Attahiru Jega, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, and Nigeria’s 11th chief electoral umpire, is the latest demon on the political horizon.
But he is a demon with a difference — at least from the colourful prism of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Not long ago, he was Goodluck Jonathan’s proud mascot of clean elections. Under Jega’s watch, PDP had lost elections: in Edo, Ondo, Anambra and Osun. Only in Ekiti did it “win” — and Nigeria’s ruling party loves to flaunt that “democratic” record!
So, what has changed — with Prof. Jega porting from the mascot of electoral rectitude to the demon of electoral turpitude?
Not much. But again, a lot.
Not much, because the chief electoral job, right from the pioneering headache of the late Eyo Esua (who chaired the first Electoral Commission, 1960-1966), always came with demonising. Since the electoral chief was always perceived to lean toward the ruling party, he was fated to being savaged by the opposition.
But not without cause. Everybody knew — the ruling party, by its body language; the opposition, by its iron conviction; and even the people, by their fatalistic acquiescence — that the chief electoral referee is the sitting government’s 12th player: if you would permit a football metaphor.
Any electoral chief too thick-skulled to get that ended with unimaginable ignominy. Witness: Humphrey Nwosu. He gamely delivered June 12, the cleanest election in Nigerian history. But on his way to declaring the wrong winner in MKO Abiola (God bless his kind soul!), the Ibrahim Babangida junta socked Prof. Nwosu so hard!
For starters, they annulled Nwosu’s rude call. Then, there were reports of alleged slaps, fearsome threats and allied personal humiliation.
Is Jega treading Nwosu’s dreaded path? It would seem so!
If indeed that were so, then it would appear a lot has changed. Still, Jega’s demonization is strange, coming from the sitting government. It used to be the exclusive preserve of the howling opposition!
But even that is very nuanced — for the opposition itself had damned Jega to the lowest pit of hell, when it had cause to.
Good old Comrade-Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, then the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) candidate, berated INEC, after noticing some early polling zone shambolic display, early on re-election day, in 2012. But as the Edo governor later coasted to victory, the morning jeers segued into evening cheers. The fulfilled Edo electorate exploded in sheer ecstasy!
In the mouth of Chris Ngige, candidate of the defunct ACN, the 2013 Anambra gubernatorial election should still leave a bitter taste. The senator had genuine cause that a good number of his supporters were disenfranchised.
But All Progressives Grand Alliance’s Willie Obiano, the winner, got away with it; since the courts had since okayed Mr. Obiano’s election. But INEC got the full lash of Senator Ngige’s tongue.
Yet, even with opposition scalding, Prof. Jega had managed, somewhat, to keep his personal integrity — which makes very surprising, all the muck and darts and poisonous arrows that the PDP now throws his way.
From his premium throne as presidential godfather, Pa Edwin Clark has roared: sack Jega! In his auspicious company, of base but baseless partisan manoeuvring, are a medley of otherwise respected elder citizens, turned unfazed fronts for a suspect campaign: Senator Femi Okunrounmu and Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, aborted 3rd Republic Anambra governor; and seasoned rabble rousers like Gani Adams (who weighed in with some bit of carpentry logic: Jonathan must sack Jega, if he wants to win!) and Ralph Uwazurike, leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), whose cadres even staged anti-Jega road shows on South East streets, just as OPC did its equivalent violent orgies on Lagos streets!
This strange ensemble threatened that should Jega not be sacked, they would mobilise Southern Nigeria to boycott the election. Some bluff!
But from fronts, the PDP itself, given the combined gratings from Femi Fani-Kayode, Ayodele Fayose and Oliver Metuh, has tarred Jega and his electoral household, with everything in its partisan sinews: Jega is a fraud; PVC is a racket; smart card reader (for pre-vote accreditation and authentication) is a crime!
What has Jega done to earn all these? Simple: he has been too thick-skulled to read the body language of the president, zestfully backed by his power party — any result, that doesn’t return Goodluck Jonathan as re-elected president, cannot be free and fair!
That might sound asinine to those who indulge in reason. But for those locked in the language of power? It is de-rigueur of thinking!
Indeed, in Jega, Jonathan would appear the grand victim of his own cunning. In 2011, he showed off the INEC chair as the epitome of electoral fairness. After all, Jega’s much vaunted credibility, in lieu of the Lawal Uwais’s Electoral Reforms Panel’s recommended rigorous strictures to make INEC truly independent, delivered Jonathan the presidency in a “free and fair election”.
In the intervening years, the same “credibility” ensured PDP lost every election (in Edo, Ondo, Anambra and Osun) but one (in Ekiti) — never mind the Ekiti rigging tapes, which the president has dismissed as a “fabrication”, though he didn’t listen to it; and the fingered dramatis personae have owned up, even if they plead a different motive.
Still, the PDP election losses would appear a devious scam: Edo, to set the template of Jonathan’s dummy.
Anambra (won by APGA) and Ondo (won by Labour): a cynical president sacrificing mere pawns for the big one. Proof? Both winners, Mr. Obi, ex-APGA and Dr. Mimiko, ex-Labour, are now ecstatic PDP barons — in grateful quid-pro-quo to the president for “allowing” them to win, back then?
Ekiti: in retrospect with the rigging tape, a brazen test-running of scientific rigging (though aided and abetted by former Governor Kayode Fayemi’s spectacular blunders, epitomised by his “civil war” with Opeyemi Bamidele), to be fully unleashed on Osun three months later — which, however, got aborted.
So, the Jega “credibility” that, “free and fair”, made Jonathan president in 2011 is about to, “free and fair”, make Jonathan ex-president in 2015! That prospect is scary — and you could tell by a panic-gripped president running from pillar to post; and a ruling party, bitterly orchestrating hate campaigns, all over the place!
But that is even on the surface. Viewed deeper, in the context of Jonathan Vs Muhammadu Buhari, Jega is trapped in the tempest of the Nigerian ruling class, at a terrible crossroads. To these wayward children of Lord Lugard, with their cherished ethos of power without responsibility, these are indeed trying times!
Jonathan epitomises a decayed agency, at its most vulnerable. Still, Jonathan pitches his class to, through him, at least for four more years, play in the wide and merry way, the big bazaars from the wild festivals of rent, which however might end in sure perdition and class death.
In Buhari, however, the choice is no less stark: take some galling home cure. Though that cure could gore a few, it might just save the whole clan!
Either way, Jega is fated to midwife!
That seems to explain all the Interim National Government conspiracy theories, and alleged cloak-and-dagger manoeuvres allegedly involving Jonathan and some former military rulers, with the fond hope of shutting out Buhari. Well, their problems, not the people’s!
Let the people look out for themselves in this election.
Let Jega too, do his duty as a patriot; no matter the high-octane distractions.
If the people vote right and Jega holds true, Jonathan will be put out of his misery — and Nigeria, with Nigerians, handed a new lease of life.
NATION
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