As secondary school students in 1985, we got a little book entitled, How to Win the War against Indiscipline, as part of the commitment of the military government of the then Major General Muhammadu Buhari to instil discipline in us. Thirty four years after, a quote from that pamphlet has remained indelible in my mind. It was a quote by Abraham Lincoln describing a hypocrite. His words: “Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”
That quote came to my mind when I heard the reason given by President Muhammadu Buhari for not signing the Electoral (amendment) Bill 2018. That reason was that it was too close to the February 2019 elections and would create confusion for the staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Buhari’s letter to the Senate reads, inter alia: “Pursuant to Section 58 (4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), I hereby convey to the Senate, my decision on December 6, 2018 to decline Presidential Assent to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2018 recently passed by the National Assembly.
“I am declining assent to the bill principally because I am concerned that passing a new electoral bill this far into the electoral process for the 2019 general elections, which commenced under the 2015 Electoral Act, could create some uncertainty about the applicable legislation to govern the process.
“Any real or apparent change to the rules this close to the elections may provide an opportunity for disruption and confusion in respect of which law governs the electoral process.
“This leads me to believe that it is in the best interest of the country and our democracy for the National Assembly to specifically state in the bill that the Electoral Act will come into effect and be applicable to elections commencing after the 2019 general election.”
Ironically, it was the same Buhari who caused the bill to be delayed from 2016 when the process began. He consistently raised issues about the amendments. He would keep the bill in his custody for some time and later reject it, pointing out some issues. After the issues were resolved – including the dropping of the reordering of the election – he would raise fresh issues and reject the bill. This last rejection was the fourth. He even gave a condition that for him to sign the bill, it would be stated that it would take effect after the 2019 election. The implication is that he does not want the new amendments in the bill to affect his re-election.
The response of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, to President Buhari captured when the process to amend the Electoral Act started and the concessions made by the National Assembly to ensure that the President had no reason not to sign the new bill into law: “My position remains that the President, his aides, the entire country and the international community are aware that all the concerns raised by the President on the past three occasions he withheld assent to the bill have been addressed by the legislature. We bent backwards on each occasion to accommodate the wishes of the President. We started work on this law since 2016 to prevent a situation where it would become part of the election controversies.
“Every sincere commentator, observer and analyst knows that what we have done with that bill is to raise the level of transparency, credibility and acceptability of our electoral process. We made sure that the law if assented to and honestly applied by INEC and all those concerned will give us an election that will be better than what we had in 2015.
“The President should know that the survival of democracy, its development and the future of Nigeria are far more important than the ambition of any individual or party. I am using this opportunity to call on President Buhari to put a stop to this uncertainty in the political process by signing without delay the 2018 Electoral Act Amendment Bill so as to allow INEC and the concerned parties (to) know how to prepare for a credible process.”
And what are the key issues in the new electoral bill? Number one is the prohibition of the use of incident form for election. The use of the card reader ensures that only registered voters actually vote on Election Day. The second one is the compulsory transmission of election results from polling units to collation centres. With these being the issues in the bill, why should any leader who wants the best for his nation reject such a bill?
The fear of the public is that Buhari has other plans for the 2019 elections. According to a report published by an online newspaper, The Cable, “13,536,311 votes were cast manually during the 2015 presidential poll, representing 42.6 per cent of the 31,746,490 accredited voters. Of that number, the INEC report showed 10,184,720 votes, representing 75 per cent of the total votes cast, were from states won by Muhammadu Buhari, then presidential candidate of the APC, while 3,351,591 votes, representing 25 per cent, came from states won by Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party.” The Cable added that “10 states mostly affected by manual voting include Kebbi, Zamfara, Niger, Bauchi, Plateau, Kaduna, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto and Kano: the APC won in nine of the states.”
There are worries that if the use of incident forms and manual transmission of results from polling units to collation centres are not prohibited by law, such loopholes may be exploited to manipulate the results. Last month’s boastful comment made by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State that the state would give five million votes to Buhari has not helped matters.
The next issue is that of the non-electronic transmission of results from police units to collation centres. When results are taken physically from polling units to collation centres to be manually collated, there are usually fears that between the polling unit and collation centre, the results may be tampered with.
In addition, unlike other presidents of Nigeria who appointed people from clearly other ethnic groups and regions from theirs as the Chairman of INEC, Buhari appointed his kinsman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, as the head of the electoral body. And unlike other presidents, he also appointed virtually all heads of security agencies from his side of the country. All those who give direct security and electoral services during elections are from his side of the country: Minister of Defence, Brig. Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (retd.); National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Monguno (retd.); Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar; Inspector General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris; Director-General of Department of State Services, Mr Yusuf Bichi; Commandant-General of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Mr Abdullahi Muhammadu; and Director-General of National Youth Service Corps, Maj. Gen. Sule Kazaure, whose people serve as electoral officers. In Nigeria where holders of such offices owe allegiance to the President who appointed them rather than to the country, these people would do everything possible to protect their benefactor, because if he loses the 2019 election, the incoming president will most likely sack all of them and appoint his own loyalists.
For these reasons, there are strong indications that the 2019 election will not be free and fair. The action of security and electoral officers in the elections in Ekiti and Osun states some months ago are pointers that undue influence will be applied at the 2019 election. The signing of the electoral bill would have blocked the loopholes for vote manipulation and made the election more foolproof. The bottom line would have been to make the process so transparently clear that whoever loses will clearly see how defeat came about.
Nigeria has been growing on the electoral front since 1999 – albeit slowly. President Buhari must never take Nigeria back.
Twitter @BrandAzuka
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