NIGERIA’S democracy since 1999 seems to have had so many challenges. It is not for nothing that many people continually refer to it as nascent. But that is a euphemistic way of giving politician a free pass. A democracy in any land is as good as the values the people try to imbue it with as a government of the people by the people and for the people.
The Nigerian brand of democracy has not really been devoid of the teething problems given the human proclivity to abuse power of any sort, political, financial, physical and even spiritual. The electoral processes from the intra-party primaries, ward to general elections have seen many anomalies. Nigeria perhaps has one of the most litigious post-election cases in Africa if not the world.
There has been voter apathy in almost all elections since 1999 because the people have observed many irregularities like violence and destruction of voting materials including the snatching of ballot boxes. There have been records of deaths, arson and injuries during elections and these invariably have influenced the outcome of many elections. Despite the mobilization and voter education by many institutions and civil society organizations, most voters often keep away from voting on election days because they ether fear that they might be victims of violence or that their votes might never count.
Even though the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had over the past 22 years tried to improve on the electoral processes through the introduction of technology, there are problems as the system often failed technologically or there were man-made problems aimed at disrupting the processes . Even the card reader system had had glitches when it mattered most and that had resulted in a resort to other unreliable methods subject to manipulations.
If democracy is about the people being mandate givers, then it all means that the people must be allowed to speak though their votes freely and without any form of manipulations. It is disturbing that when there is violence during elections, women, a huge part of the voting demographic are always the worse hit. In Nigeria, there have been records of deaths across genders, arson and other forms of violence before, during and after elections. This has in a great way tainted the democracy in the country.
The Roundtable Conversation had a chat with Hon. Mary Enwongulu, a retired civil servant, a former minority leader in the Nasarawa house of assembly and a former Commissioner for Women Affairs in the state who at one time was kidnapped in her state after she went to court to reclaim her mandate. She was again recently assaulted during the local election when she had her ballot paper snatched from her twice by some men at the polling booth.
According to her, the system of elections that does not guarantee a level playing field for both genders must give room to a system that makes democracy more functional and viable. She feels that an improved electoral system would guarantee that the most popular candidates who the people love emerge. That to her is the beauty of democracy. As one who has been in politics for a long time, she feels that sometimes, the mundane considerations in Nigerian politics is given vent by those who can beat the electoral system that is largely not technology driven.
Democracy being a people based government must be improved technologically so that Nigeria can join the global movement towards the reliability that technology guarantees. An improvement in electoral system would be of immense advantage to women and other male technocrats who can then be willing to enter the field and believe that the system would be free and fair.
Hon. Enwongulu believes that the 35% affirmative action must go beyond giving women the leadership of their gender. Political parties and women themselves must work at some levels of parity while the electoral umpire can improve on the process. According to her, a good process will always have the best candidate wining in ways that the people would be happy that their votes are counted and would count. The people always know who they want during elections and the onus is on INEC to make sure they work for the people.
The Anambra governorship election on November 6th surprisingly was inconclusive resulting in a supplementary election on Tuesday the 9th of November while the result was declared in the early hours of Wednesda the 10th. Unusually delayed as the election was, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was returned elected.
Read Also: UPDATED: INEC issues Certificate of Return to Soludo as Anambra Governor-Elect
It seemed the wait was well worth it because the election came with so many challenges including violence in the state in the last few months, and the attack on INEC office and the fear by some adhoc staff who withdrew at the last minute scared for their safety. The election has been adjudged free and fair and there are reports that many of the candidates are satisfied and have equally conceded and congratulated the winner.
The deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has been getting rave reviews across the country and beyond. The BVAS technology comprises the verification and authentication of the voters. This is an improvement on the card reader machine that was limited to only fingerprint identification. This BVAS technology includes facial recognition and authentication.
“This system ensures that a person intending to vote shall be verified to be the same person on the Voter Register in accordance with Section 49 (2) of the Electoral act (As Amended) ”-INEC. In these words lie the real value of INEC’s new technology. So this came as a breath of fresh air during the Anambra governorship election. This at least ensured that only registered voters at each of the polling units were allowed to vote after being authenticated through fingerprint and facial recognition.
Being accredited to vote was followed by the snapping of the polling unit level result sheets and uploading of same in real time to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal. This made it virtually impossible for any type of manipulation during the elections just concluded. There were glitches which even affected the governor-elect , Charles Soludo and some members of his community who of course waited patiently to vote late in the evening.
INEC must be commended for carrying off this particular election successfully despite the fears nursed over months about the possibility of the election even holding at all. Given the pre-election volatility, INEC managed to score a pass mark for the transparency with which it handled the election.
However, it was not all good news throughout all the polling units. There were still logistic problems like late arrival of materials and the non-availability of staff at the different polling units on time for the elections. The technology seemed to have helped but the human angle was not perfectly handled. The tech glitches must be avoided in future elections. An Ihiala Local Government supplementary election was avoidable.
The apparent voter apathy that was noticed is traceable to several factors beyond the control of INEC. However, the Roundtable believes that INEC ought to have done better voter education and mobilization given the history of elections in Nigeria. Most voters were not aware of the new technology that makes it almost impossible for elections to be rigged at polling units or for results to be altered. The electronic transmission of results was not well publicized to the public. Nigerians had experienced flawed elections and seem to have lost faith in the electoral system. Most believe that their votes will not count as had been the case in the past.
The Roundtable Conversation spoke with some of the voters in Anambra and there was expression of joy by both the winners and the losers implying that no one felt cheated by any means. We believe that gradually, the people would begin to trust the system once again and the democratic processes would begin to attract more credible participants who had hitherto been scared of the type of electoral processes that often gave victory to the wrong candidates. The idea of calling political participation a dirty game stemmed from the flawed electoral processes that even affect party primaries.
If INEC can do more upgrades and voter enlightenment, Nigerian democracy would be the winner as the voice of the mandate givers would be heard in all nooks and crannies of the country. For INEC and the people, it is however not yet uhuru, there is still work to be done by everyone. INEC is merely an umpire, it needs the cooperation of other agencies and Nigerians in all sectors to succeed. Technology does not guarantee perfection. The human elements must do the ones they ought to do with a view to impacting positively on the system.
The Roundtable Conversation believes that Nigeria is already late to the party in terms of conducting credible elections given its leadership position on the African continent. The new technology must continue to get an upgrade in ways that would guarantee every candidate a level playing field. This would encourage a more inclusive type of leadership evolution process where every capable candidate male or female, young or old can trust the transparency of the electoral process and be willing to participate fully. This is our only hope for real democracy and development.
The dialogue continues…
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