Following the success of the governorship election in Edo State conducted over the weekend by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), much has been said about the election as a new high recorded by the election management body. It is apparent that many people have not been taking note of developments and incremental successes in the electoral process before now.
INEC reminds me of my church, the Presbyterian Church which defines itself as a reformed church, constantly reforming.
I have followed elections in Nigeria from 1979 (while in primary school); 1983 (while in secondary school); in the third Republic (as a voter); in the present fourth Republic (first as a voter and election observer, electoral reform activist and currently as an umpire).
I can assure you that in most elections from 2011, but more particularly from 2015, there have been incremental advancement by INEC in its processes towards improvement. During this period, votes have counted more than before. A good indicator to this is the increase in vote buying by politicians because they have now realised that the way to win is to get the votes in by the voter.
Much of the problems associated with elections have had little to do with INEC’s processes but caused more by external forces such as security and the election personnel in the field, majority of who are ad-hoc staff, meaning they are the regular Nigerians. Of course, INEC staff and officials have also been involved in some of these criminal activities. These persons and systems are often manipulated by desperate politicians (especially in the ‘major’ political parties). Where such desperate politicians cannot compromise the electoral process as they desire, they try to compromise the judiciary or use the media (regular and social) to orchestrate false narratives.
Unfortunately, many citizens only look to the outcome of an election as the basis for determining whether or not it has been a ‘fair’ process. However, some of us have always insisted that the election is a process and once the process is right, the outcome shouldn’t be an issue. Truth is, some of those celebrating this election would still have condemned it if the process remained this same way but the outcome/result was different. You even noticed it on Saturday night when some political interests began to shout that INEC was trying to manipulate or change the figures and that was why all the results were not already uploaded on the result portal.
Talking about the latest innovation (the result portal), I am happy that we all agree it has been worth the while. One of the reasons this was introduced was to show that it is possible to do direct transmission from the polling unit/ward to the final collation point, without the stress of manual collation in a physical space. Thus, whenever the law grants us the power to do electronic transmission, we would have been ready.
So far, it seems that the weakest point in the electoral process is the collation because that is one area so much attempt is made to manipulate the process, hence the high level of violence recorded at those points in recent elections. The electronic transmission would surely obviate that. But it may eventually and invariably lead to more tension at the polling unit, which may boil over to violence, because the politicians will soon realise that their fortunes are sealed at that level and the desperate ones are likely to resort to their last resort – violence!
For now, the result portal remains an internal quality control mechanism for the commission and would help in research purposes by anybody who needs it.
Having said all the above, let me re-iterate that the quality of elections in any society is a reflection of the quality of the people in that society. A society where something as simple as selection of party delegates cannot be straightforward and party primaries are manipulated, list of party members is fluid and manipulable, citizens and community members freely manipulate, aid and abet manipulation of a process, especially when it favours their interest and those of their friends cannot be trusted not to bring such attitude to the general and national election.
By the way, why do citizens at the state level accept or condone the shenanigans we call local government elections and pretend that those ‘elected’ in there merited the seats but are quick to be up in arms against the slightest infraction in election conducted by INEC? Can we all begin to look holistically at the issue of our electoral culture, knowing that the attitude we have at the local level is what is translated to the higher or national level by nearly all the participants?
