Attempts by President Bola Tinubu to whitewash Nigeria’s democracy in his address on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, were obvious. It was such that an outsider could fall for the belief that democracy, which Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America, defined as government of the people, by the people, for the people, has taken strong roots in Nigeria.
Tinubu made many claims that he knew were of the mark. One of such was: “That we have established a tradition of holding transparent, open and fair elections gives credence to our democratic bearing”. And then, the mother of it all; “We have steadied the course”.
The President did not get it. Yes, what was celebrated on Wednesday was the nation’s 25 years of uninterrupted democratic, or better, civilian governance. But to lay any claims to transparency in our election or smooth transition is out of it. The election that ushered in Tinubu is a far cry from what June 12 represents to Nigerians.
On June 12, 1993, Nigerians rose beyond the retrogressive considerations of religion and ethnicity to vote for late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, as their president. The election was transparent.
Though annulled by the dark forces in the military under the then administration of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), the contest remains the freest in the country. Tinubu’s emergence was a direct opposite to that. His election was a product of electoral heist orchestrated by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), headed by Professor Mahmood Yakubu. Though the Supreme Court endorsed the election, Nigerians knew that the result as declared by INEC was a farce. Even Tinubu knows that he is sitting on a flawed mandate.
The 25th anniversary of the return to civil rule should, therefore, have provided opportunity for atonement. Tinubu should have toed the path of his predecessor, President Umaru Yar’Adua, who had the grace to admit that the election that brought him to power in 2007 was flawed. Doing so would have made him a hero and would have set a template for transparent contests in the future. Insisting that his election was free and fair in the face of clear evidence of manipulations and compromise by the supervising authorities does not do the country any good. It rather amounts to encouraging future contestants to snatch victory from the polls, no matter what it may entail. That puts a lie to the assertion that we have steadied the course.
On the contrary, there is a lot to worry about. The February 25, 2023, presidential election and subsequent March 18 governorship polls, made a mockery of Nigeria’s democracy. Both contests, especially the presidential poll, exemplified the odious principle of might is right. The judiciary, which many had looked up to right the situation, did not help matters. Rather than being an unbiased umpire, it stepped into the ring, in some cases, making awards and pronouncements that were not asked for by litigants. There has been the fear of that poor outing haunting the nation’s electoral democracy in the years to come. The fear is genuine.
Going forward, there is the need to make some hard decisions for the sake of the country. Some reforms in the electoral system are inevitable. INEC as presently constituted does not offer hope for any transparent election in the country. There is need for a clean break from 2023. Yakubu and his team should go for INEC to be fully free. There is need for a clean break. They may have offered their best but their best was not good enough for the country. Any day Yakubu and his team remain in the saddle in the electoral process is a minus to the development of democracy in the country.
For Nigeria to steady the course in its democracy, the elections must be free and fair; the people’s choice must prevail. There are instances to draw from recent developments in South Africa, Senegal, Liberia and Kenya. Elections were held in South Africa on May 29, 2024, to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each of the nine provinces. The poll was the seventh general election held under the conditions of universal adult suffrage since the end of the apartheid era in the country in 1994.
Outcome of the poll showed that support for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) significantly declined. Though the ANC, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, remained the largest party, it lost the parliamentary majority that it has held since 1994.
The centrist Democratic Alliance remained in second place with a slight increase. UMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a left-wing populist party founded six months prior to the election and led by former President Jacob Zuma, came in third place. Of note in the election is that neither the ANC nor Ramaphosa manipulated the election, at least to the knowledge of all.
Back here in the sub-region, on Tuesday, April 2, 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a left-wing pan-Africanist, was inaugurated as the President of Senegal. Tinubu attended the ceremony. Faye was elected in a contest that took place on March 24, 2024. He was among the 20 candidates that stood for the poll. The elections were originally scheduled for February 25 but were postponed indefinitely by the immediate past President, Macky Sall.
Sall wanted to play pranks with the polls. But the Senegalese Constitutional Council overturned the postponement and ordered elections to proceed. Faye scored 54 percent of votes in the election, beating former governing party’s candidate, Amadou Ba, who conceded defeat.
A similar feat took place in Liberia on October 10, 2023, when the then President, George Weah, sought election for a second term. No candidate won a majority in the first round, with Weah narrowly placing first over opposition leader, Joseph Boakai.
In a runoff held on November 14, 2023, Boakai defeated Weah by just over one percentage point. Weah conceded the election peacefully.
Earlier in August 2022, erstwhile Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto was elected President, with 50.49% of the votes, narrowly beating veteran opposition leader and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Ruto won without the support of the then President, Uhuru Kenyatta.
In none of these countries did the government tamper with the electoral processes. The votes were allowed to count. Those countries can claim to have steadied the course of democracy in their territories. Nigeria has not. There is still a long way to go. And Tinubu knows it, despite the claims in his Democracy Day address.