The Independent National Electoral Commssion (INEC) has uncovered 100,000 fictitious names in the voter’s register for the November 16 governorship election in Anambra State. In this piece, Doyin Odebowale examines what the development portends for the electoral process.
At last, after countless cases have been hotly contested and decisions wrought, after stupendous resources in terms of human and material have been expended by litigants, lawyers and judges at various election tribunals, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, on forensic arguments as encapsulated in oral testimonies of witnesses, documents, written addresses, briefs of argument, since the commencement of this democratic experiment in 1999, the electoral umpire, INEC, has finally admitted, through its Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, that a fundamentum in the electoral process, without which no credible election can be conducted, the Voters’ Registers in all the states, especially the one around which the forthcoming elections in Anambra State will be organised, has been heavily compromised. INEC, according to him, has discovered over 100,000 fictitious names in the Voters’ Register to be used for that election.
Many Nigerians may be unconscious in regard to the full import of this admission by the INEC Chair. It is instructive to note that for the first time, the electoral body, through its chairman, has admitted that conducting a credible election remains a great challenge in the country. He has equally extinguished, effectively, any misplaced aspiration geared towards the emergence of the popular choice of the people with a further admission of the illegal injection of over 100,000 names into the Voters’ Register just a few months to the Governorship election in Anambra State. This news should be of serious concern to Nigerians. If the integrity of the Voters’ Register has been compromised to such an extent, the outcome of the forthcoming election is already known. What remains to be discovered are the names of the major beneficiary of the electoral heist. It is surprising that major politicians in the state have not protested till date.
A disturbing pattern is being established gradually. The last gubernatorial election organised by INEC in Ondo State in October, 2012 is still a subject of litigation at the apex court in the country on the same ground of illegal injection of almost 200,000 names into the Voters’ Register. INEC, in its processes filed as a Respondent in the Ondo State Governorship petitions by the candidates of the defunct ACN, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN and PDP, Chief Olusola Oke, at the Election Petition Tribunal, unequivocally, admitted that over 100,000 names were injected but claimed that these clearly fraudulent tampering with the register was done legally. It should be noted that INEC adduced no evidence in support of his averments in support of the injected names. No rebuttal came from it on the positive charge of fraud made by the petitioners. The Tribunal, unfortunately, held that the established fact of these illegal injections, did not affect the outcome of the result substantially to have warranted its invalidation of the Voters’ Register and the election conducted with it.
Section 148 of the Electoral Act forbids any inquisition by a court of law in regard to who any voter cast his or her ballot for at an election. The raison d etre behind this legislation is the protection of the sanctity of the electorate’s choice. Therefore, the statute protects all eligible voters with respect to their choice in an election. Consequently, Nigerians may never know the beneficiaries of these illegalities and the extent to which they were favoured by an ostensibly biased umpire. They, however, know, by the admission of INEC, that over 100,000 illegal names were included in the register and going by the contention of the petitioners that almost 200,000 names were injected, the results would have been altered, fundamentally. In the same vein, the declared winner of the election in Ondo State would have come third if the 100,000 illegal votes, as admitted by INEC, are withdrawn. The tragic import of this scientific electoral robbery finds expression in the emasculation of the electorate in the whole process of representative democracy. Impostors and charlatans who owe their “victories” to persons and groups other than the people will emerge as their leaders. And since there is a disconnect between them and the people, ab initio, asking them to be accountable becomes unrealistic.
We are currently faced with another unfolding tragic-comedy in Anambra State. The INEC Chairman’s pronouncement that the register has been heavily compromised through this brazen act of criminality bears with it a nagging foreboding on the imminence of an untoward occurrence in that state. Its witnesses at the Ondo State Election Petition Tribunal admitted the injection of over 100,000 new names when there was no registration of voters shortly before the election. It also admitted that, in contravention of the Electoral Act, Section 19, which mandates INEC to publish the names of eligible voters for public scrutiny at least five days before the election, it failed to do so. The lower Tribunal’s decision that this would not have affected the outcome of the election substantially has been criticised by the Court of Appeal which also held that INEC erred in not publishing the list before election, as required by statute, but proceeded, curiously, to affirm the decision of the lower tribunal taking refuge in the ostensible impregnable fortress of substantial compliance.
