Lawyer and pro-democracy activist Mike Igini is the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Cross River State. He spoke with reporters in Lagos on preparations for next year’s elections, Permanent Voter’s Card distribution, and how the insurgency by the Boko Haram sect may affect the polls.
How prepared is the INEC for the 2015 general elec tions?
We are preparing and it is work in progress. Let me take this opportunity to say that between 2011 and now we have organized one General election and several gubernatorial and legislative elections and by-elections, with better outcomes than in many other instances in the electoral history of Nigeria as acknowledged by the people of this country and international observers. This is not just my claim; it is based on the assessment of the decline in the number of petitions and litigations following such elections, 1,291 cases in 2007 and 729 in 2011 . This is not accidental. It is mainly because the evidence trail for the electoral process has improved tremendously and people know that frivolous claims requires more rigor, while genuine concerns can be addressed by examining the evidence which will be available.
I say this to bring to the fore what I mean when I say that we are preparing, because preparing for elections have specific generic approaches, namely pre-election, election day and post-election preparations. But, because of our electoral history we need to put in more to ensure that pre-election and election day processes have high fidelity which will reduce any untoward outcomes that may emanate at the post-election phase.
Pre-election preparations involves developing a credible voters register, which should be available for stakeholder scrutiny, prior to election, things like voter education, a balance of media coverage for all parties and candidates as much as is feasible within the law, the possibility of debates to enhance voter information, the procurement and distribution of materials and personnel for elections and the planning cum organization of election day and post-election activities
What are your expectations from the ruling party and opposition parties?
Political parties are a very important part of a democracy. In Nigeria the current parties are still evolving. In developed democracies, some parties have been around for years like the Democratic Party in the USA, formed in 1828 and now 186 years old, the Republican Party formed in 1854 now 160 years as a party just like the SDP in Germany that is 150 years. Still with that long historical evolution they have their problems. How old are the parties here and what are the values of those who promote and manage these parties ? We should, therefore, not always regard some of our formative errors as grave . This is not to say that the parties should be re-inventing the wheel for things that are mute conventions, such as how party candidates emerge. These are fairly well established democratic practices and the only reason the parties have much challenges from that practice is because they have failed or refused to be regulated by their own regulatory processes and continued to disappoint their members.
Is there any legal framework that regulates defections from one party to another?
Hold the judiciary responsible for its inability to deal with this situation having regards to the early defection cases since last year that appeared warehoused and lying-in-state in the courts. How do one explain a situation where matters that commenced by way of originating summons, just for the interpretation of section 68 of the constitution, which does not require the calling of any a single witness since last year and subsequent cases cannot be determined because lawyers are allowed to filibuster by filing all manners of frivolous applications upon applications just to ensure that these matters are not determined. Why? Have we all forgotten how the intervention of the court particularly the Supreme Court brought about sanity to the gale of unconstitutional impeachments of either deputy governors or governors as well as arbitrary substitution of candidates that emerged from duly conducted primaries without giving cogent and verifiable reasons? Regrettably, some of our very seniors in the legal profession are the ones doing all this. If these matters have been allowed to go on, by now the interpretation of this troubling section 68 would have been pronouced upon by the apex court and there would have been sanity by now. Until the Supreme Court pronouces on this there is no end in uncertainty.
This is very unfortunate. Defections have been a bane of our democratic learning and the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. Unregulated defections and a combination of other actions led to the fall of the First Republic. And I am willing to hazard a guess that frustrations bothering on defections also led to collaborations by politicians who initiated military interventions. When defection to civilian alliances fails, they cross over to military alliances. Hence, we must be very meticulous in enacting strict regulatory laws on defections.
Now we cannot telescope the freedom of association which allows people to belong to any party they chose, and we cannot question their motivations whether noble or dishonorable because as Shakespeare averred there is nothing in the face to read the intentions of the mind but when people defect the provisos controlling self-dealing and prebendal motivations should be effective deterrents for unguarded defections because of the impact it has on democratic practices. Externally, there are sections within the Electoral Act which prescribes what it takes to belong to a party and how to represent its mandates, the constitutional legislation on defection has not been authoritatively tested in terms of legal hermeneutics, this is why the judiciary must act as the bastion of justice by making the law clear and unequivocal. Internally, the parties have rules which guide against such defections, I am aware for instance that some parties have a time barring any new entrant from contesting under the party banner for a period, but how well they allow such laws to regulate behavior is another matter.
At any rate, once again the defection issue remind us of the need for a constitutional court to separate the usual legal adjudications from the regular courts. Most of the problems we have near elections have to do with inadequate regulation of political behavior as politicians seek to retain their access to political power through elections. Elections are inherently designed to make such retention of access to power uncertain to make politicians more responsive to the public they serve, but politicians want and are in fact zealous to reduce that uncertainty. Our regulatory laws should be strengthened to ensure that politicians do not dilute that check of uncertainty.
Do you think the judiciary has lived up to expectations in adjudicating on litigations arising from elections?
The judiciary in my view has not met the public expectations adequately in this regard. Although the judiciary also has its limitations. The outgoing CJN Mrs. Aloma Mukhtar did quite well to create a new vision for the judiciary, but as you know reforms are often not very easy to execute when the reward of deviation is huge. But we hope her successor will remain on the path of reform to ensure that our justice system is not a system that only protects the rich and influential. Election litigations are worse with party nominations or internal or intra-party elections than external or inter-party elections proper, and this will endure as long as we have laws like section 31 of the Electoral Act. We have often advocated that Section 31 should not be so omnibus, allowing parties to do whatever they like and present whomsoever they wish and may all end up in interminable disputes in courts. When I first came to Cross-Rivers state, I stood quite firm on this issue and some accused me of interference, but I was only protecting the general interests because I knew that they need a firm and impartial umpire to make sure that both the weak and the strong will subscribe to and abide by the same rules. Things improved afterwards, but from what I am sensing currently, I can say that they may have lowered their benchmark again and they themselves can see that the outcome of Hobbesian laws is bad for everyone.
Some governors complained bitterly about the Permanent Voter’s Card distribution. What do you think are the challenges?
On the furore regarding the PVCs and CVR, we acknowledged some operational challenges in terms of the number of LGAs for the take-off of the exercise of the PVC distribution as there was a re-scheduling for the remaining nine LGAs that were conducted subsequently. I can tell for a fact that nothing sinister was done to any state, and certainly Lagos in terms of the issue of zero polling units that was recorded in all states without exception.
There are those who though registered in 2011 with temporary voters card, during the exercise of preparing their individual biometric data for use, some did not have their full biometrics and even when the threshold for acceptance of incomplete biometric data was reduced to two fingers in each hand, that is a minimum of four fingers, some still could not meet up. Hence these were the category of people that have been asked to participate in the continous registration exercise. So nothing like de-listing of names occurred because they are still there with the observed shortcomings. There was also an unfortunate and regrettable situation, that occurred when some of the Corpers engaged in 2011 as registration officers in the process of back-up of the daily registration data then, during the back-up process some data of registered voters were lost in trying to secure them, resulting in what is now called zero registrants in some of the polling units, that will require fresh registration at the level of the polling units as we did in Cross River, while others will be done at the ward registration centres.
The electorates are the ultimate beneficiaries or victims of a warped electoral process. What role should the electorates play in determining their fate in the forthcoming election…
I think we should reframe your question because l don’t see how electorates could be beneficiaries of warped elections rather they will always be victims if the electoral proess is broken and opaque. My advice is participate and vigilantly ask questions where things are unclear. Democracy is for the people and if they do not participate the system will control you instead of you taking control of the system.
