The Possibility of a Balanced Review of Elections – Opinion – The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News

The dust from the Ondo State governorship election was yet to settle when former President Olusegun Obasanjo fired a salvo, calling for the resignation of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmud Yakubu, and other officials at all levels. The former President made the call while speaking at the prestigious Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum held at Yale University in the United States, where he presented a paper titled “Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria.”

As expected, the former president’s statement caused a negative reaction. However, I believe Obasanjo’s statement provides a critical opportunity to contextualize Nigeria’s electoral journey, the progress made and the challenges that persist despite efforts to reform our processes.

While many will see this as an opportunity to reprimand the former President and remind him of his democratic credentials; For me, this is an opportunity for a balanced review of the Nigerian elections.

We must not miss this opportunity to remind and educate the younger generation who had the privilege of voting for the first time in Nigeria’s 2023 elections. We must use this opportunity to remind young Nigerians where we come from and the progress we have made. done on our elections and democracy. It is important for the younger generation to understand the context of Nigeria’s electoral history, why and how we arrived at reforms such as BVAS and IReV, which represent a departure from the abuses of the past.

This is an opportunity to remind Nigerians that in 2022, under the current leadership, INEC opened itself to scrutiny by publishing online voter registers for the first time. Many Nigerians may have forgotten what our voter register looked like or how it was filled with various forms of irregularities ranging from minor registration, multiple registration and registration of aliens or aliens.

In fact, Nigeria’s voter rolls used to contain fictitious names such as Mohammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton to fake the victory of political parties. This is how some states “manufactured” 2 million votes in the last election. A feat they were unable to achieve in 2023 due to INEC reforms. Although INEC under its current leadership has come under criticism over the functionality of the IReV portal, it is important to respectfully note that the IReV portal is an INEC initiative aimed at improving access to election results. It may not have worked perfectly in the 2023 election, but there is no doubt that we have made progress.

The fact that Nigerians have a portal to view the results or that Nigerians can do simultaneous accreditation and voting is a significant improvement over what we had in the past. Elections used to last until midnight because people had to get accredited, go home and come back later to vote. It is significant progress that Nigerians have not heard of people being killed on election day or of ballot boxes being snatched and stuffed with ballots. While these reforms are not perfect, they have moved Nigeria’s elections towards greater confidence.

Since Obasanjo’s comment coincided with the Ondo governorship election, let me provide some context on how this election is so much better than the ones in the past. 111 local and international observer organizations took part in the Ondo State elections held on Saturday. The groups’ reports acknowledged issues such as vote buying and electoral violence, praising the early opening of polling stations and the speedy uploading of results to the INEC Results Viewer (IReV) portal. As of 7:00 pm on election day, 90% of the results were available online, a feat that demonstrates the impact of the technological reforms implemented by INEC.

To understand the progress made in Nigeria’s electoral process and why this context of the Ondo elections is important, it is important to reflect on where we began Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999. A check on Wikipedia shows that during the 2003 Edo State gubernatorial election, PDP’s Lucky Igbinedion reportedly polled 969,747 votes while his opponents polled zero. Such flagrant irregularities characterized elections held under the Obasanjo administration.

It was the same Obasanjo who flew into Edo in a government helicopter to force the then INEC leadership to declare Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor as the winner of the 2007 governorship election won by Adams Oshiomhole. These were dark chapters in Nigeria’s electoral history, marked by a lack of transparency, manipulation and disregard for democratic principles. It was so bad that during the 2007 general elections in Rivers State, the election results were announced while the voting was in progress.

In fact, the winner of that election, President Musa Yar’Adua, was so embarrassed by the result that he vowed to review the election results. As a result of this review, the Judge Uwais Committee was established. Interestingly, INEC management has implemented all recommendations requiring it to take administrative action, including biometric voter registration. As someone involved in the electoral process, I am concerned that former President Obasanjo’s criticism of INEC may be seen as part of a broader resistance to reforms that reduce elite control over election results. The democratization of elections in Nigeria transferred power from political kings to the people. This shift has alarmed those accustomed to manipulating the system.

We can argue that our elections are now characterized by vote buying – an unfortunate problem that highlights the need for civic education and advocacy. Vote buying at polling stations on election day is based on primaries held by parties. People who do not hesitate to buy votes in their primaries will not hesitate to do the same during the primary elections. After all, parties conduct primary elections and INEC conducts secondary elections. The issues of electoral violence and vote buying are issues that must be addressed by politicians and security agencies.

Since President Olusegun Obasanjo is an elder statesman, I would like to conclude my conversation with a simple analogy of the father-child relationship. Imagine that your child is doing poorly at school and is failing in almost all subjects. As a parent, you responded with scolding and punishment. Over time, the child began to improve, excelling in some subjects, although still struggling in others. Interestingly, the child demonstrated a desire to continue to improve in areas where he or she was still struggling.

I believe the smart thing to do at this point would be to acknowledge and praise areas where there is improvement, and perhaps hire a tutor to help resolve any remaining issues. However, continuing to scold a child and call him stupid, despite his apparent efforts, would be unfair. Yes, you want your child to succeed, but it’s important to balance criticism with encouragement—praising their success while addressing areas that still need work.
INEC, under successive leaderships, has made concerted efforts to address the shortcomings of the past. The implementation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and IReV has brought significant improvements. These technologies enable transparent voter accreditation, faster loading of results, and greater public access to real-time election results.

As Nigerians, we must admit that our elections are not yet perfect, but they have improved significantly. The path to credible elections is a marathon, not a sprint. This requires collaboration between INEC, policy makers, civil society and citizens. Let us celebrate the progress made while remaining committed to addressing remaining challenges. Nigerians remember and history will judge us all on how we uphold the principles of democracy.

In conclusion, I will quote former President Obasanjo from his speech at the Leon Sullivan Dialogue on Nigeria at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on April 29, 2010. The former President said: “With all due respect, if Jesus Christ could come to the world and be the Chairman of INEC, any election he holds would be contested.

“Since I arrived here three days ago, I understand that the INEC Chairman has been placed on leave. People also talked about electoral reform. To be honest, I said that I do not understand in detail what this electoral reform is. One thing we need to reform in our society is the policies. We need to reform politicians.”
• Nwagwu is the Executive Director of the Peer-to-Peer Advocacy and Development Center for Africa (PAACA).