INEC: Treading on self-rediscovery horizon

Maurice IwuIs the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the path of self-rediscovery? The answer to this poser seems to lie in its most recent conduct and performance in the re-run elections arising from nullification of some of the April 2007 general election, writes Acting Group Politics Editor, Idowu Samuel.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) took up the challenges of conducting the last governorship re-run election in Adamawa State with noticeable seriousness and with rejuvenated spirit. On the election day, former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had an unscheduled encounter with the media. The correspondents who covered the election asked him to assess the conduct by the INEC. His remarks on the questions posed to him were marveling.

Atiku told the media that he was satisfied with preparation for the election, taking into account his personal observation of the distribution of election materials from the day preceding the election up to the D-day. He rated the conduct of the election in his Ajiya ward, Yola, high although he said he would not comment on same issue in other wards in the state. All the same, he offered his candid opinion on the general preparations for the election by INEC. Short of giving it a straight pass mark, Atiku said he had always known that Nigeria had the potential to conduct free and fair election, but expressed regret that the country had never demonstrated the political will to do so. If anyone thought Atiku was being soft on INEC for nothing, the statement offered by the Action Congress (AC) candidate in the governorship re-run election in the state, Ibrahim Bapetel, put his own assessment of the INEC performance very direct. He also relayed his feeling on the election to a battery of reporters who ambushed him right in his home. The candidate said he was completely satisfied with the preparations by INEC, adding that if what he saw on the election day and the previous one was anything to go by, he would have no reason to recant his conclusion on the arrangements put in place by the electoral body for the election.

For INEC, such statement coming from the opposition camp could be very instructive. Interestingly, the commission had earlier shown good reflexes about ability to conduct free and fair election if offered the free hand to do so. The process of INEC metamorphosis into a confidence inducing organisation started with the manner it conducted the recently ordered fresh governorship election Kogi State. INEC honked endlessly about its ability to make the election run without a hitch. It deployed about 5,000 manpower, including youth corps members, into the conduct of the election, while it reiterated that the era of deployment of ad-hoc staff for election conduct was gone for good in Nigeria. Kogi State, known for its political volatility, thus, made INEC to be under scrutiny.

In terms of distribution of election materials, INEC scored itself high. Succinctly, it mobilised more than sufficient electoral materials to the state and shut all avenues for complaint to critics. Even at that, the commission did not seem to falter in the pattern of distribution of materials for the election in Kogi State. What made the conduct of the Kogi State election much more memorable was the resolve by INEC chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, and the entire INEC commissioners at its Abuja-based headquarters to partake in it. Undoubtedly, INEC looked very set to use the exercise as an avenue for image redemption.

The security departments of the country complemented the effort by INEC to make the election a hitch-free affair in Kogi State. The only drawback to the election was that the network of security put in place was an overkill for the voters, many of whom chose to sit at home to avoid being caught up in any untoward event. Like Kogi like Adamawa. And so, the INEC tapped on the experience it garnered from conducting the Kogi governorship re-run election to advance on conscious image redemption. The commission again refused to deploy ad-hoc staff for the conduct of the Adamawa election; it rather saddled all its officials with the responsibility.

Far ahead of time, the preparations by the commission had been extant. Even then, the postponement of the re-run election by about two weeks served as a blessing in disguise. It had more time to prepare and that manifested in the near-perfect arrangement it put in place. The re-run election in Adamawa evoked so much confidence that analysts began to wonder whether it was the same INEC that conducted the 2007 general election that did the last one in Adamawa. In 2007, INEC ran into hitches and made too many enemies who were very eager to pillory all the top officials with consideration that they betrayed the cause of justice in the manner they handled party and election matters.

Nigerians are still tending the suspicion that INEC compromised integrity specifically to allow the PDP government return to power both at the national level and at the states marked as favourites. Since 2007 therefore, the call for resignation of Professor Iwu has not stopped gracing comfortable spaces on the pages of Nigerian and foreign newspapers. Of late, such calls had abated dramatically. It goes without saying that analysts of politics are beginning to locate the problem of election conduct in Nigeria outside the confines of the INEC and its officials. What lent credence to this were the issues of irregularities and the crude attitude of the political elite and the electorate to elections issues. For instance, as the resident electoral officers in each of the local government areas of Adamawa State took turn to announce the results of the election, only a few of them reported that the election went in their respective areas of coverage without a hitch. In other words, the case of snatching of ballot papers and boxes by hoodlums, arson and harassment of innocent voters, as rampant as they were during the election, had the political elite as the masterminds.

Obviously, INEC could only share a modicum of blame in such circumstance. The INEC Commissioner in charge of Information, Mr. Philip Umeadi, was conscious of this when he told journalists that INEC should never be blamed for the crisis sparked by politicians during elections. According to him, INEC only had the constitutional mandate to conduct free and fair elections and never to provide security for the election. If anything, therefore, the political class should get the blame for breakdown of law and order and, indeed, security during elections, according to Umeadi.
The idea now is that if INEC is consciously bracing up for the future challenges of conducting free and fair elections in Nigeria, it is high time the political class in the country too to began to have a change of attitude. That may be necessary at a time the government of the federation had set machinery in motion to reform the entire political system of Nigeria.