In their determination to engineer socio-political change in Nigeria against a background of prevalent corruption and growing economic hardships, Nigerian youth trooped out last Saturday, February 25, 2023, to elect a new President who would, hopefully, improve the socioeconomic conditions of citizens and move the country forward.
In three consecutive national elections in 2015, 2019, and 2023, when Nigeria was on the edge of making history, incompetence and criminal collusion by the previous and current leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and their bumbling staff interrupted the process. Unfortunately, in last weekend’s elections, INEC officials proved to be the stumbling block again. Nigeria’s path to greatness remains on hold.
After 62 years of political independence featuring a mix of military dictatorship and democratic system of government, Nigerians of voting age waited anxiously last Saturday for an opportunity to make a statement on their choice of a President. The much anticipated presidential and National Assembly elections came as scheduled but were heavily marred, disrupted and desecrated by INEC officials and political thugs driven by their ethnic agenda.
The elections would have been significant for many reasons. Nigerian youth wanted to use the elections to change their destiny by exercising their right to choose who would govern them. However, in one moment of madness, all the dreams were extinguished by election officials who made elaborate plans to deny the youth their voice.
How much longer would Nigerian youth stumble, fall and rise before they could take back their country from ageing, frail and incoherent politicians who have refused to quit the stage in spite of the strictures of old age and complications of ill health?
The extent to which elections in Nigeria would be free, fair, reliable and open to public scrutiny would be dependent on the extent to which the chairperson of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, and his clumsy officials are willing to be independent or partisan, fair-minded or prejudiced in the performance of their job. The highly contested presidential election last weekend exposed the insincerity of INEC officials and their complicity in undermining national elections, which they were hired to supervise.
What INEC officials did before, during, and after last weekend’s presidential and National Assembly elections destroyed public confidence in Yakubu’s ability to organise further elections that could be seen as credible.
Nigerian people aspire to experience trouble-free elections but no one has ever wondered why Nigerian Presidents always appoint mediocre candidates to oversee important national assignments such as the conduct of general elections.
For all the noise he made at home and overseas and the assurances he rolled out to citizens and the international community months leading to the start of this year’s elections, you would have thought that Yakubu was focused, had made adequate research-based preparations to ensure that the elections would be hitch-free and that the outcomes would be generally acceptable to citizens.
Let us consider the following facts. Yakubu and his officials had four years to prepare for the 2023 elections. Between the last election in 2019 and now, Yakubu and his officials pretended that everything was going according to plan. Unfortunately, their unprofessional and substandard preparations were exposed during and after the elections last Saturday. More than six million eligible voters did not receive their permanent voter’s cards (PVCs). This meant they were excluded from the elections. The denial of PVCs to eligible voters and the obstacles that awaited voters before they could collect their PVCs showed that Yakubu and senior INEC officials were insensitive, careless and indifferent to voters’ circumstances.
As evidence that INEC did not make adequate arrangements to manage or put in place mechanisms to address any adverse consequences of the presidential and National Assembly elections, INEC announced late on Saturday night a last-minute decision to extend the elections to the following day (Sunday), while the citizens had retired for the night.
It is now inconsequential whoever wins the presidential election conducted last Saturday. The election was one that Nigerian youth believed would serve as a turning point in the country’s chequered history. But it turned out to be the worst election conducted in the country’s history. Yakubu and his incompetent officials have demonstrated a high level of lack of preparedness, as well as gross understanding of the technological, logistical and human factors that could imperil the legitimacy of the elections.
In Nigeria last Saturday, the atmosphere was like a war zone. Voters were chased out of polling booths by political party thugs wielding all manner of dangerous weapons. Ballot boxes were snatched in full public view. Some ballot boxes were emptied forcefully and the contents incinerated. Some ballot papers were dumped in gutters and pits. In some centres, election officials arrived many hours after the official time for commencement of voting. Add to these the fact that some polling booths had insufficient ballot papers.
In some wards, INEC officials announced, to the dismay of frustrated and tired voters, that they didn’t have enough ink for thumb-printing of the ballot papers and for marking the index finger of people who had voted. The much-talked-about BVAS did not work in some polling stations while some of the BVAS machines were reportedly stolen.
Owing to these illegalities, disruptions, transgressions, blemishes and imperfections, Yakubu and senior INEC officials must be considered as the greatest threat to democracy in Nigeria and an obstacle on the path of free, fair and credible elections.
While other countries are moving forward, Nigeria is going backward. Officials who make a mess of their responsibility to Nigeria should not be given important national assignments. They weaken, rather than enhance, the country’s development.
Yakubu has caused Nigeria to be seen in the international community as a butt of jokes, a leading African country that could not organise free, fair, peaceful and credible elections. What a shame. Yakubu and senior INEC officials are paid attractive salaries and allowances to do their job and to do it very well. But, like in 2019, they failed woefully last Saturday to justify the salaries they earn.
The integrity of elections conducted in Nigeria has been sullied. The blunder committed by INEC officials in the presidential and National Assembly elections will have serious consequences for the credibility of forthcoming elections. Nigeria can no longer preach to other African countries about the values of democracy or about the importance of conducting free, fair and transparent elections free of violence.
Nigeria has lost that integrity, that authority, that respect and that commanding voice for which the country was respected across Africa and beyond many years ago.
Last Saturday, Nigeria looked like a jungle, a country at war, and a country in which citizens fought openly with deadly weapons. In that environment, people grabbed any tool or weapon within their reach to destroy members of the opposition or to defend themselves. And yet Nigeria has battalions of well-trained soldiers and police officers. Why would security forces allow people to brawl at polling stations or to destroy election material?
People went to voting centres to elect their political representatives but troublemakers emerged to impose on voters their own narrow vision and philosophy of the candidate who deserved to be voted for.
The future of democratic governance in Nigeria is on trial. The way voters, party agents and political candidates conducted themselves last week, in terms of personal behaviour and their readiness to disregard or adhere to electoral rules, will determine whether we shall live in peace or on crutches after the dust raised by the presidential election has settled.