Want to peep into the Nigerian heart of darkness, apologies to novelist, Joseph Conrad? Fix your gaze on the run-up to elections. Then endure the full dirt and stink (if indeed the thinking process can smell, by virtue of its very ugliness) of Political Nigeria’s ultra-dirty stream of consciousness, as it hits you in its full and unfazed ugliness.
Before every election, the chief Satan is the electoral umpire, presently called the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), now under the chair of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
Well, to be fair, skeptics could justify their fears by Nigeria’s rather seedy electoral history. For once, there was a Maurice Iwu that conducted the 2007 disgrace, the worst ever, even trumping the 1983 poll, which brazen rigging destroyed the 2nd Republic (1979-1983).
Still, before 2007, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, the ultra-demonstrative one, had conducted the 1993 epochal poll; considered Nigeria’s best ever. Though Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, and his misguided junta cancelled the results and threw their country into grief and chaos, that crime will haunt them till the rest of their days.
After Nwosu had come another INEC chair, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the first northern Nigerian to chair the electoral body. He had the distinction of conducting the 2015 polls, in which the federal ruling party, for the first time in Nigerian history, was voted out; by the deployment of technology, principally the smart card reader. That made it more difficult to press ghost voters into action, and also cut down pre-election thumb-printed ballots. But even then, Jega had his own share of demonization and stigmatization, by political partisans.
The Yakubu-chaired INEC is also a victim of free-wheeling accusations, many of them sounding frivolous. The bad news, however, is that it would appear only a few of its predecessors had been more demonized.
On the eve of a crucial election, public confidence in the body is rather low. There are wild rumours, of the alleged compromise, of some RECs. But also there are worrisome leakages, as already thumb-printed ballots, retrieved from some parts of the country, suggested criminal sabotage, aimed at rigging the election, if it had not been postponed, at the virtual last minute.
But Prof. Yakubu has admitted attempts to sabotage the process. He also has pledged to make amends before Saturday.
With hard revelations in the public space, Yakubu’s INEC has some organizational challenge. Some image challenge too, given the perception that some of its principal operators, national and state, could have been compromised. Still, that is not helped by partisans’ seeming deliberate throwing of muck, just to out-do the other in psychological warfare.
Hardball feels Prof. Yakubu and his INEC deserve a benefit of the doubt. Let them keep its eyes on the ball. Let them conduct a free and fair election. Let the majority win. Deliberate demonization of INEC only de-markets Nigeria’s democracy. No one gains by that.
But INEC too must be above board. That is Yakubu’s onerous task as Saturday comes. But if they falter, Yakubu would join Maurice Iwu in Nigeria’s electoral hall of shame – and infamy.
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