Jonathan’s propositions

Editorial

Former President Goodluck Jonathan came up with admonitions recently on how to make the Nigerian electoral process better. He advised that the nation’s laws be reworked to make the ballot sole determinant of who occupies electoral offices, rather than judicial orders resulting from litigation by political actors. He also decried the role of money in influencing the electorate, canvassing that vote buying and voter inducement be criminalised.

Speaking during a visit to the TOSTV Network studios in Abuja, the ex-president said the ideal thing was for the election management body to exercise sole responsibility for returning poll winners, while the judiciary complements by either upholding declared results or nullifying flawed elections and ordering reruns. “Ballot paper should be the basis for selecting political office holders…I am not saying the judiciary is not doing well, but our laws should suppress the issue of the judiciary returning candidates. If a candidate is declared winner after a flawed electoral process, what the courts can do is to annul the election and order a fresh one where a winner will finally emerge through the ballot. The ballot paper should decide who holds any elective office from the councillorship to the presidency. That is democracy,” he argued.

Jonathan spoke against the backdrop of some court-ordered winners of political offices in the country. Present-day examples include Bayelsa State Governor Duoye Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who was ordered into office by the Supreme Court after the candidature of David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who was returned by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was disqualified. Earlier in Imo State, the apex court installed Hope Uzodinma of the APC as governor after sacking Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP who was returned by INEC.

Speaking also on the role of money in politics, the ex-president canvassed sanctions against politicians who use gifts to induce voters during polls. He said: “Compared to other African countries, we spend too much money here. Probably, we need to review our laws because I have observed a number of elections in African countries. For instance in Tanzania, a candidate cannot print his name on matchboxes or any item to woo voters. If you do that, they say that you are inducing the electorate. It is against their laws. But here, if somebody is contesting election, you buy bags of rice, wrappers and all manner of items to induce the electorate…If you do that, you should be disqualified from contesting in the election. These are the things that make our elections expensive.”

The former president’s observations, in our view, boil down to two major aspects of our electoral system, namely the legal framework and political culture. Our laws certainly need reworking to entrust the electorate with making polling decisions – even if such decisions were erroneous or based on erroneous premises – rather than assign better judgment and determination to the judiciary. Actually, courts should avoid routinely annulling flawed elections as Jonathan canvasses, because it takes huge sums to stage elections and it would constitute massive drainpipe on the public treasury if elections were lightly annulled. Judicial annulment of polls should be a compelling last resort where the flaws are gross and heinous – an eventuality that is avoidable if both the political class and INEC get more committed to playing strictly by the rules.

The issue of voter inducement is as well a matter of political culture and legal framework. Section 130 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as Amended) already criminalises voter inducement, but it seems difficult to vigorously apply law because the scale of habitual violation is so expansive. Meanwhile, the huge scale of violation is itself a function of desperation by the political class, and the distressful ecosystem of the citizenry which is the duty of government to remediate. It helps if the political class consciously develops civic conscience to enhance the integrity of the electoral process.

All said, Jonathan’s propositions, especially on making votes really count, can only work when stiff penalties are applied against violators of the electoral process, no matter who they are. We need to constantly put these issues on the front burner of national discourse and ex-President Jonathan served that purpose well with his proposals.