Commission’s bid for powers to disqualify candidates is prone to abuse
The likely dangers in the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s latest request for more powers, in its proposal to the National Assembly’s Constitution Review Committee, could be gleaned from the parties’ responses.
The opposition parties – Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the opposition umbrella group, Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) have all opposed INEC’s bid for powers to disqualify candidates, and to levy a fine of N1 million on erring parties. But Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the federal ruling party, has hailed the move; Olisa Metuh, its national publicity secretary, claiming such a move is needed to deepen democracy.
Why is PDP upbeat about INEC’s power to disqualify candidates? Does it feel, as the ruling party, whose candidate as president appoints the INEC chair, such legal instrumentality could come in handy to disqualify formidable opponents, if INEC lends itself to, or is forcefully lent, to manipulation? That is a legitimate supposition, given the grim reality of Nigerian sickening politics.
On the other hand, the PDP would not stick its neck out, when the issue is full autonomy for INEC and the setting up of the Electoral Offences Commission, as the Muhammadu Uwais’s panel on electoral reforms had recommended, even if it did not outright oppose such a move.
Why? Is it because autonomy would automatically cancel out the appointive advantage the PDP could have thought it could press into illicit service, if a president-appointed INEC chair is induced to disqualify popular opposition candidates? Ironically too, one of the staunchest canvassers for an INEC not solely nominated by the president is the ACN, the leading opposition party.
The Attahiru Jega-chaired INEC had pushed forward a proposal that the electoral umpire be given powers to gain full autonomy (by the president not solely appointing its chairman and other ranking commissioners), to disqualify candidates, to secure constitutionally guaranteed timelines for pre-election matters and to levy a fine of N1 million on parties whose candidates had been disqualified for not playing by the rules.
In fairness to INEC, none of the parties’ candidate nomination processes can pass the muster. The PDP exhibits its open primaries and goes to the extent of even doing it in the full glare of live television, to show its “openness” and “transparency”. But it has proved at best, the paradox of transparent rigging, given the corruption and executive impunity that have plagued the delegate voting system.
On the other hand, the ACN insists on its right to a consensus system, as opposed to the American system of open primaries. “Is there primary in the United Kingdom or Israel,” queried Lai Mohammed, ACN national publicity secretary, in reaction to the INEC proposals. “Parties are like clubs, guided by rules.” Aye. But even Alhaji Mohammed would agree that the ACN has come under heavy criticisms, by members and non-members alike, over the perceived opacity of its consensus system.
On balance therefore, neither PDP’s open primaries nor ACN’s consensus system has passed the muster of public scrutiny. The other parties operate within these two extremes. That may, in fairness, have motivated the INEC call to have the final rod to knock the parties into shape, for not strictly following their own rules.
But not even that can be enough excuse for an INEC censure of party nomination affairs. The reason is simple: you do not remove an abuse by planting another. Besides, the charges of following or not following laid down rules are the prerogative of the courts, not the electoral commission.
Indeed, with the penchant of Nigerian politicians to take brazen advantage of any slip, and with the president still the sole nominator of the INEC chief and principal national commissioners, the power to disqualify, in INEC’s hands, is open to abuse. The scandalous era of Maurice Iwu’s chairmanship of INEC is still fresh in memory; and military-era impunity to disqualify candidates at the whims and caprices of the powers-that-be still rankles on the memory. Such should never be allowed again.
Still, that does not excuse intra-party nomination abuses. In truth, the gravest threat to the deepening of democracy today is the corruption of party nomination processes. If democracy does not guarantee quality service delivery but only guarantees electoral reward and punishment, it follows that both the nomination processes and the elections themselves must be above board. If either or both falter – and both would appear to be faltering right now – the result would be a loss of confidence in the electoral system; and the dire consequence is a grossly weakened democracy.
That should not be allowed to happen – and the only way is to ensure party nominations and elections are radically improved. So, beyond partisan gains and losses, the political class must, as a sign of enlightened self-interest, as a matter of urgency, work on this twin-weakness. But not much, it regretfully appears, is happening on that lane.
The INEC demand for full autonomy, on the other hand, is fair and legitimate. Indeed, that should be the apogee of the democratic system. An INEC not subject to executive abuse and suborning, but only to the strictures of the law that created it, is likelier to organise sane elections.
Anything done to achieve that end can only strengthen the democratic system.
Before his appointment as National Commissioners of the (INEC), Wali was a Visiting Reader (Associate Professor) to the Department of Political Science, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, and Chief Executive Officer, Development Strategies International (DSI).
