Inconclusive National Electoral Commission

Trust Nigerians and our sense of humour, a witty Nigerian coined a new meaning for our electoral commission after two ‘inconclusive’ elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states replacing ‘independent’ with ‘inconclusive’. Little wonder, humour merchants are smiling to the banks reaping bountifully from their efforts in making citizens forget their sorrow.

The INEC under Professor Attahiru Jega as chairman was not without faults but by and large there is a near universal opinion that the commission performed creditably well in the five years the professor of political science piloted her affairs. Many people will not forget in a hurry the professor who could not read results of the state he served as returning officer during the presidential election. Eight months after, tribunals and courts have been relieving ‘winners’ of their victories in the election.  We must, however, commend Jega for not allowing those who wanted citizens’ blood to atone for their election crime by not truncating the process then.

This is a lesson that INEC under the current chairman, Mahmud Yakubu, a professor of history and international studies. You don’t get a doctorate at 29 from Oxford for fun but our new chairman apparently needs more than theories and scholarly publications to deliver credible elections.

Two inconclusive elections within a fortnight do not bode well for an organisation on which a country’s hope and aspiration rest for sustaining democracy. There are –evidently- a lot of questions about INEC and about the quality of its staff right now; and very few answers. As one on whom the buck stops at his table, Yakubu owes Nigerians a lot of explanation as to his competence and skills for the job he has been given. Last month, a former colleague and a lawyer of nearly three decades asked me, in Abuja, why the Nigerian media has been so silent on Yakubu’s record at the Tertiary Education Trust Fund where he served as executive secretary. She pointedly told me that there are a lot of issues surrounding the INEC chairman service with the Fund. Unfortunately, with the stench oozing out of the media presently, it is doubtful if journalists have the moral right of beaming the searchlight on any public official.

Why we must also be concerned is that Yakubu has always been close to folks in power. That alone is nothing to be ashamed of but in the context of the contestations for political power in our country, it should engage our attention the more. Having taught at the Nigerian Defence Academy for years, he should expectedly be close to military officers who still wield a lot of influence in the political terrain with a retired general at the helm of affairs. Since 2007, one is not sure Yakubu has had the time to publish any academic paper as that was when the late President Umaru Yar’Adua appointed him to head TETFUND after which he served as assistant secretary of finance and administration at the national conference organised by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

If it is true that Yakubu’s INEC was aware of the death of Abuabakar Audu, APC candidate in the November 21/22 Kogi election on Sunday morning and still went ahead to declare it inconclusive, then conspiracy theorists were well justified in whichever way they decided to spin the decision. The commission’s decision not to approach the Supreme Court for determination on the way forward was also a strange one as such would have spared us a plethora of litigations that are bound to follow INEC’s resolve to ask APC for a fresh candidate. Supporting the use of soldiers in Bayelsa State made a mockery of the commission’s complaint about their involvement in past elections. Yakubu’a areas of specialization are guerilla warfare, terrorism, and counter terrorism, which put him in a god position to know how tough and perhaps dangerous Bayelsa was going to be on December 5. One local government area out of the eight in the state no matter the level of disturbance should be insufficient to put the wish and aspiration of citizens of the state in abeyance. It is too early to write off INEC under the historian but the warning signals are already flashing and we will not be smart to dismiss them with a wave of hand.

In an interview published by the Vanguard newspaper on November 1, Yakubu said, “The success of elections depends on the ability of the electoral body to plan and in advance. But in this country, we have this culture of last-minute rush. And, as a result, things are not done early.” Let’s hope he has not forgotten his own words so soon.