Although the 2019 election has come and gone, the conduct of that election will continue to be a subject of discourse in the years ahead. It may even attract many doctoral dissertations. It is one election that has attracted over 700 petitions at the various electoral petitions tribunals. It will take years to resolve some of these highly contentious petitions.
Right from the party primaries to the main election proper, everything is not well with the shabby conduct of the 2019 poll. It is indeed one election that many Nigerians believe was marred by avoidable irregularities. It is not surprising that the final verdicts on the 2019 poll coming from the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) to Nigeria, the joint Nigeria international Election Observation Mission of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), point out that all is indeed not well with the nation’s electoral system.
The EU observed that the election was marred by operational and transparency deficiencies such as electoral security problems, voter apathy and abuse of the power of the incumbency. According to the EU Chief Observer, Maria Arena, “INEC worked in a difficult environment and made some improvements, such as simplifying voting procedures.
“However, considerable weaknesses remained. Operational deficiencies led to the postponement of the elections, there were insufficient checks and transparency in the results process, as well as general lack of public communication and information.”
The election, the EU said, was marred by violence and intimidation. It stressed that the role of the security agencies became more contentious as the electoral process progressed. The EU also expressed worry over the decrease in the number of women elected during the poll, which fell below international standards.
However, it regretted that there are no measures in sight to promote women’s participation in politics. On the part of the NDI and the NRI, the 2019 election fell short of expectations of Nigerians. The observers said “that the last minute postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections on the morning of February 16 and delays in opening some polling units and other administrative challenges on February 23 undermined public confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).”
In the words of the Regional Director, NDI (Central and West Africa), Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, Nigeria witnessed a setback in the 2019 elections in terms of the modest improvements it recorded in previous years. What the election observers revealed cannot be said to be unknown to Nigerians who participated in the exercise. They have only given a stamp of authority to what transpired during the poll.
It is laudable that the EU recommended 30 areas of reform to improve electioneering campaigns and ensure transparent elections in the country. Some of them include the need to: strengthen the INEC procedure for collation of results to improve integrity and confidence in the electoral outcomes; establish requirements in law for full results transparency, with data and easily accessible to the public; considerably strengthen INEC’s organizational and operational capacity as well as its internal communication.
It is therefore the duty of the Federal Government and INEC to study the recommendations of the observer missions and use them to enrich the nation’s electoral system. The planned national dialogue on Nigerian elections by INEC and other stakeholders should be used as an opportunity to address the shortcomings of our recent elections.
The reports of the observer missions and their recommendations must not be ignored or swept under the carpet. Ignoring them as we have ignored the Justice Mohammed Uwais report on electoral reforms can account for why our elections have continued to be marred by irregularities. That is why we are not making the expected progress in our elections.
It is sad that instead of improving in standards, the 2019 polls fell below the standards of the two previous elections of 2011 and 2015. Apart from the observations of the election monitors, there is need to review our past elections from 1999 to 2019 and come up with pragmatic measures to improve on the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states. They should also serve as a guide towards the 2023 general election. To overcome most of the shortcomings of our elections, the electoral umpire must be truly independent and seen to be so. At present and judging by the conduct of the 2019 polls, it cannot be said with certainty that our electoral umpire is truly independent. The postponement of the 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections and the Governorship and State Assembly elections was decried by many Nigerians.
The manner of the announcement of the presidential election results was not quite tidy. The same can be said of the handling of the gubernatorial elections in Kano, Kaduna and some other states. The less independent the electoral umpire becomes, the more the electoral rules are compromised.
The concentration of so much powers at the centre has made the nation’s presidential poll the most contentious and competitive in the world. This is probably why there is too much acrimony in the nation’s electioneering process. Its ‘do or die’ nature is not necessarily because of what the candidate has to offer but because of the allure of office and the pride of “we are in charge.”
To make the nation’s elections less contentious, there must be a clear cut power sharing arrangement at the three tiers of government. For the presidency, there must be a binding power sharing arrangement among the six geo-political zones in the country. The current zoning of the presidency between the North and South is nebulous. It is indeed going to be problematic in 2023 because of which zone of the South will take the turn. Is it the South East or the South West?
The earlier this zoning arrangement is resolved, the better for our democracy and continued peaceful co-existence as a country. At the state level, the three senatorial districts should have a gubernatorial power sharing arrangement, which is in practice in some states now. That way, the same principle can trickle down to the council level. It will save all us the money wasted every four years in the name of electioneering with predictable outcomes. It will save the nation the avoidable deaths and tensions during each election year. It will also save us the vote buying, intimidation and hate speech that characterized the last election.
There must be a conscious effort to reserve certain electoral positions to women to ensure that our political system is inclusive. We cannot continue to operate as if the women are not part of us. All these must be factored into the nation’s new electoral laws before we can successfully forge ahead.