The ease with which the Voters’ Registers are manipulated by unscrupulous officials of INEC to satisfy the highest bidder is alarming. Nigerians ought to be genuinely concerned when the head of an institution saddled with the responsibility of conducting elections to reflect the wishes of the electorate admits publicly that his organisation gets itself enmeshed in all manner of shady deals aimed at subverting popular will. He then explained this grave occurrence away by reassuring Nigerians that some electoral offenders would soon be arraigned in court on the charge of multiple registration. He has, however, been eloquently silent on the identities of those found culpable for the illegal injections in Anambra State, assuming without conceding, that the transparent dishonesty in Ondo State Governorship election was legal.
In a period of pervasive apathy of the electorate, a situation engendered by bad governance over the years, which candidate will defeat a contestant who is lucky enough to have a hundred thousand votes ahead of others before ballot? The infusion of almost 200,000 names into the Voters’ Register in Ondo State made nonsense of the claims by INEC that it conducted a credible election. It confirms that the candidate declared as the winner of the election lacks legitimacy until the doubt is cleared. The fact that the declared winner was allotted about 41% of the total votes cast underscores the enormity of the fraudulent activities of certain individuals within INEC. He could not have won without the illegal injection.
An announcement by Prof Jega that permanent voters’ cards will be issued by December 2013 to persons whose names are captured in the heavily tainted register is disquieting. This is putting a final stamp of approbation on fraud. Rigging would have been perfected even before any election takes place. The perpetrators of fraud will wield tremendous influence as they will become the de facto king makers, killers and makers of political careers. Any aspiring politician must be subservient to them. The role of the electorate as the crucial decider of the political fate of politicians would have been annulled. In vain will be the efforts of contestants to sell their programmes to the populace. The best candidate will never win.
Of greater worry should be the decision of the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal to hold that the last gubernatorial election conducted in Ondo State was in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act. The lower tribunal trod a very dangerous path when it held that the issue of the voters’ register is a pre-election matter and ought to have been challenged in the regular court. The Court of Appeal disagreed with it and even went further to hold that the electoral umpire, INEC, erred by failing to publish the list of eligible voters for public scrutiny as required by statute. It, however, proceeded, curiously though, to uphold the grandiose fraud on the ground that it did not affect the outcome substantially and that the petitioners failed to determine how the injected names affected them adversely. It would appear that the burden of proof which rests squarely on INEC to discharge has been shifted to the petitioners who were short changed by sharp practices.
All eyes are now on the Supreme Court for the final determination of the matter. The pronouncement of the apex court on the propriety or otherwise of conducting an election with a compromised register is eagerly awaited. The duty imposed on INEC by statute to publish the names of eligible voters, I submit with respect, can never be waived. The general conduct of this electoral body has been that of utter disgrace. It has been prosecuting the defence of electoral malfeasance with unimaginable vigour. It acts as a contestant in the election and not the unbiased umpire which is expected of it. The petitions of Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN and Chief Olusola Oke against the declaration of Dr Olusegun Mimiko as the elected governor of Ondo State will serve as a test case in our quest for a free and fair electoral process. It will go a long way to determine whether we are deeply concerned with the protection of the sanctity of the process.
The people of Anambra State are in for another “Ondo treatment”. It is surprising that the politicians in the state led by the ventriloquist governor, Peter Obi, have been chasing shadows. None of them has reacted to the revelation by Prof Jega. They will soon discover that they have been swindled by INEC and those who suborned its officials. I also believe that this scenario will be replicated in virtually all the states where elections will be held soon. The credibility of any election can only be guaranteed when the process is devoid of any manipulation. The Voters’ Register is the basis of a transparent election. No one should expect any credible process when all manner of characters, fictitious names, under age voters, symbols, among other devious ways through which politicians, with the active connivance of INEC, rig elections with impunity and the judiciary seems acquiescent to the fraud.
The electoral body has metamorphosed since the country’s independence through the Second Republic to the charade organised by Babangida which culminated in the annulment of the June 12 presidential election in 1993, down to the current democratic experiment which commenced in 1999. A common strand runs through the trajectory of its existence. Each time the activities of this body gave provenance to crises which eventually truncated the government, transformation which usually followed was limited to a change in name but not its questionable attitudes. The current acronym is laughable. The body is anything but independent.
The Supreme Court will deepen the current democratic experience by protecting the sanctity of the ballot. A compromised Voters’ Register cannot form the basis upon which a credible election should be conducted.
