The Independent; no, the Dependent; no, the Inconclusive National Electoral Commission once again showed to the world what is wrong with Nigeria. INEC out of the blues decided that elections would no longer hold on the days it had allocated for the elections despite the fact that the commission was given four years to prepare for the 2019 elections.
The commission was given all the money it asked for by the national assembly. Just one week to the polls, it promised the world that it was going to conduct free, fair and credible elections. But four hours to the starting of the main event, the commission developed mosquito legs and postponed a one-day event it has been planning for four years.
It is safe to say that the commission did everything except preparing for the elections or that it was overwhelmed by the preparation of Nigerians to participate in the elections.
There have been claims of sabotage by the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, especially the cabal that runs Aso Rock; Abba Kyari, Maman Daura, Isa Funtua, Lawal Daura et al using government agencies and security apparatus to scuttle issues upon learning that President Mohammadu Buhari will be defeated. They adverntly wanted to have a staggered election in over ten states that are considered opposition strongholds.
The principalities that the country is dealing with is not beyond her. The country is not just dealing with a bunch of power hungry fellows who are ruthless in their quest for power. The country is dealing with buccaneers who would rather burn anything on their way than follow due process.
But that is not cutting slacks for the commission. In short, INEC deserves all the flacks it has been getting. The Professor Yakubu Mahood led INEC has in recent years become very notorious for overseeing a plethora of inconclusive elections. We will add elections postponement to his red cap.
There is no logical conclusion to INEC’s action and if the postponement is devoid of any sinister motive, things should have been done better given the preparation timeframe and budgetary requirement that were met. This is an exhibition of gross incompetence on the part of the commission, allowing a set of power-hungry aliens to disrupt a process it spent years planning for, and there should be consequences.
Although lawyers have argued that the electoral Act empowered INEC to postpone elections if it envisaged any difficulty with materials or security that would affect the conduct of free, fair and credible elections, it is not a crime to prepare for something and just do it. Countries in the world call for elections and within two weeks are done with it without the huge economic impacts that ours creat in terms of shutting down borders, closing business and restricting movements.
The commission through its chairman claimed that the reason for the postponement is due to logistics difficulties that could have affected the elections negatively but the Nigerian Airforce began the airlifting of election materials more than five days before the elections. In short, the military has been helping with election logistics since 1979. Why is 2019 different?
And if politicians could tour different states while campaigning, why couldn’t INEC and its logistics partner, the Nigerian Air Force make proper arrangements for the transportation of electoral materials?
There were claims that election materials for Kano etc were found in Katsina. And to know that a nephew to the president, Amina Zakari, is in charge of logistics makes the case more worrisome.
Schools were closed, the national borders were also shut. Flights were cancelled. Businesses were shut while other security arrangements were made. People travelled to different parts of the country in order to exercise their franchise. Different arrangements for marriages, burials, parties and other sundry activities were halted because of the elections. Yet the commission could not just do it.
Meanwhile, the same fate will befall people on the postponed date: flights will be cancelled, businesses will be shut, borders will be closed, marriages will be cancelled. It is what it is.
Yakubu Mohamud, the chairman of the commission who is a university don should be in a better position to understand these economic impacts and the effects of taking away two Saturdays from an economically struggling country.
But this also calls into question the claimed independence of INEC as this is a clear case of Esau’s hands and Jacob’s voice. To an end, this might disenfranchise voters and ensure low turnout.
However, his admission that the commission could not prepare itself for elections in four years might also turn bad for our democracy with voters losing confidence in INEC’s ability to oversee a free, fair and credible election. What INEC has done is to cast doubt over its preparedness and its neutrality. And while we know that the president appointed the INEC chairman as a referee in a game that he is part of, all eyes should be on the commission to keep to its mandate.
The justification that the commission suspended elections in 2015 and so can also suspend elections in 2019 does not hold water. Such arguments allude to an already known fact that the government that promised so much before coming to power, has actually delivered nothing in four years
Leave a Reply