The tango between the governors and legislators over the proposed amendment to the Electoral Act is a crying shame. Strangely, amendments that should serve the best interest of our country have been reduced to a power tussle between the legislators and the governors over what each group stands to gain in the immediate as if the dramatis personae will remain governors and legislators forever.
While all are agreed that the Electoral Act needs to be amended in the interest of our democracy, the governors and the legislators are locked in a supremacy battle over how candidates will emerge in the primaries, and if care is not taken, President Muhammadu Buhari, may further dent his legacy by refusing to assent to the bill sent for the umpteenth time.
While the legislators are substantially asking for use of popular democratic process in the party primary elections, some governors are pushing for a remote control process to ensure that only their preferred candidates emerge. The legislators are of course afraid that unless popular votes decide, such governors can in their private chambers, draw up the list of the candidates, and impose same on the parties.
While ‘the consensus option’ which some governors prefer may result in party cohesion in some states, it may wreak havoc in some others. Of course, it will be unrealistic to contend that there are no powerful influencers in any political association who could influence consensus amongst the party faithful. As the chief executive in a prebendal political environment such as ours, a governor is such a party influencer, and could with deft manoeuvres get his way during nomination of party candidates.
But that is where it should end – peddling influence, which is legitimate in politics. It should not extend to holding the entire electoral process to ransom just to get an opportunity to play the king in one or two election cycles when there will be many more election cycles after such governor has ceased to be the party influencer. In case the governors need to be reminded that some of those in the National Assembly members mortally afraid of the governors now were once governors, and so it will be for those governors sooner than later.
So, if by next year that majority of the serving governors would become ex-governors, and would rely on a fair electoral process to win elections, does it not make sense to have a more enduring electoral law that governs party primary elections? Even if such governors don’t wish to contest for another office after their present one, would it not be better to enact a law that is more democratic and which will enhance enduring democratic process?
Even more shameful is that some of the troublesome governors are presumably well-educated, and are the first to refer to the United States of America and Britain as bastions of democracy. Yet, they fail to connect the endurance and resilience of those democracies to the altruistic disposition of the founding fathers and present practitioners. So, for our democracy to also endure and be resilient, those governors should be disposed to allow laws that will enhance the democratic process.
Unfortunately for the country, the legislators are no better than the governors in pursuing selfish agendas in their legislative duties. As such, no one can say with certainty what is driving the legislators each material time. The tango over the Electoral Bill is stymied in unnecessary controversy because some governors claim the legislators are merely pursuing personal agendas, in their legislative duties. In accepting the consensus option, the legislators are reported to have inserted two controversial clauses, which may again stall the re-passed Electoral Bill, from the president’s assent.
The first controversy as reported in the media is that all contestants in a party primary election must sign a written agreement that they consent to the adoption of a consensus option. That is clearly unrealistic, since there is hardly any time all participants in an electoral process will all agree. If they wanted a fairer deal considering the domineering influence of the governors, they could opt for the approval of the majority of either the party’s state executive officials, or other party organ clearly defined.
The other clause that all political appointees who want to contest must first resign their position is again unreasonable, considering that many participants in the primaries would need to go back to their work if they fail in their attempt. If the law demands that they resign before they participate, then desperation would become the order of the day. Also significantly, it is unfair to ask political appointees to resign while the elected contestants don’t resign at that stage.
Why the legislators inserted the two controversial clauses is strange. Perhaps, there is more to this than meets the eyes, as the saying goes, in the unnecessary tango over a new Electoral Act that Nigeria needs to make the elections freer and fairer. As some commentators have said, perhaps, there are some legislators who are surreptitiously working to ensure that the 2023 general election is organised under the present Electoral Act, with all the flaws.
If the governors care for our country more than they care for their immediate gains, they would not oppose the Electoral Bill sent to the president for assent. Even with the two disputed clauses, governors who have been fair to the majority of the party faithful will still influence the primaries in favour of their preferred candidates, whether through direct or indirect primaries. Those of them who are mortally afraid of the new Electoral Act, may be those who have alienated their party faithful, so much so that they are hated by the majority.
If the governors insist on having it their way again, and want the president to bear the blame for the non-passage of a new Electoral Act for the country, the president should ignore them and go ahead to sign the bill. As I have advised the president on this page previously, when the history of this era is written, none of those around him will be mentioned. Neither the federal attorney general, Abubakar Malami, SAN, nor the members of the governors forum, led by the outgoing governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, would answer the charge for derailing the needed amendment to the Electoral Act.
Hopefully, the civil society will continue to pile pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari, to see through the maze of intrigues, masquerading as national interests, and sign the Electoral Bill, so that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would get down to the business of preparing for the 2023 general elections. As the saying goes, a stich in time saves nine.