga (Ed.) Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa. Dakar, CODESRIA Press. P.149-171.